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The Chicago Reader

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Film, Movie Feature Jan 29, 2021
Rebecca Fons leads Gene Siskel Film Center into a new era

The new director of programming prepares for the return to in-theater viewing and beyond.
- By Kathleen Sachs
- Tags: Movie Feature, Rebecca Fons, Gene Siskel Film Center, Marty Rubin, Barbara Scharres, FilmScene, Iowa City, Columbia College Chicago, Chicago International Film Festival, Winterset, Iowa, The Iowa Theater, Jack C. Newell, Harold Ramis Film School, Black Harvest Film Festival, Annual Festival of Films from Iran, Chicago Palestine Film Festival, the Asian American Showcase, Alliance for Action, Arthouse Convergence

Columns & Opinion, On Politics Dec 21, 2020
Looking ahead

I think we can all agree the next year has got to be better.
- By Ben Joravsky
- Tags: On Politics, COVID-19, coronavirus, George Clinton, the Isley Brothers, the O’Jays, Taste of Chicago, Black Harvest Film Festival, Grant Park, White Sox, Cubs, Wrigley, Ricketts, Year in Review

Film, Movie Feature Nov 6, 2020
Recommended
Black Harvest Film Festival is still a party

In its 26th year, the festival stretches itself in celebration—and in service.
- By Arionne Nettles
- Tags: Movie Feature, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, David Weathersby, Thee Debauchery Ball, Barbara Scharres, NK Gutiérrez, Pemon Rami, Michelle Boone, Lonnie Edwards, Ashley O’Shay, Sista Afya Community Mental Wellness, ILA Creative Studio, Rachel Gadson, Recommended

Film, Movie Review Sep 11, 2018
Sociologist and filmmaker David Schalliol explains how he came to make his first documentary, The Area

"I want to meet people, understand a place, make connections, and produce work that has meaning and effect."
- By Andrea Gronvall
- Tags: Movie Review, David Schalliol, The Area, documentary, Black Harvest Film Festival, Englewood, Deborah Payne, Norfolk Southern Railway, Sociolography, University of Chicago, Affordable Housing in New York, Isolated Building Studies, Almost There, Scrappers Film Group, Brian Ashby, south side

Blogs, Bleader Aug 6, 2018
Nikka Costa at City Winery and more of the best things to do in Chicago this week

Black Harvest Film Festival and more goings on 8/6-8/9
- By Katie Powers
- Tags: Arts, Film, Music, Do This, The Cakemaker, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Nikka Costa, City Winery, Witch Mountain, Reggie's Music Joint, Defacing Michael Jackson, The Lady Demands Satisfaction

Film, Movie Review Aug 2, 2018
Black Harvest Film Festival fights to redefine Chicago's south and west sides

A trio of locally shot documentaries showcase resolute, civic-minded personalities
- By Andrea Gronvall
- Tags: Movie Review, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, David Schalliol The Area, Englewood neighborhood Chicago, Chicago 20th Ward, Norfolk Southern Railway, Deborah Payne The Area, Willie Cochran, University of Chicago, Isolated Building Studies

Blogs, Bleader Dec 14, 2016
Former political power couple Jesse Jackson Jr. and Sandi Jackson are divorcing, and other Chicago news

Also, a City Council committee is recommending paying $3 million to the family of an unarmed teen shot dead by police in 2013.
- By Kate Shepherd
- Tags: News, Did You Read __________?, Sandi Jackson, Jesse Jackson Jr., Cedrick Chatman, City Council, David Moore, police brutality, Chicago, Airbnb, Rob Sherman, aviation, National Endowment for the Arts, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Joffrey Ballet, Chicago International Film Festival, Hyde Park Art Center

Blogs, Bleader Aug 5, 2016
Video
Director Tod Lending discusses racial segregation in Chicago and his new documentary All the Difference

The movie screens Sunday and Monday as part of the Black Harvest Film Festival.
- By Leah Pickett
- Tags: Film, Education, Segregation, Tod Lending, Black Harvest Film Festival, All the Difference, Legacy film, segregation, racism, education, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 28, 2015
Video
Brando is back, plus more new reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Film, Opening, Marlon Brando, Listen to Me Marlon, Zac Efron, We Are Your Friends, Christmas Wedding Baby, College Week, Black Harvest Film Festival, An Eye for Beauty, Denys Arcand, Grandma movie, Lily Tomlin, Learning to Drive, Patricia Clarkson, Ben Kingsley, Losing Ground, Kathleen Collins, No Escape, Pierce Brosnan, Owen Wilson, She's Funny That Way, Peter Bogdanovich, Imogen Poots, Jennifer Aniston, We Come As Friends, Hubert Sauper, Robert Siodmak, Criss Cross, Carl Reiner, The Jerk, Steve Martin, Stanley Kubrick, The Killing, Tim Burton, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Tomm Moore, Song of the Sea, Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents, The Torrent, Greta Garbo, Silent Summer Film Festival, Noir City: Chicago, Alan K. Rode, Film Noir Foundation, The Racket, Robert Ryan, The Lives of Robert Ryan, The Chase, Hangover Square, Ride the Pink Horse, House of Bamboo, Witness to Murder, Criss Cross, The Underworld Story, Video

Arts & Culture, Summer Guide Aug 3, 2015
Ten cool things to do in Chicago in August

Summer's almost over, but there's still plenty to do between now and Labor Day.
- By Reader staff
- Tags: Summer Guide, summer guide 2015, Justin Townes Earle, Black Harvest Film Festival, Brooklyn Brewery Mash Tour, Beer Shark Mice, Kafkapalooza, Great American Lobster Fest, Wizard World Comic Con, Chicago Dancing Festival, Billy Joel, Bucktown Arts Fest

Film, Movie Review Feb 12, 2015
Recommended
Local filmmaker Daniel Nearing blends black and white, past and present

Hogtown and Chicago Heights present a rich cast of characters.
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Movie Review, Daniel Nearing, Hogtown, Daniel Nearing, Chicago Heights, Black Harvest Film Festival, Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio, Chinatown, The Last Soul on a Summer Night, Andre Truss, Michaela Nicole, Jay Johnson, Simone Wilson, Benny Stewart, Keisha Dyson, Jack Dempsey, Ernest Hemingway, Recommended

Blogs, Bleader Aug 16, 2014
Reader's Agenda Sat 8/16: Residue Records Showcase, Chicago Hip-Hop Day Festival, and the Black Harvest Film Festival

What's on the Reader's Agenda for Saturday, August 16
- By Kerry Cardoza
- Tags: Do This, Arts, Hip-Hop, Film, Music, Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, hip-hop, Residue Records, Township, Criaturas, Herds, Impalers

Blogs, Bleader Aug 15, 2014
Video
The cross, the crosshairs, 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, Brendan Gleeson Calvary, John Michael McDonagh, The Guard Brendan Gleeson, Ben Sachs, Into the Storm, The German Doctor, Josef Mengele, Venus in Fur, Roman Polanski, David Ives, The Bicycle movie, Vittorio De Sica, The Bicycle Thief, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Coldwater movie, Dinosaur 13, Little White Lie, That Daughter's Crazy, Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor, The White Shadow, Alfred Hitchcock, Bill Condon, Dreamgirls, Millennium Park, Nobuhiko Obayashi, House movie, University of Chicago Doc Films, Fredi M. Murer, Vitus, Chicago Cultural Center, Music Box, Summer Music Film Festival, Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night, Jonathan Demme, Stop Making Sense, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 8, 2014
Video
Show us your Ibsen, 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, J.R. Jones, Jonathan Demme, Rachel Getting Married, A Master Builder, Wallace Shawn, Henrik Ibsen, Andre Gregory, Philadelphia movie, The Silence of the Lambs, Lisa Joyce, DePaul University, Gene Siskel Film Center, Ben Sachs, One Day Pina Asked, Pina Bausch, Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles, Calvary movie, Calvary Brendan Gleeson, Unsound Darius Britt, Black Harvest Film Festival, Alive Inside, The 4th Meeting, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Studios, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Helen Mirren, Into the Storm, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Violette Emmanuelle Devos, Violette Leduc, What If, Zoe Kazan, Daniel Radcliffe, George Lucas, American Graffiti, Millennium Park, Vittorio de Sica, The Bicycle Thief, Tivoli Downers Grove, After Hours Film Society, Alfred Hitchcock Blackmail, John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy, Logan Theater Chicago, Rouben Mamoulian, Silk Stockings, Music Box, David Wain, Wet Hot American Summer, University of Chicago Doc Films, Dennis Scott, Hoot Gibson, King of the Rodeo, Second Saturday Silent Cinema, Hideout Chicago, Jessica Hopper, Chicago Film Archives, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 1, 2014
Video
Presents of the Lords, 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, J.R. Jones, Lord Thing, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, Conservative Vice Lords, Lawndale Chicago, Richard J. Daley, Chicago Film Archives, Robert Ford The Corner, Lance Williams, Northeastern Illinois University, Cynthia Kobel, Second Chance Initiative, Benneth Lee, National Alliance for the Empowerment of the Formerly Incarcerated, Ben Sachs, The Fluffy Movie, Gabriel Iglesias, Chicago French Film Festival, Music Box Chicago, Get On Up, Chadwick Boseman, James Brown, Jayhawkers, Wilt Chamberlain, Kevin Willmott, C.S.A.: Confederate States of America, Melvin & Jean: An American Story, Delta Air Lines, Black Liberation Army, Kevin Smith Clerks, New 400 Chicago, Emmanuel Bourdieu, Poison Friends, University of Chicago Doc Films, Fred Astaire, Joan Leslie, Robert Benchley, Robert Ryan, The Sky's the Limit, Cecil B. DeMille, The Whispering Chorus, Pickwick Park Ridge, Silent Film Society of Chicago, David Lynch, Frank Herbert Dune, Frank Pavich, Jodorowsky's Dune, Alejandro Jodorowsky, The Holy Mountain, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 1, 2014
Reader's Agenda Fri 8/1: Lollapalooza, Give Me 500, and Black Harvest Film Festival

What's on the Reader's Agenda for Friday, August 1
- By Will Greenberg
- Tags: Do This, Arts, Lollapalooza, Eminem, Zedd, Arctic Monkeys, Give Me 500, Black Harvest Film Festival

Blogs, Bleader Aug 23, 2013
Video
The 'Scope of Fleischer's vision, and the rest of this week's movies

A preview of new and notable films playing in Chicago from August 23 to 29
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Opening, Film, The Butler, Lee Daniels, long review, Noir City: Chicago, Music Box Theatre, Richard Fleischer, Violent Saturday, CinemaScope, Austenland, Jerusha Hess, Drinking Buddies, Joe Swanberg, Paranoia, Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, You're Next, Adam Wingard, Four of Hearts, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, Home, Destination: Planet Negro!, David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Duck You Sucker!, Sergio Leone, spaghetti westerns, Jean-Luc Godard, Vivre sa Vie, Bruce Baillie, experimental cinema, Day of Wrath, Carl Dreyer, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Patio Theater, A Useful Life, Chicago Cultural Center, Uruguayan cinema, Federico Veiroj, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 16, 2013
Video
Aldrich rides again, and the rest of this week's movies

A roundup of new and notable movies playing in Chicago between August 16 and 22.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Opening, Film, Movies, Ulzana's Raid, Robert Aldrich, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Kiss Me Deadly, The Dirty Dozen, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Emperor of the North, The Longest Yard, The Spectacular Now, The Act of Killing, Andrea Gronvall, J.R. Jones, Ben Sachs, Apache, Vera Cruz, Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Butler, Lee Daniels, Precious, The Paperboy, The Canyons, Paul Schrader, Bret Easton Ellis, The Day of Two Noons, Mike Gibisser, Expose Me Lovely, Raymond Chandler, Hannah Arendt, Margarethe von Trotta, Gene Siskel Film Center, Highland Park, In a World..., lake Bell, Kick-Ass 2, comic book adaptation, Steve Jobs, Jobs, biopic, Prince Avalanche, David Gordon Green, Sabata, spaghetti western, Black Harvest Film Festival, Home Again, Jamaica, The Retrieval, revival screenings, Faust, F.W. Murnau, John Ford, The Long Voyage Home, Eugene O'Neill, Doc Films, Diamond Jim, Preston Sturges, Patio Theater, David Fincher, Zodiac, Panic Room, Jean-Luc Godard, Le Petit Soldat, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 9, 2013
Video
Great popular art, past and present, and the rest of this week's movies

Noting new and notable movies playing in Chicago between August 9 and 15
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Opening, Film, Drug War, Johnnie To, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, Alfred Hitchcock, Music Box Theatre, Hitchcock 9, silent films, popular art, 2 Guns, Mark Wahlberg, Denzel Washington, South Side Projections, Logan Center for the Arts, Revolution on Film, ONO, Trick Bag, Kartemquin Films, No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger, It's a Gift, W.C. Fields, Northbrook Public Library, Peter Kuttner, Elysium, Neill Blomkamp, District 9, Europa Report, Sebastian Cordero, sci-fi, Lovelace, Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman, biopic, Kid-Thing, Facets Multimedia, The Spectacular Now, Landmark Century Center, We're the Millers, The Year I Broke My Voice, Chicago Filmmakers, Doc Films, Our Daily Bread, Babe, King Vidor, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Sergio Leone, David Fincher, The Game, Fight Club, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Patio Theater, The Intruder, Roger Corman, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 8, 2013
A small talk on big subjects with writer-director Katherine Nero

A short interview with the writer-director of For the Cause, which screens tonight in the Black Harvest Film Festival
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Women's Issues, Film, History, Katherine Nero, For the Cause, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Panther Party, Chicago history, U.S. history, civil rights movement, COINTELPRO

Blogs, Bleader Aug 2, 2013
Video
One Japanese masterpiece, two local film festivals, and the rest of this week's screenings

A roundup of new and notable movies playing in Chicago between August 2 and 8
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Do This, Foreign, Opening, Film, Outside Satan, Bruno Dumont, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Sisters of Gion, Doc Films, Kenji Mizoguchi, Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Dead Man, Jim Jarmusch, Swing High Swing Low, Mitchell Leisen, Sundown in K-Town, Better Boys Foundation, Facets Multimedia, The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg, Music Box Theatre, spaghetti westerns, Sergio Corbucci, The Mercenary, The Wolverine, Wasteland, The Painting, French animation, David Fincher, Seven, Alien 3, Silent Film Society of Chicago, The Flapper, Video

Blogs, Bleader Aug 2, 2013
Reader's Agenda Fri 8/2: Black Harvest Film Festival, Arts of Life Summer Blowout Sale, and Louisiana swamp pop

What's on the Reader's Agenda for Friday, August 2
- By Tosten Burks
- Tags: Do This, Arts, Black Harvest Film Festival, A Black Harvest Feast, Gene Siskel Film Center, Arts of Life Inc., Summer Blowout Sale, the Revelers, Szold Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music

Film, Movie Sidebar Jul 31, 2013
Black Harvest Film Festival: Blues, Black Panthers, and hard-earned truths

Plus the fest's annual gala screening, this year featuring family-friendly shorts.
- Tags: Movie Sidebar, Black Harvest Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Martine Jean, The Silent Treatment, Steven Caple Jr., A Different Tree, Kibwe Tavares, Jonah, Ralph K. Scott, Barbasol, Babe's and Ricky's Inn, Ramin Niami, For the Cause, Katherine Nero, In Our Heads About Our Hair, Hemamset Angaza, Things Never Said, Charles Murray, Black Noir, Dion Strowhorn Sr, Charles Lloyd: Arrows Into Infinity, Charles Lloyd, Dorothy Darr, In Search of a Black Knight, Tamarat Makonnen, Jamel Shabazz Street Photographer, Charlie Ahearn, The Man in the Silo, Solace, Vandon N. Gibbs

Blogs, Bleader Aug 3, 2012
Video
Sick with fear, and the rest of the week's movies

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's, you know, issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Film, Drew Hunt, Columbia College, Killer Joe, William Friedkin (The Boys in the Band, The French Connection, The Exorcist, Cruising, Bug movie, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Tracy Letts, August: Osage County, Knox College, Galesburg, The Exorcist, William Friedkin, A Black Harvest Feast, Gene Siskel Film Center, Black Harvest Film Festival, The Christmas Tree, Angel Krsiti Williams, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Girlfriend Boyfriend, The Loves of Pharoah, Ernst Lubitsch, The Queen of Versailles, Richard's Wedding, Total Recall, Paul Verhoeven, Alice Svankmajer, Lewis Carroll, Jan Svankmajer, Abel Ferrara, The Driller Killer, Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead, Logan theater, Busby Berkeley, The Gang's All Here, Music Box, Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life, King Kong, Lewis Milestone, Hallelujah I'm a Bum, Portage theater, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Dziga Vertoz, The Man With the Movie Camera, film festivals, movies, Video

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