1 Distant Voices, Still Lives (Siskel, January) A 4K digital restoration of Terence Davies’ heartwrenching masterpiece of family portraiture and the human voice held high. Essential viewing.
2 Cold War (Music Box, opens January 18) Swooping rhapsodies of gleaming, elusive memories of a lifelong romance between mismatched lovers in Stalinist Poland and other seemingly more conducive lands in Pawel Pawlikowski’s masterpiece.
3 The Owl’s Legacy (Siskel, Sundays and Mondays, January 6-28) (L’Heritage de la Chouette) The apparition of Chris Marker’s dazzling, weighty thirteen-part television series considering the relationship between ancient Greeks and Western society.
4 Capernaum (Music Box, opens Friday, January 4) Nadine Labaki’s post-neorealist adventure featuring a raft of terrific first-time actors, following a clever twelve-year-old boy who flees his parents, and to assert his rights, takes them to court for the crime of giving him life.
5 Glass (Opens Friday, January 18) M. Night Shyamalan mingles the Blumhouse cheap-and-dirty model with his past imagination, combining characters and storylines from “Split” and “Unbreakable.”
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Film Top 5: January 2023 Epic movies at a single sitting, including "OUT 1," "Sátántangó" and "Dekalog"; two months of Billy Wilder movies in 35mm; and one creepy doll.
