This year the Chicago International Film Festival turns 50, and in observation of that milestone, WTTW Channel 11 will be broadcasting a monthly series of notable features that screened in the festival; it kicked off last night at 10 PM with Legacy, Tod Lending’s Oscar-nominated documentary (2000) about a family trying to escape from the nightmarish Henry Horner Homes (since demolished) in West Town. We’ve also got a review of 3 Days to Kill, a dopey thriller starring Kevin Costner as a CIA assassin trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter.
Check out the new issue for reviews of: Approved for Adoption, a personal documentary about a South Korean man who was raised by Belgian parents; Film Is Not Dead, a collection of experimental shorts by local artist Ian Curry; The Gardener, a documentary in which exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf and his son travel to Haifa to learn about the Baha’i Faith; Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), the latest from Arnaud Desplechin (A Christmas Tale), starring Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric; Kids for Cash, a documentary about the Pennsylvania judges accused of taking kickbacks from the builder of two for-profit juvenile detention facilities; Films by George and Mike Kuchar, a program of 60s shorts by the irrepressible underground filmmakers; and Pompeii, Paul W.S. Anderson’s latest epic, guaranteed to end with a bang.
Best bets for repertory: Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001), midnight Friday and Saturday at Music Box; George Cukor’s Holiday (1938), Monday at University of Chicago Doc Films; Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940), Friday at Northwestern University Block Museum of Art; Herbert Biberman’s Salt of the Earth (1954), and, closing out Film Center’s monthlong Jacques Demy retrospective, Donkey Skin (1970) and A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973).
If you feel a slight tremor Saturday at 4 PM, it’s not an earthquake; it’s the vibration caused by 800 moviegoers genuflecting as Wes Anderson appears at the Music Box to introduce a free preview screening of his latest comedy, The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson’s entire oeuvre—from Bottle Rocket (1996) through Moonrise Kingdom (2012), screens at the theater Friday through Sunday. Also, don’t forget to check out the Peace on Earth Film Festival, Wednesday through Sunday at Chicago Cultural Center, and the Chicago Irish Film Festival, which kicks off Friday at Society for Arts and continues through Saturday, March 8, at that venue and Music Box.
