1 Tampopo (Siskel, opens Friday, December 2) Long out of circulation, Juzo Itami’s “noodle Western” is a delight on every level. It’s a knockabout comedy but also one of the most ravishingly realized of foodie movies.
2 Kate Plays Christine (Siskel, December 9-10, 12) Robert Greene’s “nonfiction thriller” follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil researching the role of Christine Chubbuck, a Sarasota newscaster who committed suicide on-air in 1974. There are ghosts.
3 Fire at Sea (Siskel, opens Friday, December 9) Francesco Rosi takes a sidelong glance at the ongoing migrant crisis around the Mediterranean in this mysterious, elliptical documentary.
4 The Academy of Muses (Facets, opens Friday, December 9) Jose Luis Guerin embraces the lore of love and lilt of language in a lyrical set of encounters between a professor and his wife and his female students.
5 Sky on Fire (River East, opens December 2) Hong Kong action veteran Ringo Lam (“City on Fire”) returns with a crazy-ambitious, densely detailed action thriller built around the literal hijacking of a cure for cancer.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
