SEPTEMBER
The 25th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival
Chicago Filmmakers present a section of new work in film and video, including an advance screening of Gabe Klinger’s “Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater,” directly after its Venice Film Festival world premiere. September 5-8, Music Box
That Cold Day In The Park
Sandy Dennis stars in little-seen Vancouver-set psychological thriller Robert Altman shot after “M*A*S*H,” in a 35mm print preserved by the group behind the Golden Globes. September 8, 11, Siskel
Salinger
Documentary said to hold many secrets, near a decade in the making, from Shane Salerno, a screenwriter on “Armageddon” and “Savages,” following the public pattern of late author J. D. Salinger by withholding its surprises until the last minute. The Weinstein Company and publisher Simon & Schuster press-released the information that those who have seen it thus far were asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement. September 6
Nostalghia
A new 35mm print of a lush, lovely late Tarkovsky film, which looks pretty much like mud on video. Siskel, September 13-26
“A Teacher”
A Teacher
Writer-director Hannah Fidell’s minimalist story of a Texas teacher who becomes obsessed with one of her students at a wealthy suburb’s high school boasts a tense, tactile lead performance by Lindsay Burdge. Opens September 13, Facets
Insidious: Chapter 2
Taking a breather between his $130-million-plus-grossing “The Conjuring” and “Fast and Furious 7,” director James Wan rejoins writing partner Leigh Whannell to follow the further spirit infestations of beleaguering Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye and Ty Simpkins. Opens September 13
The Green Room
Archival 35mm print of François Truffaut’s tender adaptation of Henry James’ short story “Altar of the Dead”; Truffaut stars. Siskel, September 14, 16
Gun Crazy
35mm preservation print of Joseph H. Lewis’ crackling outlaw couple tale, swirling with sexual fury. Girl-with-the-gun Peggy Cummins is a force of nature. Siskel, September 15, 18
Thanks For Sharing
First feature from co-writer of “The Kids Are All Right” takes comedic poke at sexual addition. Opens September 20.
Enough Said
The latest from estimable writer-director Nicole Holofcener, an empty-nester comedy, also features one of the last two roles by the late James Gandolfini. With Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Catherine Keener (of course!), Toni Collette, Tavi Gevinson. Opens September 20
Cutie and the Boxer
Zachary Heinzerling spent several years following a hate-love-hate relationship between two elderly Japanese-New Yorkers, eighty-year-old painter Ushio Shinohara and his long-suffering wife of forty years, illustrator Noriko Shinohara. The results are rich, gaudy, compelling and weirdly reassuring about long-term relationships. Opens September 20, Music Box
Parkland
Sounds like a fount of PG-13 Oscar-tugging, produced by Tom Hanks for his Playtone label: Vincent Bugliosi’s “Four Days In November” is the source for a story of the day JFK was shot in Dallas, starring Zac Efron as a Parkland Hospital surgeon, and with James Badge Dale, Marc Duplass, Jackie Earle Haley, Colin Hanks, Marcia Gay Harden, Ron Livingston, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver and Paul Giamatti as Abraham Zapruder. September 20
Don Jon
Don Jon’s got an addiction: from sex to porn and back again. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars and makes his feature writing-directing debut as a thirtysomething who discovers intimacy may be an improvement over mere fuck. Opens September 27
Computer Chess
Andrew Bujalski’s possibly great no-budget comedy of 1980s computer geeks, masculinity run amok, and line code that may become sentient was shot on obsolete Sony Portapak-type video technology: it looks and laughs like no other.
Opens September 27, Music Box
Mother Of George
Sundance 2013 Cinematography award-winner, directed by Andrew Dosunmu, a former creative director for Yves Saint Laurent, is an extravagantly shot family melodrama set among Brooklyn’s Yoruba community. Opens September 27, Siskel
Metallica Through The Never
Hungarian-born Nimród Antal (“Predators,” “Kontroll”) writes and directs a “music-driven feature film” that combines live performance footage with a “surreal adventure” of a roadie sent on an errand in a “desolate, post-apocalyptic urban streetscape” as the show continues to grind. Opens September 27, IMAX
Inequality For All
“We make the rules of the economy–and we have the power to change those rules.” After the fashion of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Jacob Kornbluth’s documentary follows the diminutive former Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich on his quest to illuminate the damage income equality continues to wreak on the American (and world) economy. Opens September 27
