1 The Thoughts That Once We Had (Siskel, September 17, 21) Essayist Thom Andersen (“Los Angeles Plays Itself”) free-associates through the memories of a man’s mind filled with movies: essential dreaming.
2 London Road (Facets, opens September 16) Tom Hardy is among the players in an Ipswich-set full-fledged oratorio about the investigation of a serial killer, with dialogue drawn from playwright Alecky Blythe’s interviews with police, residents and sex workers. It’s a blast.
3 Demon (Music Box, opens September 16) Marcin Wrona’s final feature, “Demon” exhilarates in its mad mix of tones, reminiscent of his Polish countryman Roman Polanski.
4 Snowden (Opens September 16) Oliver Stone turns seventy the day before “Snowden” opens: some early viewers have hinted the career rebel’s true-life romance-espionage thriller about whistleblower-expat Edward Snowden bears the incendiary cinematic power of earlier pictures like “JFK” and “Born on the Fourth of July.”
5 Reeling: The Thirty-Fourth Chicago LGBTQ+ Film Festival (Landmark Century, Music Box, September 22-29) The world’s second-oldest LGBTQ+ film festival presents forty features, plus selections of shorts, opening with the Bianca Del Rio drag-queen comedy “Hurricane Bianca” and closing with James Franco-produced real-life gay porn murder tale “King Cobra.”
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
