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The Chicago Reader

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Film, Movie Feature Nov 11, 2020
Recommended
COVID can’t stop the film freaks at CUFF

The world’s longest-running underground film festival plays on.
- By Kathleen Sachs
- Tags: Movie Feature, Chicago Underground Film Festival, CUFF, Logan Theatre, Bryan Wendorf, ChiTown Movies, South Side Projections, Mark Bosco, Elizabeth Coffman, Flannery, Andrew J. Morgan, Nick Nummerdor, Sleeze Lake: Vanlife at its Lowest & Best, Taila Howe, Early to Bed, Jay Bliznick, Minecraft, The Empty Bottle, Thalia Hall, Elastic Art, Garfield Park Conservatory, Billy Lemos, Haiku Hands, CHAI, Recommended

Film, Movie Review Jun 6, 2018
Chicago Underground Film Festival: The Story of a Satellite

In this Spanish drama, a young man whose father was killed by a falling satellite keeps an eye on the sky.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Review, The Story of a Satellite, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Miriam Albert-Sobrino, Sonia Albert-Sobrino, Also Sisters, Pedro Almodovar, Alfonso Miguez, Spanish cinema, movies

Film, Movie Review Jun 5, 2018
Chicago Underground Film Festival: The Shorts

Reader critics assess eight short works screening in the 25th edition
- By Andrea Gronvall and Leah Pickett
- Tags: Movie Review, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Jennifer Reeder, Signature Move, Brothers Grimm, All Small Bodies, Tim Plester, Game of Thrones, Bill Brown, Sabine Gruffat, Amarillo Ramp, Mack Dick Ranch, Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, Clouds of Petals

Film, Movie Review Jun 5, 2018
Recommended
Chicago Underground Film Festival: Gold and copper miners tough it out in Good Luck

Ben Russell's epic portrait of the global labor force screens at the Chicago Underground Film Festival
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Review, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Good Luck Ben Russell, Let Each One Go Where He May, A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness, Bor Serbia, Brokopondo Suriname, Andy Warhol, gold mining, copper mining, labor issues, experimental film, movies, Recommended

Blogs, Bleader Jun 4, 2018
Chicago Underground Film Festival at 25: A look back

As the 25th Chicago Underground Film Festival approaches, here are ten stand-out features from festivals past.
- By Patrick Friel
- Tags: Film, Comedy, LGBTQ+, Music, On Video, Chicago Underground Film Festival, CUFF, underground, Half-Cocked, Suki Hawley, Michael Galinsky, Horns and Halos, Freakwater, Sleepyhead, Grifters, J.R. Jones, The Delicate Art of the Rifle, D.W. Harper, Charles Whitman, Stephen Grant, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Straightman, Ben Berkowitz, Benjamin Redgrave, John Cassavetes, Shadows, The Target Shoots First, Christopher Wilcha, Columbia Record and Tape Club, 60 Minutes, Migrating Forms, James Fotopoulos, Fred Camper, Benjamin Smoke, Jem Cohen, Peter Sillen, Robert Dickerson, Smoke, AIDS, Patti Smith, Nice Bombs, Usama Alshaibi, Baghdad, Iraq, Putty Hill, Hamilton, Matthew Porterfield, David Gordon Green, George Washington, Your Highness, The Color Wheel, Alex Ross Perry, Ronald Bronstein, Frownland, Carlen Altman, Two Years at Sea, Ben Rivers, Jake Williams, This Is My Land, Ben Sachs

Blogs, Bleader May 10, 2018
An interview with Jon Moritsugu, director of Mod Fuck Explosion

The veteran underground filmmaker reflects on his four-decade career.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Film, Jon Moritsugu, Mod Fuck Explosion, Hippy Porn, Terminal USA, Amy Davis, Music Box Theatre, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Asian-American Film Festival, Rebel Without a Cause, Jean-Luc Godard, Kenneth Anger, Liquid Sky, My Degeneration, Numbskull Revolution

Film, Movie Review May 9, 2018
Recommended
Mod Fuck Explosion: Stuck in the past, ahead of its time

Jon Moritsugu's underground classic reheats the 60s mod craze and strikes an early blow for Asian-American identity.
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Movie Review, Mod Fuck Exploision, Jon Moritsugu, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Franc Roddam, Quadrophenia, Amy Davis, Victor of Aquitane, Jacques Boyreau, Brown University, Dave Kim New York Times, Henry Rosenthal, Desi del Valle, underground cinema, Recommended

Blogs, Bleader Dec 20, 2017
Video
Ben Sachs’s favorite films of 2017

A list of the 35 best movies to play Chicago this year.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Film, Year in Review, Films of 2017, Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade, Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello, Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, Joseph Cedar, Richard Gere, Sixty Six, Lewis Klahr, L'Important C'Est D'Aimer, Andrzej Zulawski, Chicago International Film Festival, The Third Part of the Night, Doc Films, Film Studies Center, Dim the Fluorescents, Daniel Warth, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Nowhere to Hide, Zaradasht Ahmed, Facets Cinematheque, Ex Libris: The New York Public Library, Frederick Wiseman, Mimosas, Oliver Laxe, Song to Song, Terrence Malick, Terence Davies, A Quiet Passion, Alain Guiraudie, Staying Vertical, The Florida Project, Sean Baker, Princess Cy, Stephen Cone, The Other Side of Hope, Aki Kaurismaki, The Lovers, Azazel Jacobs, The Ornithologist, Joao Pedro Rodrigues, The Lost City of Z, James Gray, Darius Khondji, Slack Bay, Bruno Dumont, In Transit, Mudbound, Dee Rees, Julieta, Pedro Almodovar, Alice Munro, On the Beach at Night Alone, Hong Sang-soo, Western, Valeska Grisebach, Frantz, Francois Ozon, The Moderns, Get Out, Jordan Peele, Behemoth, The Breadwinner, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Faces Places, Felicite, A Ghost Story, Golden Years, Last Flag Flying, Our Time Will Come, Personal Shopper, Video

Film, Movie Feature May 24, 2017
Shorts, sharp and shocking, at the Chicago Underground Film Festival

Five days’ worth of features and short subjects screen in the festival’s 24th edition.
- Tags: Movie Feature, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Deborah Stratman, Xenoi, Exodus: Sounds of the Great Migration, Lonnie Edwards, One Way Ticket, Kent Lambert, Reckoning 4, Mark Borchardt, American Movie, Coven, The Dundee Project, Jodie Mack Curses, All the Rage, Michael Galinsky, John Sarno, Dim the Fluorescents, Claire Armstrong, Naomi Skwarna, Daniel Warth, Miles Barstead, Drifting Towards the Crescent, Laura Stewart, Hannibal Missouri, Kuro movie, Tujiko Noriko, Joji Koyama, Manlife: The Last of the Lawsonians, Lawsonomy, Alfred Lawson, Merle Hayden, Ryan Sarnowski, Neighborhood Food Drive, Bruce Bundy, Lyra Hill, Jerzy Rose, The Pink Egg, Jim Trainor, Weather House, Frauke Havemann, Eric Schefter, Mark Johnson, underground film, film festivals

Blogs, Bleader Mar 16, 2017
Illinois Film Tour will bring independent films, resources to communities statewide

The new initiative, cocurated by IFP Chicago and Full Spectrum Features through a grant from Illinois Humanities, is committed to starting conversations about social issues and elevating diverse filmmakers.
- By Leah Pickett
- Tags: Film, $$$, Arts, Politics, Illinois Film Tour, Full Spectrum Features, IFP Chicago, Illinois Humanities, Multiplier grant, Mark Hallett, Eugene Sun Park, Nicole Bernardi-Reis, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago Cultural Alliance, Landmarks Illinois, Inherit Chicago, Carbondale Community Arts, Chicagoland Shorts, Hidden Histories

Film, Movie Feature Jun 2, 2016
What to see at the Chicago Underground Film Festival

More than 100 new films screen through Sunday at the Logan Theatre.
- Tags: Movie Feature, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Logan Theater Chicago, The Alchemist Cookbook, Ty Hickson, Amari Cheatom, Joel Potrykus, Buzzard film, Booger Red, Texas Monthly, Mineola Seven, Berndt Mader, Director's Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein, Clu Gallagher, Zack Norman, Leon Vitali, Jay Kirk, Tim Kirk, The Love Witch, Samantha Robinson, Anna Biller, Robert Frost, Luther Price: The Hermit, Pastor Paul, Jules David Bartkowski, The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers, Ben Rivers, Pere Portabella, Cuadecuc-Vampir, Oliver Laxe, Paul Bowles, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present

Blogs, Bleader May 15, 2015
Video
The Chicago Underground Film Festival highlights this week's new movie reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Logan Theater Chicago, James D. Cooper, Lambert & Stamp, The Who, Cousin Jules, Dominique Benicheti, The Film Critic, Hot Pursuit, Reese Witherspoon, Sofia Vergara, I Am Big Bird, Caroll Spinney, Iris Apfel, Lost in the White City, Metalhead, The People vs. Paul Crump, William Friedkin, The Exorcist, The French Connection, She's Lost Control, Soul Boys of the Western World, Spandau Ballet, Frederick Wiseman Ballet, University of Chicago Doc Films, Stanley Kubrick, Barry Lyndon, Isao Takahata, Grave of the Fireflies, Gene Siskel Film Center, Orson Welles, The Immortal Story, Mario Bava Kidnapped, Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire, Errol Morris, The Thin Blue Line, Northwestern University Block Museum of Art, Bert Williams Rediscovered, Logan Center for the Arts, Live to Tape Artist Television Festival, Links Hall Chicago, Urban Renewal and Its Aftermath 1953-Present, Black Cinema House, film festivals, underground film, movies, Video

Film, Movie Feature May 13, 2015
Our guide to the Chicago Underground Film Festival 2015

More than a hundred shorts and features screen through Sunday at the Logan Theatre.
- By Drew Hunt, J.R. Jones, and Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Feature, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Logan Theatre, Ben Russell, Ben Rivers, L for Leisure, Brunt in Memort, Sailing a Sinking Sea, Speculation Nation, En Plein Air, Non-Stop Beautiful Girls, Blue Loop, July, Alee Peoples, Mike Gibbiser, Gabriel Abrantes, Ennui Ennui, Atlantis, Immune! The Origin of Ryan Scammell, Superhero (Approximately 72% Non-fiction), Ryan Scammel, Robert Stockwell, Max Gold, Lev Kalman, Whitney Horn, Privilege and Obsession, Stephen Graves, Olivia Wyatt, Sabine Gruffat, Bill Brown, Hacked Circuit, Joanna Arnow, Bad at Dancing, Scott Treleaven, The Salvation, experimental film, underground film, independent film

Blogs, Bleader May 8, 2015
Video
Far From the Madding Crowd, the rest of our new movie reviews, and this week's notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Far From the Madding Crowd, Carey Mulligan, Ben Sachs, The D Train, Jack Black, James Marsden, Queen and Country, Gene Siskel Film Center, John Boorman, Point Blank, Deliverance, Hope and Glory, M*A*S*H, Stripes, About Elly, Asghar Farhadi Separation, Aspen Frederick Wiseman, Black Souls, Heaven Adores You, Elliott Smith, Christina Noble documentary, Roar movie, Tippi Hedren, Welcome to Me, Kristen Wiig, Music Box Chicago, Shira Piven, Joan Cusack, Orson Welles, Chimes at Midnight, University of Chicago Doc Films, Sam Raimi, The Evil Dead, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Flowers of Shanghai, Hope and Glory, Edward S. Curtis, In the Land of the Head Hunters, Dennis Scott, Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke, Alexander Korda, That Hamilton Woman, Frank Tashlin, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, CineYouth Festival, Columbia College Film Row Cinema, Dyke Delicious May Shorts, Chicago Filmmakers, For Educational Purposes Only, Washington Park Arts Incubator, Sing-A-Long Mamma Mia, Sonic Celluloid, Northwestern University Block Museum of Art, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Ruined Heart, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 7, 2014
Watching the audience with Usama Alshaibi

A conversation with the former Chicagoan and longtime independent moviemaker about the relationship between movies and spectators
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Education, Moviegoing, Film, Usama Alshaibi, American Arab, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Kartemquin Films, Gordon Quinn, Profane, moviegoing, cinema of transgression, Back to the Future

Blogs, Bleader Apr 4, 2014
Video
CUFF, CLFF, 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, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Logan Theater Chicago, Chicago Latino Film Festival, River East 21, Gene Siskel Film Center, Anita: Speaking Truth to Power, Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Marvel Comics, Ernest & Celestine, Finding Vivian Maier, Noah movie, Noah Russell Crowe, Nymphomaniac: Volume II, Lars von Trier, Sabotage Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Altman, Brewster McCloud, University of Chicago Doc Films, Macario Roberto Galvadon, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mamma Roma, Ernst Lubitsch, Trouble in Paradise, Chicago Festival of Bosnian Herzegovinian Film, Loyola University, film festivals, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 2, 2014
Reader's Agenda Wed 4/2: Chicago Underground Film Festival, Historie de Melody Gainsbourg, and the Sounds

What's on the Reader's Agenda for Wednesday, April 2
- By Taylor Tolbert
- Tags: Do This, Arts, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Katherine Dohan, Alanna Stewart, What I Love About Concrete, Logan Theatre, Jennifer Reeder, A Million Miles Away, Joe Bryl, Serge Gainsbourg, Maria's Packaged Goods & Community Bar, Cabbage-Head Men, The Sounds, Metro, Blondfire, Strange Talk

Film, Movie Feature Apr 2, 2014
Two film festivals, two indie filmmakers, one discussion on filmmaking ethics

Usama Alshaibi and Carlos Jiménez Flores have different filmmaking styles, but they take a similar stance on mainstream depictions of race and ethnicity in popular media.
- Tags: Movie Feature, CUFF, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Usama Alshaibi, CLFF, Chicago Latino Film Festival, Carlos Jiménez Flores, Gene Siskel Film Center, European Union Film Festival, film, filmmakers, My Princess, American Arab, sociology, Columbia College Chicago, film crews, Dogme 95, video

Film, Movie Sidebar Apr 2, 2014
Our guide to the 21st annual Chicago Underground Film Festival

Digital may have killed celluloid, but underground cinema is alive and well.
- By Drew Hunt, J.R. Jones, and Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Sidebar, Chicago Underground Film Festival, La Ultima Pelicula, Logan, American Arab, Critical Paranoia: Conspiratorial Memes, Alternative Histories, and Disinformation, Dream Town, East of Hell, Dreams Less Sweet, Shadow Zombie, Sick Birds Die Easy, The Unity of All Things, When My Sorrow Died: The Legend of Armen Ra & the Theremin, Who Took Johnny

Film, Movie Review Apr 1, 2014
Underground film goes aboveground with What I Love About Concrete

The annual Chicago Underground Film Festival opens with a high school fantasy set in Memphis.
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Movie Review, What I Love About Concrete, Katherine Dohan, Alanna Stewart, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Bryan Wendorf, Memphis, experimental cinema, avant-garde cinema

Blogs, Bleader Mar 28, 2014
Video
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

Best of Chicago, Arts & Culture Jun 20, 2013
Critics' Picks
Best Avant-Garde/Experimental Film Series Located in a Mexican Restaurant

Taco Cinematheque
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Arts & Culture, Tacos Garcia, Logan Square, Amir George, Cinema Culture, Taco Cinematheque, Lindsay Denniberg, Video Diary of a Lost Girl, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Critics' Picks

Blogs, Bleader Mar 13, 2013
The ongoing relationship between psychiatry and American movies

How Side Effects and See You Next Tuesday reflect new trends in the movies' depiction of mental illness.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: It's Complicated, Film, Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh, See You Next Tuesday, Drew Tobia, Chicago Underground Film Festival, mental illness, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Jones, Shine, As Good as It Gets, Lodge Kerrigan, Clean Shaven, Keane, Silver Linings Playbook, The Cobweb, Vincente Minnelli, The Seventh Veil, James Mason, DSM

Blogs, Bleader Mar 11, 2013
See You Next Tuesday and the underground among us

First impressions of this year's Audience Award winner at the Chicago Underground Film Festival
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Moviegoing, Film, See You Next Tuesday, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Drew Tobia, Eleanore Pienta, Repulsion, "those people", mental illness, comedy of discomfort

Blogs, Bleader Mar 8, 2013
Video
Pig Death Machine and the rest of this week's movies

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Chicago Underground Film Festival, Pig Death Machine, Jon Moritsugu, Scumrock, A Body Without Organs, Steve Graves, Vigilante Vigilante, Max Good, European Union Film Festival, Barbara Christian Petzold, Christian Petzold Yella, Jerichow, The ABCs of Death, Emperor movie, Tommy Lee Jones, Douglas MacArthur, The Monk movie, Seymour Cassel, No Gael Garcia Bernal, Oz the Great and Powerful, James Franco, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Bob Byington, RO (Registered Sex Offender), and Yossi Eytan Fox, Yossi & Jagger, Michael Curtiz, The Adventures of Robin Hood, King Vidor The Crowd, University of Chicago Doc Films, Pearl Gluck Divan, Harold Washington Library Center, Ridley Scott, Thelma & Louise, Logan Theater Chicago, Wong Kar-wai 2046, Peace on Earth Film Festival, Sci-Fi Spectacular, Portage Theater Chicago, film festivals, movies, Video

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