1 Trouble in Paradise (Siskel, October 7, 11) UCLA’s 35mm restoration of one of American cinema’s greatest bits of perfection, delirious yet precise, elegant yet amoral, a comic collaboration between director Ernst Lubitsch, screenwriter Samson Raphaelson and actors Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall.
2 Fox and His Friends (Siskel, October 4) Love is a transaction. A brute beauty, Fassbinder’s quietly savage 1975 x-ray of a simple man’s exploitation by wealthier friends after a windfall should burst from the big screen; on the recently-issued Criterion Blu-ray of this restoration, 1970s German life rises to dank existence again.
3 La Chinoise (Siskel, October 6-8, 10-12) Godard, restored. Colors, bright. Politics, discordant. Wit? Mordant.
4 Smithereens (Chicago Film Society at Music Box, Monday, October 9) A 35mm print of the debut feature by Susan Seidelman (“Desperately Seeking Susan”) that parades the punk scene of the 1982 Lower East Side, including Richard Hell, Amos Poe, Cookie Mueller and a young Chris Noth as “transvestite prostitute in van.”
5 The 53rd Chicago International Film Festival (River East, October 12-26) The first edition under the watch of newly elevated Mimi Plauché, only the second artistic director since Michael Kutza founded the annual event in 1964.
Film Top 5: October 2019 One of Bresson's greatest; two versions of Hemingway's "The Killers"; Nina Menke's essential "Queen of Diamonds"; Almodóvar and Antonio Banderas; and an early 70s horror gem.
Film Top 5: October 2020 Chicago International, "Chicago 7" and "Candyman"'s Chicago; plus "WW1984" braces for social distancing and Kenneth Branagh again tunes up the tonsorial folderol as Hercule Poirot.
Film Top 5: October 2018 Chicago International turns fifty-four; David Gordon Green (and Danny McBride) retool Halloween; snapping Garry Winogrand; Robert Greene confronts historical documentary; "Wanda" is a one-off for the ages.
Film Top 5: May 2018 Cinema from Euro elders, including Philippe Garrel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Paul Schrader, Wim Wenders and a look at the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Film Top 5: September 2018 David Byrne's only directorial outing; Bergman's most beloved and most reviled; a "lost" 1986 feature by Godard; and Dennis Hopper's "Last Movie" regained in a glorious restoration.
