The Gene Siskel Film Center’s monthlong retrospective on Chilean documentary maker Patricio Guzman opens this weekend with the Chicago premiere of his latest, Nostalgia for the Light. It’s the subject of this week’s long review, along with The Battle of Chile, Guzman’s classic trilogy about the U.S.-backed military coup against Salvador Allende.
Also in this week’s issue, Ben Sachs recommends Hands Up!, part of Film Center’s series on Polish exile Jerzy Skolimowski, and Andrea Gronvall recommends Project Nim, the latest from Man on Wire director James Marsh. And we have new reviews of: A Better Life, with Demian Bichir as an illegal immigrant trying to track down his stolen truck; Blank City, a documentary on the No Wave filmmaking that flourished in New York City in the late 70s and early 80s; Children of Hiroshima, a 1952 Japanese drama that was the first to address the atomic bombing of the title city; The Ditch, the story of a simple-minded prostitute who becomes the consciense of her little village; Horrible Bosses, a comedy with Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, and Colin Farrell as the title characters; Monte Carlo, about teenage girls from Texas who get swept into a European adventure; The Names of Love, a French comedy about a Jew who falls in love with an Arab; and We Are the Night, about lesbian vampires in Berlin.