1 Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (Opens Friday, June 8) Two words: Fred Rogers. Five more words: dare you not to cry.
2 Incredibles 2 (Opens Friday, June 15) Early whooping and hollering says Brad Bird has shaken the recent Pixar curse with a sequel to his snappy, nifty spy family comedy.
3 Under the Silver Lake (OPENING POSTPONED UNTIL DECEMBER) David Robert Mitchell goes bubblegum neo-noir in modern-day Los Angeles: “Long Goodbye” or “Southland Tales,” or, here’s hoping, a little of both as well as heaping handfuls of what his “It Follows” brought to the screen and left quivering in memory.
4 Chicago Underground Film Festival (Opens Friday, June 6-10) CUFF turns twenty-five, with special guests and other attractions from its termite-to-tastemaker history.
5 Movies In Millennium Park (All summer, starting June 5) Last summer, 20,000 filled the park under the stars to watch “La La Land”; June’s attractions, programmed by Chicago film festivals, include John Waters’ “Hairspray,” partnered with CUFF, “Mad Max: Fury Road,” via Chicago Critics Film Festival, “Kinky Boots” from Reeling and “Groundhog Day” with Chicago Comedy Film Festival.
Film Top 5: August 2018 Black Harvest turns twenty-four; a Nazi uniform transforms an escapee; a seventy-foot shark takes on Jason Statham; Spike Lee laughs at the Klan; and "Crazy Rich Asians" promises wild humor.
Film Top 5: July 2018 Ingmar Bergman at 100, Jane Campion, Hal Ashby, Boots Riley...
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: 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.
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: 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.
