By J.R. Jones
What follows is a selective list of commercial releases scheduled for the fall. Opening dates are subject to change.
SEPTEMBER
friday14
The Brave One
Neil Jordan (The Crying Game) directed this revenge drama with Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard.
friday21
The Jane Austen Book Club
Adaptation of the novel by Karen Joy Fowler about six Austen fans.
friday28
Into the Wild
Sean Penn directed this drama adapted from Jon Krakauer’s best-selling book about an upper-middle-class young man who abandoned his possessions and disappeared into the Alaskan wilderness.
OCTOBER
friday5
Lust, Caution
The latest from director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), this is a World War II spy thriller set in Shanghai.
The Darjeeling Limited
Wes Anderson returns with a story of three estranged brothers (Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman) making a train trip across India.
Grace Is Gone
John Cusack stars as a widower who has to tell his kids that mommy was killed in Iraq.
friday12
Dan in Real Life
Steve Carell stars as a widowed man who falls for his brother’s girlfriend. With Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Cate Blanchett returns to the role that made her a star, reuniting with director Shekhar Kapur for this sequel to Elizabeth (1998).
Control
Biopic of Joy Division front man Ian Curtis, based on a book by his wife, Deborah Curtis.
friday19
Gone Baby Gone
Ben Affleck makes his directing debut with this crime story adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River).
Rendition
Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) makes his U.S. directing debut with this tale of a CIA analyst who witnes-ses a secret interrogation. With Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and Alan Arkin.
NOVEMBER
friday2
The Kite Runner
Adaptation of the Khaled Hosseini novel, about an Afghan man who returns home from California to help a friend.
friday9
No Country for Old Men
The Coen brothers directed this story of hunters who stumble upon dead bodies, a heroin stash, and $2 million. Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel; with Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and Woody Harrelson.
friday21
I’m Not There
Todd Haynes’s biography of Bob Dylan, with multiple actors–including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, and Richard Gere–portraying the musician at various stages of his life.
By Jonathan Rosenbaum
What follows is a list of scheduled art-house and repertory screenings and runs that piqued my interest. For a selection of new commercial releases, see the accompanying list by J.R. Jones. Most of Chicago’s alternative venues are more reliable than studios and their promotional machines about sticking to their schedules–at least once they’re printed. Still, the following list is both incomplete and selective, and titles and dates are subject to change.
SEPTEMBER
friday14
Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman | Gene Siskel Film Center
A highly personal and audacious six-hour documentary miniseries by and about filmmaker Jennifer Fox, with Fox in attendance at screenings of each two-hour segment. | Through 9/18
In the Shadow of the Moon |
Music Box
A documentary about the Apollo space program, produced by Ron Howard.
Noriko’s Dinner Table |
Facets Cinematheque
Japanese poet and director Sion Sono’s 2005 spin-off of his controversial suicide-porn cult item of a few years earlier, Suicide Club. | Through 9/20.
Vanaja | Gene Siskel Film Center
This Indian feature deals with the sexual awakening of a lower-caste 15-year-old girl who wants to master kuchuipudi, a traditional dance of South India associated with the rich. | Through 9/20
wednesday19
The Story of Three Loves |
Gene Siskel Film Center
If you’re wondering why I selected this opulent Technicolor, three-part MGM sketch film of 1953 for my weekly lecture series, “The Great Transition: World Cinema of the 1950s,” turn up and I’ll do my best to explain.
thursday20
Chicago, My Town: Portraits From the Margins |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Chicago Film Archives’ Nancy Watrous curated this selection of 16-millimeter films shot in Chicago in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. | Also 9/21
friday21
Czech Dream | Facets Cinematheque
Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak’s satirical Czech comedy (2004) explores contemporary media scams. | Through 9/27
The Devil Came on Horseback |
Music Box
Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern’s celebrated documentary about the ongoing crisis in Darfur, prompted by photographs taken there by former marine captain Brian Steidle.
Helvetica | Gene Siskel Film Center
This popular British documentary about the past half century of graphic design, praised in these pages this past summer by J.R. Jones, is back for a return engagement. | Through 9/27
saturday22
Brother Orchid |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Edward G. Robinson, a gangster on the run, winds up in a mona-stery learning how to become a monk and grow flowers in this unconventional Warners item from 1940, showing with a Tweetie Pie cartoon.
Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors | Gene Siskel Film Center
Sergei Paradjanov’s intoxicating 1964 folkloric feature, set in the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains and screening in a new print today, 9/23, and 9/27, is what gave this Georgian-born filmmaker his first international exposure.
monday24
Passport to Pimlico | Doc Films
The start of a weekly series devoted to England’s legendary Ealing Studio, starring Margaret Rutherford.
wednesday26
Foreign Correspondent |
Block Films
Northwestern’s film society launches its own ambitious retrospective–an exhaustive one devoted to Alfred Hitchcock that comprises practically most of its fall season. The 39 Steps screens 9/27 and both Lifeboat and I Confess on 9/28.
The Seven Samurai | Doc Films
Another weekly series starts, this one devoted to Akira Kurosawa, kicks off with the film that Dave Kehr has called both his best and “most Americanized” film.
thursday27
Black Girl | Doc Films
Part of Doc’s Ousmane Sembene retrospective; see sidebar.
friday28
Garden of Earthly Delights |
Gene Siskel Film Center
Polish director Lech Majewski will be present to discuss his 2004 feature, a love story set in Venice, tonight and 9/30.
If I Didn’t Care | Facets Cinematheque
A thriller set in the Hamptons, directed by brothers Benjamin and Orson Cummings, with Roy Scheider playing a detective. | Through 10/4
saturday29
Daughters Courageous |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Warner Brothers’ 1939 spin-off of Four Daughters, with the same director (Michael Curtiz) and cast (including John Garfield and Claude Rains).
The Silence Before Bach |
Gene Siskel Film Center
Catalan filmmaker Pere Portabella, the focus of a retrospective at the Siskel Center late last year, comes to Chicago for the first time to present his brand-new feature.
Time Regained | Gene Siskel Film Center
A revival of Raul Ruiz’s opulent Proust adaptation (1999), tonight and 10/1.
OCTOBER
thursday4
Chicago International FIlm Festival | Multiple Venues
The Chicago International Film Festival, dedicated this year to Roger Ebert, starts tonight. | Through 10/17
Mandabi | Doc Films
Screening with the short film Tauw; see sidebar.
A Mormon Maid | Doc Films
Tinted 35-millimeter print of a silent 1917 melodrama set in the 1840s, starring Mae Murry and Frank Borzage and directed by Robert Z. Leonard.
friday5
Alice Neel | Facets Cinematheque
A documentary by Andrew Neel about his grandmother, who specialized in painting portraits of downtown Manhattan art scenesters. | Through 10/11
Chicago Horror Film Festival | Portage Theater
Through 10/7 | chicagohorrorfest.com
Half Moon | Gene Siskel Film Center
Bahman Ghobadi’s latest feature and Pourya Ararbaijani’s still more recent Unfinished Stories inaugurate the 18th Annual Festival of Films from Iran, continuing through the month. | Through 10/6.
I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With | Music Box
Chicago writer-producer-director-comic Jeff Garlin will be around this weekend to help launch his independent feature, tagged “a romantic comedy about a man’s unnatural relationship with women and food.”
saturday6
The Draughtsman’s Contract | Facets Cinematheque
A new print of Peter Greenaway’s 1982 art house favorite, to be followed by his A Zed and Two Noughts on 10/7.
It Should Happen To You |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Judy Holliday plays an ambitious New Yorker who puts her name on a billboard in Columbus Circle. George Cukor directs this comedy, and Jack Lemmon, in his screen debut, costars (1954).
thursday11
What’s Going On In the Beely Circus? | Gene Siskel Film Center
A restored 1926 feature directed by and starring Harry Piel, sometimes known as the German Douglas Fairbanks.
friday12
The Hour of the Furnaces |
Doc Films
Fernando E. Solanas’s celebrated four-and-a-half-hour leftist documentary (1968) about Argentina.
The West Wittering Affair |
Facets Cinematheque
From the UK, David Scheinmann’s first feature is a romantic sex comedy about four Londoners taking a weekend in the country.
saturday13
A Few Days Later | Gene Siskel Film Center
The second feature of Iranian actress Niki Karimi (One Night). | Through 10/14
Music Box Massacre III | Music Box
The third annual 24-hour mara-thon of horror films runs through tomorrow. | myspace.com/musicboxmassacre
Stormy Weather |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
An all-star African-American musical from 1943, featuring Lena Horne, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Fats Waller, and count-less others.
tuesday16
“Immigration in Greek Cinema” | Gene Siskel Film Center
A series that will continue in early November begins today with Nestor Matsas’s The Immigrant (1965).
thursday18
Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema | Pipers Alley (other venues TBA)
Through 10/28 | chicagofestivalofisraelicinema.org
Chicago International Children’s Film Festival |
Facets Cinematheque
Through 10/28 | cicff.org
The Open Road |
Gene Siskel Film Center
A restored 1926 English travelogue, shot in an early color process.
Xala | Doc Films
Ousmane Sembene’s 1974 satire from Senegal; see sidebar.
friday19
Black Book | Doc Films
In case you missed one of the most entertaining films to play in town this year, here’s your chance to catch up with Paul Verhoeven’s 2006 return to Dutch cinema.
My Kid Could Paint That |
Music Box
Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary about the celebrated four-year-old girl whose paintings, compared to Picasso’s, have sold for a fortune.
saturday20
Body and Soul | LaSalle Bank
Robert Rossen’s celebrated boxing movie with John Garfield (1947), scripted by Abraham Polonsky.
saturday27
10 + 4 | Gene Siskel Film Center
A new Iranian feature by Mania Akbari. | Through 10/28
monday29
Dead of Night | Doc Films
A very scary English horror anthology (1945), directed by several hands.
NOVEMBER
thursday1
Camp Thiaroye | Doc Films
Ousmane Sembene codirected (with Thierno Faty Sow) this account of a wartime incident that occurred in 1944; see sidebar.
Chicago Korean Film Festival |
Doc Films
Two older Korean films on the schedule, Flower in Hell (1958) and The Marines Who Never Returned (1963), have a good buzz. | Through 11/4
friday2
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten | Music Box.
A documentary by Julien Temple.
saturday3
Polish Film Festival in America | Multiple venues
Through 11/18 | pffamerica.com
Otto Preminger retrospective | Music Box
Expect five weekend matinees starting today and running through 12/2, half a dozen prime-time features starting 11/10 and running through 11/15, and a Sunday afternoon Preminger panel on 11/11.
You Were Never Lovelier
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Musical comedy set in Buenos Aires, starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth (1942).
thursday8
Guelwaar | Doc Films
Sembene being wise and witty about tribalism and neocolonial corruption (1992); see sidebar.
Reeling: The 26th Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival |
Landmark’s Century Centre and other venues
Through 11/18 | reelingfilmfestival.org
friday9
How Much Do You Love Me? | Gene Siskel Film Center
A new feature by Bertrand Blier with Monica Bellucci and Gerard Depardieu. | Through 11/15
It is Fine! Everything is Fine. |
Music Box
Crispin Glover presents his new feature.
saturday10
Hangover Square |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
Laird Cregar plays a psychotic composer; John Brahm directs (1945).
Home for Life |
Gene Siskel Film Center
One of many restorations screening at the Siskel Center this month–a 1968 Chicago documentary about an old folks’ home by Gordon Quinn (who will be present) and Gerald Temaner.
thursday15
Faat Kine | Doc Films
One of Sembene’s funniest comedies (2000), and perhaps his most affirmative; see sidebar.
saturday17
Immortal Sergeant |
LaSalle Bank Cinema
An unsung Henry Fonda war picture (1941), directed by John M. Stahl.
friday23
Sing-a-Long Sound of Music |
Music Box
Now a perennial holiday ritual. | Through 11/25
saturday24
The Thin Man, The Kennel Murder Case | LaSalle Bank Cinema
Two of the most popular detective movies in one double bill.
monday26
Whisky Galore! | Doc Films
Alexander Mackendrick’s 1949 comedy, showing with classic short Night Mail.
thursday29
Moolaade | Doc Films
Ousmane Sembene’s last feature; see sidebar.
Block Cinema Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art | Pick-Laudati Auditorium | 40 Arts Circle Dr. | Evanston, 847-491-4000, blockmuseum.northwestern.edu
Facets Cinematheque 1517 W. Fullerton | 773-281-4114 | facets.org
LaSalle Bank Cinema LaSalle Bank | 4901 W. Irving Park | 312-904-9442
Music Box 3733 N. Southport, 773-871-6604 | musicboxtheatre.com
Portage Theater 4050 N. Milwaukee, 773-736-4050 | portagetheater.org
Gene Siskel Film Center 164 N. State | 312-846-2800 | artic.edu/webspaces/siskelfilmcenter/
University of Chicago Doc Films Max Palevsky Cinema, 1212 E. 59th | 773-702-8575 | docfilms.uchicago.edu