Next Tuesday the Museum of Contemporary Art presents the Chicago premiere of Leslie Buchbinder’s new documentary Hairy Who & The Chicago Imagists, about the painters and sculptors who defined the Chicago school from the 50s through the 80s. The screening is already sold out, but the documentary, considered in this week’s long review, has a second engagement June 6 at Northwestern University Block Museum of Art. Also in this week’s issue, Ben Sachs sticks a fork in Jon Favreau’s comedy Chef and turns it over, because it’s done.
Opening this week and newly reviewed: Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, a documentary profile of the maverick experimental filmmaker; For No Good Reason, in which Johnny Depp hangs with Hunter S. Thompson illustrator Ralph Steadman; Godzilla, the 60th anniversary remake of the Japanese classic (the 1954 original continues all week at Music Box); Million Dollar Arm, Disney product starring Jon Hamm as a sports marketing agent who decides to recruit major-league pitchers from India; Palo Alto, the writing-directing debut of Gia Coppola, adapted from short stories by James Franco (who’s featured); Sepideh, a documentary about a young Iranian woman whose fascination with astronomy runs afoul of the patriarchy; and Young & Beautiful, a French skinflick by Francois Ozon.
Best bets for repertory: Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (2008), next Thursday at University of Chicago Doc Films; Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka (1939), Sunday at Doc; Asghar Farhadi’s The Past (2014), Saturday and Sunday at Doc; Brad Bird’s Ratatouille (2007), Friday through Sunday at Doc; Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), Saturday and Sunday morning at Music Box; Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing (1987), Sunday and Monday at Gene Siskel Film Center; and Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008), Monday at Doc.
