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Film, Movie Tuesday Oct 29, 2019
Movie Tuesday: So long for now

Final films from five directors to mark our farewell—for now—from writer Ben Sachs.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Tuesday, Teachers’ strike, F.W. Murnau, John Ford, Robert Bresson, Nagisa Oshima, Alain Resnais

Film, Movie Tuesday Jun 11, 2019
Movie Tuesday: Masterful melodramas

Five films that show the underrated genre at its best
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Tuesday, Movie Tuesday, Asako I & II, D.W. Griffith, Frank Borzage, Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Alain Resnais

Film, Movie Tuesday Mar 26, 2019
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Movie Tuesday: Successfully avoiding the sophomore slump

Wondrous second films from directors whose debut outings set the bar high
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Tuesday, Us, Get Out, Jordan Peele, Jane Campion, Orson Welles, Alain Resnais, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Charles Burnett, Wong Kar-wai, Video

Blogs, Bleader Feb 16, 2018
This Week on Filmstruck: Jacques Demy

Filmstruck presents the musical films of French master Jacques Demy.
- By Patrick Friel
- Tags: Art House, Dance, Film, Foreign, Music, On Video, Television, Jacques Demy, French New Wave, Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Agnès Varda, Oscar, Filmstruck, Lola, Raoul Coutard, Anouk Aimee, The Blue Angel, Breathless, Max Ophuls, Michel Legrand, Robert Bresson, Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Bay of Angels, Jeanne Moreau, Pickpocket, Jean Rabier, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Catherine Deneuve, Dave Kehr, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Une Chambre en Ville, Gene Kelly, Donkey Skin, Peau d'Ane, Jean Marais, Jacques Perrin, Delphine Seyrig

Blogs, Bleader Mar 13, 2015
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David Cronenberg invades Hollywood, plus more new reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, David Cronenberg, Maps to the Stars, Drew Hunt, Joel Potrykus, Buzzard, Music Box Chicago, Cinderella, Kenneth Branagh, The Duke of Burgundy, Berberian Sound Studio, Life of Riley, Alain Resnais, Last Year at Marienbad, European Union Film Festival, Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed, John Lennon, How I Won the War, Merchants of Doubt, Run All Night, Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, La Sapienza, '71 movie, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, Stations of the Cross, Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing, Gene Siskel Film Center, Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds, University of Chicago Doc Films, Chistopher Nolan, Interstellar, Dziga Vertov, The Man With a Movie Camera, Tomm Moore, The Secret of Kells, Facets Cinematheque, Frank Borzage, Seventh Heaven, Dennis Scott, Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Chicago Symphony Center, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Robert Zemeckis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Andrea Gronvall, Columbia College Chicago, Julian Grant, Disney Frozen, Cinema Slapdown, Columbia College Film Row Cinema, Maidan movie, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Get Real: Docs at the Box, The Touch of an Angel, Society for Arts, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Feb 13, 2015
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Spike Lee drinks Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, plus more new reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Spike Lee, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Bill Gunn, Ganja & Hess, Manuscripts Don't Burn, Mohammad Rasoulof, Iron Island, Fifty Shades of Grey, Love Hunter, Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, Seventh Son, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Timbuktu, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bamako, Today movie, White Rabbit, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, Jean-Luc Godard, Alphaville, Two or Three Things I Know About Her, Gene Siskel Film Center, Buster Keaton, The Cameraman, Saint John Cantius Church, Jay Warren, Michael Curtiz, Casablanca, Music Box, Don Siegel, Escape From Alcatraz, University of Chicago Doc Films, Agnes Varda, The Gleaners and I, Alain Resnais, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Alfred Hitchcock, North by Northwest, Rob Reiner, The Princess Bride, Music Box, Alex Cox, Sid and Nancy, Greg Kot, Jim DeRogatis, Sound Opinions, Marcel Carne, The Adultress, Emile Zola, Therese Raquin, Facets Cinematheque, Chicago Opera Theater, Jennifer Reeder, Museum of Contemporary Art, Remembering Harold Washington, White Scripts and Black Supermen, Chatham 14, Black History Month, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Oct 31, 2014
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Everyone else is wrong, and the rest of this week's screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Damien Chazelle, Whiplash, Ben Sachs, Nightcrawler, Jake Gyllenhaal, CitizenFour, Laura Poitras, Edward Snowden, Hellaware, J'Accuse, Abel Gance, E-Team, Human Rights Watch, Harmontown, Community Dan Harmon, Horns Daniel Radcliffe, The X-Ray of Civilization, Tom Rubnitz, David Wojnarowicz, Tommy Turner, Ernst Lubitsch, Broken Lullaby, Gene Siskel Film Center, Robert Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Chicago Symphony Center, Cameron Carpenter, Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead, Logan Theater Chicago, Ingmar Bergman, Fanny and Alexander, University of Chicago Doc Films, Alain Resnais, Hiroshima Mon Amour, Music Box Chicago, Albert Brooks, s Modern Romance, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Henry Selick, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Roberto Rossellini, Open City, Samuel Fuller, Shock Corridor, WIP Theater Chicago, Lee Kepraios, Mostra V: Brazilian Film Series, Columbia College Film Row Cinema, First Nations Film and Video Festival, Mitchell Museum, LaDonna Harris: Indian 101, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader May 25, 2014
Weekly Top Five: The best of Alain Resnais

Highlights from the filmography of the French surrealist Alain Resnais
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Weekly Top Five, Film, University of Chicago's Doc Films, Gene Siskel Film Center, Alain Resnais, Je t'aime, Je t'aime, Jean-Luc Godard, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Bresson, Stavisky . . ., Providence, Muriel, Statues Also Die, Hiroshima, Mon Amour

Blogs, Bleader May 23, 2014
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God, Godzilla, and the rest of this week's screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida, Music Box, Ben Sachs, Godzilla, The Cold Lands, The Immigrant, James Gray, Pharaoh, Gene Siskel Film Center, Martin Scorsese, Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Blended, Eroica, Fed Up, Laurie David, An Inconvenient Truth, Katie Couric, God's Pocket, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Pete Dexter, Ilo Ilo, Camera d’Or, Cannes film festival, Jellyfish Eyes, Takashi Murakami, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Adam McKay, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Logan Theater Chicago, Giorgos Lanthimos, Dogtooth, University of Chicago Doc Films, Steven Spielberg, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Godzilla 1954, Music Box, Alfred Hitchcock Psycho, Ernst Lubitsch, The Shop Around the Corner, Andrew Stanton, WALL-E, Alain Resnais, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, Chicago Filmmakers, Tatsu Aoki, Logan Center for the Arts, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader May 20, 2014
This week in Alain Resnais: Radicalism and Cat Munchies

In praise of Wild Grass, Resnais's most openly surrealist feature, which screens at Doc Films this Thursday.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Do This, Foreign, Film, Politics, Alain Resnais, surrealism, André Bréton, Wild Grass, Doc Films, Leon Trotsky

Blogs, Bleader May 9, 2014
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Belles, dumbbells, and the rest of this week's screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Misan Sagay, Belle movie, Landmark's Century Centre, Showplace ICON, Dido Elizabeth Belle, Ben Sachs, Bright Days Ahead, Fanny Ardant, Afternoon of a Faun, Tanaquil Le Clercq, Beneath the Harvest Sky, Films by Shellie Fleming, School of the Art Institute, Honey movie, Davis Theater Chicago, The Kill Team, Neighbors Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Andrzej Wajda, Ashes and Diamonds, Gene Siskel Film Center, Ishiro Honda, Godzilla, Music Box Chicago, Sergei Eisenstein, Potemkin, Dennis Scott, Alain Resnais, Same Old Song, University of Chicago Doc Films, Chan-wook Park, Stoker, Chicago Film Critics Association, David Wain, Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models, They Came Together, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bob Goldthwait, Shakes the Clown, God Bless America, Willow Creek, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 25, 2014
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I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created, and the rest of this week's screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Darren Aronofsky, Noah movie, Ben Sachs, Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan, Child's Pose, Cinema Palestine, Mars at Sunrise, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago Palestine Film Festival, For a Woman, Diane Kurys, No God No Master, David Strathairn, On My Way, Catherine Deneuve, Transcendence movie, Johnny Depp, Watermark movie, Jennifer Baichwall, Edward Burtynsky, Manufactured Landscapes, Robert Altman, The Long Goodbye, University of Chicago Doc Films, Alain Resnais, Melo, Ernst Lubitsch, The Merry Widow, Orson Welles, Othello, Gene Siskel Film Center, 10 Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Zemeckis, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Logan Theater Chicago, University of Chicago Film Studies Center, Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre, Logan Center for the Arts, First Steps: The Early Works of Ruth Page and Sybil Shearer, Columbia College Film Row Cinema, Found Footage Festival, Music Box Chicago, Poets of Protest, Facets Cinematheque, Manal Al Sheikh, Mazen Maarouf, Sound of Silent Film Festival, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 18, 2014
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The Patio's last shows for a while, and the rest of this week's movies

A roundup of new and notable movies screening in Chicago between 4/18 and 4/24
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Opening, Film, Patio Theater, The Kid, Charlie Chaplin, Chicago Silent Film Society, Northwest Chicago Film Society, The Strange Love of Molly Louvain, Ann Dvorak, Christina Rice, Oculus, Scarface, Howard Hawks, Pickwick Theatre, Big Men, Rachel Boynton, Hateship Loveship, Alice Munro, Natural Life, Tirtza Even, Omar, Hany Abu-Assad, Only Lovers Left Alive, Jim Jarmusch, The Railway Man, Colin Firth, The Unknown Known, Errol Morris, Donald Rumsfeld, Under the Same Sun, Chicago Palestine Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Doc Films, Joyce Wieland, Design for Living, Ernst Lubitsch, Sullivan's Travels, Preston Sturges, California Split, Robert Altman, Love Unto Death, Alain Resnais, Music Box Theatre, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, Rope, Alfred Hitchcock, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Oedipus Rex, Medea, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 14, 2014
Stephen Sondheim and Alain Resnais, together again in Chicago

In a fortuitous turn, Doc Films's current Alain Resnais retrospective coincides with Chicago revivals of several musicals by Stephen Sondheim, a hero and onetime collaborator of Resnais's.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Theater, Moviegoing, Film, Music, Alain Resnais, Doc Films, Stephen Sondheim, moviegoing, Life Is a Bed of Roses, Dave Kehr, Passion, Road Show, Theo Ubique, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, No Exit Cafe

Blogs, Bleader Mar 30, 2014
Weekly Top Five: The best unrealized films

Notable films that never made it to screen
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Weekly Top Five, Film, Alain Resnais, Stan Lee, the Monster Maker, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Jesus, historical Jesus, David Cronenberg, Pierre David, Marry Shelley, Frankenstein, The Fly, Robert Bresson, Genesis, Dino de Laurentiis, A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, Harold Ramis, Steven Soderbergh, David Gordon Green, John Waters, John Belushi, John Goodman, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Zach Galifianakis

Blogs, Bleader Mar 28, 2014
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Chicago in the future, the underground in Chicago, and the rest of this week's movies

Noting new and notable films screening in Chicago from 3/28 to 4/3
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Opening, Film, Movies, Chicago Underground Film Festival, European Union Film Festival, Doc Films, Wild Boys of the Road, William Wellman, Michael Snow, Wavelength, M*A*S*H*, Robert Altman, Alain Resnais, Night and Fog, Michael Haneke, Funny Games, What I Love About Concrete, Divergent, Cesar Chavez, biopic, Everyday, Michael Winterbottom, The Human Scale, Breathe In, Drake Doremus, Eliza Hittman, It Felt Like Love, Jodorowsky's Dune, Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Holy Mountain, Music Box Theatre, Shadow of a Doubt, Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. Freedom, William Klein, Taking Off, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Patio theater, repertory film, Video

Blogs, Bleader Mar 21, 2014
More thoughts on Resnais, Breaking Bad, surrealism, and "surrealism"

Considering the influence of 20s and 30s surrealism on more recent film and television
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Arts, Television, Film, Surrealism, Alain Resnais, Breaking Bad, Vince Gilligan, Andre Breton, Salvador Dali, Simon of the Desert, Mon Oncle d'Amerique, Same Old Song, First Surrealist Manifesto, automatic writing, Communist Party, Leo Tolstoy, Enemy, Denis Villeneuve, Jose Saramago, The Double, The X-Files

Blogs, Bleader Mar 3, 2014
The surrealists' moviegoing game (RIP Alain Resnais, 1922-2014)

The great French filmmaker, who passed away yesterday at 91, transformed the screening environment into a portal to the subconscious.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Foreign, RIP, Moviegoing, Film, Moviegoing, Alain Resnais, surrealism, Andre Breton, French cinema, Providence, Wild Grass, Melo, Private Fears in Public Places, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, Hiroshima Mon Amour, montage, Love Unto Death, La Guerre Est Finie

Film, Movie Feature Dec 24, 2013
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Year in review: 2013 at the movies

J.R. Jones and Ben Sachs each pick their top ten.
- By J.R. Jones and Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Feature, Year in Review 2013, Joshua Oppenheimer, Michael Haneke, Kleber Mendonca Filho, Jia Zhang-ke, Steve McQueen, Michael Fassbender, Jason Osder, Wilson Goode, Jeremy Scahill, Rithy Panh, David O. Russell, Frederick Wiseman, Ulrich Seidl, Paradise trilogy, Edward Lachman, Wolfgang Thaler, Andrew Bujalski, Pedro Almodovar, Tsai Ming-liang, Miguel Gomes, Johnnie To, Alfonso Cuaron, Alain Resnais, Video

Blogs, Bleader Nov 6, 2013
This week in Claire Denis: Talking to local critic Marilyn Ferdinand about Chocolat and White Material

The first in a series of conversations about the noted French filmmaker, the subject of a monthlong retrospective at the Gene Siskel Film Center
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Foreign, Women's Issues, Film, History, Claire Denis, Chocolat, White Material, Gene Siskel Film Center, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ferdy on Films, Shane Truax, female filmmakers, globalization, French colonialism, Tabu, colonialism, Miguel Gomes, The Invisible Collection, Caryl Churchill, Cloud 9, Landscapes of Loss, Naomi Greene, Muriel, Alain Resnais

Blogs, Bleader Oct 25, 2013
Video
Guerrillas, gamma people, and the rest of this week's screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Escape From Tomorrow, Disneyland, Disney World, Ben Sachs, Jodie Mack: Let Your Light Shine, School of the Art Institute, All Is Lost, Robert Redford, Bad Grandpa, Jackass, Johnny Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine, Carrie movie, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sissy Spacek, The Counselor, Ridley Scott, Cormac McCarthy, The Gamma People, Marianna Milhorat: Notions of Space, Hou Hsiao-hsien, City of Sadness, University of Chicago Doc Films, Michael Reeves, The Conqueror Worm, Gene Siskel Film Center, Far From Vietnam, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, Northwestern University Block Museum of Art, John Carpenter Halloween, Logan Theater Chicago, River East 21, Landmark's Century Centre, D.W. Griffith Intolerance, John Cassavetes, Minnie and Moskowitz, Roman Polanski, Rosemary's Baby, Music Box Chicago, Alexander Sokurov, Russian Ark, George Pal, War of the Worlds, Robin Hardy, The Wicker Man, Englewood International Film Festival, Chatham 14, Chicago International Film Festival, Facets Cinematheque, Chris & Heather's Halloween Hootenanny, Fitzgerald's, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Oct 10, 2013
Don Jon and Chloe in the Afternoon: Rare movies that successfully illustrate habitual action

How movies get us into a habit
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Foreign, The Internet, Film, Don Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eric Rohmer, Chloe in the Afternoon, Alain Resnais, La Guerre est Finie, habitual action, image, Afterschool, Disconnect, the Internet

Blogs, Bleader Aug 5, 2013
On reflection, Private Fears in Public Places is a great title for a movie

Memories of Alain Resnais, my paternal grandparents, and John Hughes's Curly Sue, though not necessarily in that order.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: 90s Nostalgia, Moviegoing, Film, Moviegoing, Alain Resnais, Music Box Theatre, Private Fears in Public Places, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, Boogie Nights, Curly Sue, John Hughes, grandparents, Sunday afternoon, taxi cab

Blogs, Bleader Jul 29, 2013
The screening environment as choker hold

Certain movies are best appreciated in a pitch-black room.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Dim the Lights, Foreign, Moviegoing, Film, Moviegoing, Alain Resnais, Stan Brakhage, Chicago Filmmakers, Cat Film Festival, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, Music Box Theatre, Last Year at Marienbad, Orson Welles, This Is Orson Welles, Wild Grass, Love Unto Death, Private Fears in Public Places, Adler Planetarium, star shows, wide-screen cinematography

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