1 Black Harvest Film Festival 2018 (Siskel, August 4-30) The twenty-fourth edition of the showcase of independent cinema offers eighteen features and thirty-four shorts, and includes an appearance by Rusty Cundieff with one of his pioneering 1990s movies.
2 The Captain (Music Box, Opens Friday, August 3) Char-black fact-based drama set in waning weeks of the Third Reich is a tonally insolent thrill dissecting the timeless, fathomless urge to follow.
3 The Meg (Opens Friday, August 10) Jason Statham versus a seventy-foot shark. “Jaws” vs. “Crank”?
4 BlackKkKlansman (Opens Friday, August 10) Spike Lee’s latest comic vehemence is shepherded by producers Jordan Peele and Jason Blum, bringing 1970s period crimes into the modern moment.
5 Crazy Rich Asians (Opens Wednesday, August 15) Comedy of color rushes the stage to high expectations.
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.
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: 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: 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.
“The Meg”
