1 Northwest Chicago Film Society (Music Box; NEIU) Three knockout attractions this month: at the Music Box on July 9, Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” on 70mm with magnetic sound; Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo’s 1964 newsreel-like imagining of life in Britain if Hitler had invaded after Dunkirk, “It Happened Here,” July 12 at NEIU; and July 19 at NEIU, Claudia Weill’s 1978 “Girlfriends” with Melanie Mayron as a modern woman imposing herself onto the patterns of Manhattan. chicagofilmsociety.org.
2 A Ghost Story (July 14) David Lowery’s pause between “Pete’s Dragon” and “Old Man And The Gun,” a micro-budget meditation on time and loss includes Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and a ghost that is under a white bedsheet.
3 The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (Music Box, July 7) One of Errol Morris’ simplest, yet most profound features is a visit with his Cambridge friend and neighbor, pioneering Polaroid portraitist Elsa Dorfman. Bittersweet and melancholy.
4 Valerian And The City of A Thousand Planets (July 21) For the future of his EuropaCorp production company and for himself as a big, bold filmmaker, aging Gallic wunderkind Luc Besson goes the full Besson for the first time since “The Fifth Element.”
5 70mm Film Fest (Music Box, June 30-July 13) Nine features lead up to the 70mm presentation of Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” including a newly struck 70mm DTS print of Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” commissioned by the Music Box. Other films include “West Side Story,” “Top Gun,” “Spartacus,” “Interstellar,” Disney’s animated “Sleeping Beauty” and “Kong: Skull Island.”
Film Top 5: November 2018 Vigo's body of work is small, but one of the most essential in all of cinema.
Film Top 5: December 2018 Restorations rule the roost, with Siskel's smorgasboard smacking on "Detour," "Wings of Desire" and "Andrei Rublev," while the Music Box goes yo-ho-ho for thirty-five with the Christmas Singalong, "White Christmas" and "It's a Wonderful Life." And Clint Eastwood, at 88, directs himself once more as a wizened, if not wise codger daring the law.
Film Top 5: June 2019 Classics time with Cassavetes, Hartley, Jarmusch, Pasolini and Chicago Underground turning twenty-six.
Film Top 5: August 2019 Chicago in the 1930s; Houston in the 1970s; a world of water; and the streets of Sheffield as if destroyed by distant nuclear war.
