Results tagged “docfilms”

I'm stepping away from the Chicagoist "we" for a moment, because there's no way I can possibly be objective about True Stories. It's my favorite movie.

CIFF is over but a rich cinematic harvest has only just begun. Feast your eyes:

Her husband Jonathan is a partner in a successful law firm. They live with their two young daughters in a luxurious highrise just off the park. So why is Tina so lifeless and exhausted? Well, for starters, her husband (Richard Benjamin, exquisitely obnoxious) is an egocentric nag who only seems interested in climbing the next rung on the social ladder. And her children are goggle-eyed aliens who constantly whine, when they're not being openly hostile towards her. At a party, Tina happens to meet George, a celebrity writer with a streak of narcissism a mile wide. He propositions her. Eventually, she gives in. And that's when the story really takes off.

Every Saturday night you'll find the second-floor auditorium of the Bank of America on West Irving Park Road in Portage Park packed with movie lovers. They come there to see a wide-ranging program of classics, rarities and good old-fashioned popcorn movies. The weekly screenings have now been going strong for over thirty years. A hardcore base of regulars keep coming back year after year despite the encroachment of cable TV, home video and the multiplex.

It wasn't so terribly long ago that in order to watch any sort of semi-obscure Japanese cinema you'd have to be prepared to invest in a region-free DVD player and sit through discs with dubious subtitles (when they were subtitled at all). Even a filmmaker like Kurosawa wasn't immune. Luckily for cinephiles the situation has really changed, and access to Asian cinema in general is better than ever.

The double whammy of the Mondays and cabin fever can drive the most stout constitutions deep into their comforters. Here are some things to inspire you to layer up and head out.

We're embarrassed to admit that when it comes to Korean culture, beyond bulgoki and kimchi we sort of draw a blank. (But oh how we love bulgoki!) So it's great to know that DOC Films at U of C is on the job: this week they're hosting the Korean Film Festival, a traveling tour of contemporary and classic cinema. 1958's A Flower in Hell is described by Jonathan Rosenbaum as "potent and grim," but...

Who knew that U of C's DOC Films has been showing movies for 75 years? (Rhetorical question, as we're sure that many of you already knew that.) Well, they have. In fact they're the longest continuously running student film society in the U.S. As you can imagine, they've collected a lot of cool mementos in that time. Things like letters from Samuel Fuller and Jean Renoir, movie posters autographed by Hitchcock, and old programing calendars. And, yes, Fritz Lang's martini recipe (we're anxious to compare it Buñuel's). They're putting some of the neater stuff on display with a new exhibition which opens today and runs through August 31 at the school's Joseph Regenstein Library, 1110 E. 57th St. There's an opening reception this afternoon from 3:00 to 4:30 in the gallery.

The death of storytelling has been predicted at least since the dawn of the Industrial Age. And in 1936, philosopher Walter Benjamin declared, "the art of storytelling is reaching its end." It's nonsense, of course; even if storytelling itself has taken on some "new" forms, it's still as prevalent as ever, perhaps even more so with the rise of the blogosphere and the millions of people unfurling their own personal narratives.

It's easy to get the impression that all the great places to see a movie in Chicago are either in the Loop or north of the river and a few blocks away from the lake. Multiplex? River East 21. Retrospectives or film series? The Siskel. Arthouse? The Century or the Music Box, of course. It can be frustrating if you live closer to the edge of things in Chicago, but it doesn't have to be....

Way back in 2005 we told you about Crime Fiction, a movie made by students of the University of Chicago. When we last heard from them they were in the midst of post-production. Far from being the last step in the filmmaking process, post-production is merely the end of the beginning; for as any indie filmmaker will tell you, once you've "finished" your film the wheels of the industry can turn very very slowly when...

Blogger Brad Flora left a comment on our recent post about Doc Films to let us know that the student-run film society’s costume contest was filled with homages to genre films and amusing puns. We’re known for taking the piss out of University of Chicago students, mainly because we are jealous of their brains and high-paying, post-graduate jobs. But we’re giving credit where credit is due for getups like a White Russian, Shaun of...

The U of C students are back on campus this week, and luckily, no one has lit anything on fire yet. Perhaps because they're too busy bringing us another quarter of hard-to-find films and modern trifles through Doc Films. Like several film classes rolled into one, this semester explores the Women of Early Hollywood with films from former It Girl Clara Bow, America’s sweetheart Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish and Greta Garbo; the later works of...

Folks, it’s going to be hot out there this weekend. If you’re out and about, drink water. Take breaks. Wear loose-fitting natural fabrics for God’s sake. You do not want to end up having to check yourself into the hospital, what with some people going out of their way to give “heat exhaustion” a bad name. Much of Chicagoist will be braving the elements out at Union Park this weekend, but the siren call of...

There’s been a lot of ink spilled about Chicago’s cornucopia of music events this summer, but yesterday’s RedEye also clued us in to several film festivals that are happening in the next three months, including ones we’ve covered like the Silent Film Festival and the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival as well as upcoming events we haven’t like Reeling’s Gay Games fest, the Onion City Experimental Film Festival and the Chicago Underground Film Festival. Here are...

Oh, Chicagoist readers: we’re mighty conflicted this morning. On the one hand, we want to tell you about these two amusing video clips posted on the Tribune’s site. Critic Robert Elder gives a brief tour of some famous Chicago movie locations while other Trib staffers re-create—with mixed results—scenes from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. We’re wondering where they managed to find a white fringed jacket for “Sloane.” (Confidential to Trib web geeks: It’d be nice if...

This weekend’s mainstream cinema offerings are once again slim. Last week offered only the disappointing V For Vendetta while the lone film that sparks our interest this morning is Spike Lee’s Inside Man.

It’s Friday night and you’re facing the cinephile’s dilemma: do you brave the crowds and head out to the theater to see a new release or do you just wait four days and rent it on DVD instead? In the year 2035, this may be a common scenario. But this weekend, only those interested in seeing Steven Soderbergh’s Bubble will have this problem. The Tribune ran this piece from the L.A. Times about the film’s marketing strategy.

If you ever doubted how seriously everyone out in L.A. takes the Oscars, look no further than the Oscarbeat blog.

Damn you, Ray Quintanilla. Thanks to your seemingly endless quest to bring “news” and “information” to the readers of the Chicago Tribune, you’ve gone and spoiled one of the best-kept secrets among Chicago’s movie geek populace.

After an unfortunate incident a couple years ago involving “pumpkin spice” punch and a too-easily-removed Superman costume, Chicagoist tends to avoid big Halloween parties. Instead, we hole up with a list of video horrorflicks the night before (All Hallow’s Eve Eve?). But there are a few cinematic options this week for those looking for a communal, fright night experience. Doc Films at the University of Chicago is eschewing scary for sci-fi this week. Invaders from...

we’ll probably spend some quality time cuddled up with them in some dark, out-of-the-way place...like the movies.

Chicagoist’s Arts and Entertainment department has a confession: the 4th of July kinda stresses us out. When the 4th falls on a weekend, we feel like it becomes one of those occasions—much like New Year’s Eve—where we feel we must make some grand plans so as not to be labeled a loser. Said plans must usually involve one or more of the following:

Though most institutions of higher learning in the city have sent the kids home for the summer, the students at the University of Chicago will be plugging away until the end of next week. But this is good news for us since it means one more week of Doc Films, the student-run film organization giving us cheap movies we haven’t seen in forever.

“If you’re sad and like beer, I’m your lady.” It’s easy to fall madly in love with a woman who speaks such poetry. And when those words fall from the lips of Isabella Rossellini, Chicagoist just melts. Of course, no woman is that simple and neither is The Saddest Music in the World, which is part of a series of free screenings over the next week at the University of Chicago by Nuveen Visiting Filmmaker...

The weekend’s usually the time when we satisfy our movie jones. But raves for Ryan Reynolds aside, we couldn’t bring ourselves to see The Amityville Horror remake without the go-ahead from a trusted friend. Sin City wasn’t worth seeing again and the rest of the top 10 was...well, see for yourself. Lucky for us, there are some bonafide classics playing all around the city tonight.

Chicagoist and its fellow cinemaphiles have it rough this weekend. With the college crowd on Spring Break, most of our favorite off-the-beaten-path movie houses (Block Cinema, Doc Films) are dark. Don’t even get us started on the mainstream box office this weekend. We know The Ring was a big hit, but we saw the sequel the first time, you know? As for the new Woody Allen film, we’re skipping that one too. Unlike the family dog, we only have to be hit on the nose with a newspaper twice before we learn our lesson. And as much as we love Joan Cusack and Buffy’s little sister, we’re not sure we can bring ourselves to see The Ice Princess especially when our local video store has The Cutting Edge on DVD. Now THAT'S an ice skating movie.