One of the best movies I’ve seen this year is Stephen Cone’s The Wise Kids, which makes its world premiere tonight at Music Box as part of the opening-night program for Reeling: The Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival. Cone is probably best known for his feature In Memoriam, which screened at Gene Siskel Film Center earlier this year, but The Wise Kids, a moving story of physical and spiritual longing in a Christian youth group in South Carolina, represents a quantum leap from that earlier release. Check out our long review of the movie and our Reeling sidebar, with a half-dozen capsule reviews of films screening this week.
Another of the city’s major festivals, the Polish Film Festival in America, opens Friday night at the Rosemont 18 with the Chicagoland premiere of In Darkness, a Holocaust drama by Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden, Europa Europa). Check out our sidebar, with five capsule reviews of movies screening here in town at Facets Cinematheque and in Park Ridge at the Pickwick.