1 Thirtieth Anniversary Festival of Films from Iran (Siskel) Highlights include two documentaries painstakingly assembled from clips of hundreds of pre-1979 films, all sourced from surviving home video tapes of work from the theocracy’s destruction of Iranian pre-revolution cinema. Opening night features Taghi Amirani’s “Coup 53,” dramatizing the United States and Britain’s overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government, edited by Walter Murch (“The Conversation,” “Apocalypse Now,” “The English Patient”). Throughout February 2 Angel Face (Chicago Film Society at NEIU) The bitterly, bracingly noir “Angel Face,” shown in 35mm, has always been the coin of the realm of those who revel, agog, in the camera mastery of Otto Preminger: this icy charmer is not a test case for his work, but a formidable gateway drug. With Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons. February 19
3 Winchester ‘73 (Siskel) Speaking of coin of the realm: Anthony Mann’s magisterial, even sublime 1950 Western with Jimmy Stewart, Dan Duryea and Shelley Winters is shown in a 4K digital restoration. Terse, biting and brilliant; the first of five game-changing Westerns made by Mann and Stewart. February 7, 8 & 10
4 Hi, Mom! (Siskel) Brian DePalma has always been one of American cinema’s foremost satirists: Discuss after seeing a 35mm print (in near-mint condition) of his early, politically wary Robert De Niro-starring social satire. February 7 & 13
5 Disco Godfather (Chicago Film Society at Music Box) Rudy Ray Moore and his pugnacious polyester presence battle PCP dealers while investing screen acreage with kung fu, psychedelia and black disco culture. “Dolemite” was no mad fluke. Bonus: a Blaxploitation trailer reel. February 10
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Film Top 5: September 2020 Charlie Kaufman thinks, once more, as always, of ending it all; whimsitician Miranda July returns; Chicago Latino Film Festival goes virtual; Gerard Butler may or may not save the planet from a comet; and "Tenet" promises to time-invert over Labor Day in non-pandemic hotspot localities.
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: February 2021 Frances McDormand hits the road and the road hits back; Fred Hampton lights up the screen; a Korean family makes an Arkansas home; a regal if rocked Michelle Pfeiffer; and a pandemic-shot black-and-white relationship fizzle chamber drama.
