Another week of movies!
Note: this week's screening of No Country for Old Men will be at 9:30 PM instead of 7 PM due to a scheduling issue. Additionally, this week's Wednesday Screening will be The Hitchhiker rather than Outrage, which will play later this quarter.
Take a look at our website for more information: http://docfilms.uchicago.edu/dev/
|
|
Monday at 7PM
The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Ivan Dixon, 1973
An undercover black nationalist gets hired by the CIA to fill the role of the token minority and showcase integration. After his training, he leaves the agency in order to recruit and train young black men in Chicago to become urban guerillas. Though filmed mostly in Gary, Indiana due to Mayor Daley's personal distaste for the subject matter, the landscape of Chicago casts a strong shadow over the movie. Very much an overlooked gem in the canon of post-Watergate political thrillers.
runtime: 102m format: 35mm
|
Wednesday at 7PM + 9PM
The Hitch-Hiker
Ida Lupino, 1953
This suspenseful, disturbing noir is Lupino's most highly acclaimed film. It tells the story of two friends (Edmond O'Brien and Frank Lovejoy) kidnapped by a deranged killer (William Talman) and taken on a nightmarish ride across the desert. Lupino's pacing and her use of high-contrast lighting, claustrophobic close-ups, and wide shots emphasizing the bleak desert terrain are chilingly effective. There are no macho heroics here, only the victims' helplessness and terror.
runtime: 71m format: DCP
|
Thursday at 9:30PM
The Brood
David Cronenberg, 1979
"Psychoplasmic" therapist Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) is treating Nola (Samantha Eggar), who is in a bitter custody battle for her daughter and feels mistreated from all sides. Soon, those who have hurt Nola come under attack from small subhuman beings, who seem to be literally born of her rage. Cronenberg used body horror to tell the story of his own divorce and fears about parenthood, but also in reaction to the idealized view of divorce he was anticipating from Kramer vs. Kramer that same year.
runtime: 92m format: 35mm
|
Saturday at 7PM and 9:30PM and Sunday at 4PM
Atlantics
Mati Diop, 2019
In French director Mati Diop's genre-defying debut, a surface story of Dakar lovers kept apart by their circumstances is sanded by cinematographer Claire Mathon's roiling waves to reveal a deeper blend of exploitation, female fetishization, and echoes of the migrant crisis. Fatima Al Qadiri's beguiling score works with these images to create room for ambitious magic realism, and together these women imbue Atlantics with haunting ambience that becomes the film's elegantly slippery mysteries.
runtime: 106m format: DCP
|
|
Tuesday at 9:30PM
No Country For Old Men
Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007
Based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name (itself originally a screenplay), No Country For Old Men follows Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a West Texas man who stumbles upon two million dollars, as he tries to stay alive with his find. However, assassin Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) has other plans. As only they can, Joel and Ethan Coen deliver a stunning and disturbing experience in this critically-acclaimed neowestern masterpeice.
runtime: 122m format: Digital
|
Thursday at 7PM
The King of Comedy
Martin Scorsese, 1982
Martin Scorsese’s dark comedy has experienced a resurgence in popular interest with the premier of its thematic heir, 2019 film Joker. The King of Comedy follows struggling and delusional comedian Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) as he schemes his way into the limelight. De Niro's remarkable performance is notably different from his famous role as an outcast in Taxi Driver: Pupkin doesn't fit the manic outsider trope, and instead is convinced that he is an inevitable celebrity, beloved by all.
runtime: 109m format: DCP
|
Friday at 7PM and Sunday at 1:30PM
The Wayward Cloud
Tsai Ming-Liang, 2005
Introduction on February 14 by Cameron Worden.
Introduction on February 16 by Jennifer Dorothy Lee.
This musical porn parody of a water-starved but watermelon-plenty Taipei charts the attempted relationship between a water-hoarding Shiang-chyi, desperate to explore her sexuality, and an alienated Hsiao-kang, a porn star incapable of romantic intimacy. The surreal, saturated musical numbers--including a glimmering merman crooning in a water tower and a cross-dressing, partner-swapping date in a park--delight just as much as the increasingly hardcore porn scenes strain, yielding a scathing critique of porn’s exploitative nature.
runtime: 116m format: 35mm
|
Sunday at 7PM
Love and Anarchy
Lina Wertmüller, 1973
In an Italy ravaged by fascism, the innocent farmer Tunin (Giancarlo Giannini) is enlisted by anarchist rebels to assassinate Mussolini. He's sent off to Rome to perform the deed, where he links up with a lively group of prostitutes. But as the unlikely team hatches their plan, Tunin falls in love with one of them and starts to have second thoughts. Effortlessly balancing raucous slapstick and piercing melancholy, Love and Anarchy sounds a lament for Tunin's impossible dilemma.
runtime: 120m format: DCP
|
|