In this week’s issue we revisit the complicated backstory of M, the 1951 remake of Fritz Lang’s classic thriller (which also screens this week). Oh—you’re bored by the idea of a movie made from another movie? What about a musical made from a rock album? Our other review this week looks at Broadway Idiot, a documentary about the stage musical adapted from the Green Day album American Idiot.
We’ve also got new capsule reviews of: About Time, a romantic fantasy from Richard Curtis (Love Actually); La Camioneta, a documentary tracing the ownership of a school bus across Central America; Children Without Parents, a local indie about four kids cleaning out their late father’s apartment; Diana, with Naomi Watts as the doomed Princess of Wales; Ender’s Game, a sci-fi epic adapted from the Orson Scott Card novel; I Used to Be Darker, the third feature from Baltimore indie Matthew Porterfield (Putty Hill); Kill Your Darlings, about the early New York adventures of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William S. Burroughs; Last Vegas, with Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline as four old friends making a twilight trip to Vegas; Man of Tai Chi, a martial arts adventure that marks the directorial debut of Keanu Reeves; The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, an illustrated lecture by Slovene critic Slavoj Zizek; and The Visitor, a late-70s cult film about a space alien returning to Planet Earth to make contact with the child he fathered.
Best bets for repertory: Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960), all week at Music Box; Olivier Assayas’s Demonlover (2002) and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven (2002), both next Thursday at University of Chicago Doc Films; Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), Sunday at Doc; Terence Davies’s The Long Day Closes (1992), Monday at Doc; Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), Friday and Saturday, and Strangers on a Train (1951), Saturday and Wednesday, at Gene Siskel Film Center; Clair Denis’ White Material (2009), Sunday and Wednesday at Film Center; and John Cassavetes’s A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Wednesday at Doc.
Don’t forget these special events: Mostra IV: Brazilian Film Series in Chicago, kicks off on Friday and runs through November 14 at various venues, and the First Nations Film and Video Festival begins the same night with The Cherokee Word for Water, a documentary about Cherokee Nation chief Wilma Mankiller.
