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.”
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.
Film Top 5: January 2021 Old folks, young love, aspiration in India, Denzel Washington still hunting serial killers, and Tom Hanks way out west.
