Here it comes, walking down the street: tonight at 6 PM the sixth Chicago International Movies & Music Festival opens at the Logan with a live set by the Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart cover band the Candy Store Prophets, a screening of Boyce & Hart: The Guys Who Wrote ‘Em, and a Q&A with Hart, the surviving member of the duo who penned some of the Monkees’ biggest hits. Check out our sidebars on this year’s film and live-music offerings.
We’ve also got a boatload of new reviews, with short takes on The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the second installment of the second franchise; Angel, a 1937 melodrama by the great Ernst Lubitsch, starring Marlene Dietrich and Melvyn Douglas; Bachelor Weekend, an indie comedy about a stag camping trip gone awry; Blue Ruin, a low-budget thriller about a bum turned asssassin; Brick Mansions, a Detroit-centric remake of Luc Besson’s District B13, starring the late Paul Walker; Dancing in Jaffa, a gag-inducing movie about Israeli and Palestinian children learning ballroom dance together; Fading Gigolo, the latest directorial effort by John Turturro, costarring Woody Allen; Locke, a suspense film with Tom Hardy whose action is confined entirely to the inside of a car; Love Meetings, a 1964 documentary in which Pier Paolo Pasolini takes to the streets to quiz people about love, sex, and gender; Now: In the Wings on a World Stage, documenting Kevin Spacey’s recent 12-city global tour as title character of Richard III; and The Other Woman, a so-so comedy about three women banding together to get even with a philandering husband.
Best bets for repertory: Andrew Stanton’s Finding Nemo (2003), Friday and Sunday at University of Chicago Doc Films; Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Wednesday at Doc; Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), next Thursday at Doc; Wojciech Has’s The Saragossa Manuscript (1965), Sunday and Monday at Gene Siskel Film Center; Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), Saturday and Sunday morning at Music Box; and Frank Perry’s The Swimmer (1968), Monday at Doc.
Give it up for the indies this week: Indie Boots Film Festival present assorted short works next Thursday at Landmark’s Century Centre; local heroes Kartemquin Films preview new stuff Friday night at Film Center; and School of the Art Institute grads and undergrads screen their work at Film Center next Wednesday through Friday.
