1
Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn
(Opens Friday, November 19)
The Romanian cinema: so it’s come to this! No other national cinema combines comedy and drama in such an understated and fulfilling way.
2
Licorice Pizza
(Opens Friday, November 26)
Paul Thomas Anderson with another Southern California coming-of-age phantasmagoria??? Let’s get down to the record store and see if they’ve got it yet!
3
C’mon, C’mon
(Opens Friday, November 19)
Mike Mills goes black-and-white with a road trip with an uncle (Joaquin Phoenix) and nephew (Woody Norman). There’s supposed to be some “This American Life”-style noodling, but it’s sure to be all Mills, after addressing his father in “Beginners,” his mother in “20th Century Women,” turning, symbolically, to the common oddity of fatherhood.
4
House of Gucci
(Opens Wednesday, November 24)
Sir Ridley, at the age of eighty-four, takes the loupe to the dangerous extremities of another murderous alien lifeform: the sociopathic very rich.
5
Chicago Critics Film Festival
(Music Box, November 12-14)
Early look-sees at some of the most highly awaited attractions of the season: among them, Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”; Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” and Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket.”
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published later this year.
Previews of that project on Twitter (twitter.com/chighostsigns) as well as photography on Instagram: instagram.com/raypride.
Twitter: twitter.com/RayPride