Switch to the mobile version of this page.

- Username
- View Profile
- Edit Profile
- Log Out
- Log in
- Create Account

The Chicago Reader

Articles

Loading...

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

Blogs, Bleader Jul 31, 2018
Jean-Pierre Melville's brooding cinema surveyed on FilmStruck

FilmStruck presents the films of influential French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville.
- By Patrick Friel
- Tags: Crime, Film, Foreign, On Video, Television, The Internet, Jean-Pierre Melville, FilmStruck, film noir, French New Wave, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, . The Silence of the Sea, Vercors, Howard Vernon, Nicole Stephane, Jean-Marie Robain, Robert Bresson, Orson Welles, Dave Kehr, Bob le Flambeur, Pigalle, The Asphalt Jungle, Two Men in Manhattan, Pierre Grasset, Nicolas Hayer, J.R. Jones, Le Samourai, Alain Delon, John Woo, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Henri Decae, The Book of Bushido, Joan McLeod, The Ronin, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Le Cercle Rouge, Gian Maria Volontè, Yves Montand, André Bourvil, François Périer, Bill Stamets

Film, Movie Review May 25, 2018
Recommended
L’Enfant Secret is so intimate it feels like a confession

French director Philippe Garrel moves past narrative to focus on intense emotion.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Review, L’Enfant Secret, Philippe Garrel, Prix Jean Vigo, Henri de Maublanc, Anne Wiazemsky, Robert Bresson, Au Hasard Balthazar, The Devil, Probably, The Virgin’s Bed, The Inner Scar, Nico, Les Hautes Solitudes, Adrian Martin, French cinema, movies, Recommended

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

Film, Movie Review Jan 24, 2018
Video
Fatih Akin’s thriller In the Fade proves there’s nothing more dangerous than a person who’s lost everything

Diane Kruger gives a devastating performance as a woman whose family dies in a neo-Nazi terror attack.
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Movie Review, Fatih Akin, In the Fade, Academy Awards, Numan Acar, Diane Kruger, Robert Bresson, AwardsCircuit.com, Head On Fatih Akin, Berlin film festival, Birol Ünel, Sibel Kekilli, Siir Eloglu, Aysel Iscan, Zwickau terror cell, National Socialist Underground, Der Spiegel, Henning Peker, neo-Nazi terror, suicide, German films, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Sep 12, 2017
Video
Nocturama is the most important new movie to play in Chicago this year

Bertrand Bonello's 2016 masterpiece is currently in the middle of a weeklong Chicago run at Facets.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Boom!, Do This, Film, Nocturama, Bertrand Bonello, The Brood, David Cronenberg, The Devil Probably, Robert Bresson, Toni Erdmann, Willow Smith, Whip My Hair, John Carpenter, Assault on Precinct 13, George A. Romero, Dawn of the Dead, Steadicam, Jacques Rivette, Video

Blogs, Bleader May 31, 2017
Immerse yourself in the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, master of the French crime film

The Gene Siskel Film Center begins a five-week retrospective of the director's work this weekend.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Crime, Film, Piety, Jean-Pierre Melville, Gene Siskel Film Center, Bob le Flambeur, Le Cercle Rouge, Leon Morin Priest, Two Men in Manhattan, Le Samourai, Un Flic, Le Silence de la Mer, Army of Shadows, French New Wave, John Woo, Johnnie To, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Emmanuelle Riva, French Resistance, Nazi occupation, Robert Bresson

Blogs, Bleader Mar 29, 2017
Terrence Malick loves us—he just has a peculiar way of showing it

With Song to Song, the Austin-based filmmaker finds transcendental beauty in his hometown's music scene.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Art House, Film, Piety, Terrence Malick, Song to Song, Paul Schrader, transcendental style, Robert Bresson, Yasujiro Ozu, Carl Th. Dreyer, Alexander Sokurov, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Nathaniel Dorsky, Phil Solomon, Bruno Dumont, Carlos Reygadas, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Val Kiilmer, Lykke Li, To the Wonder, Knight of Cups

Blogs, Bleader Oct 23, 2015
Video
The Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema, plus more new reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Film, Opening, Yona Wallach, Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema, The Amazing Nina Simone, Experimenter, Peter Sarsgaard, Modern Metropolis: Mid-Century Chicago on Film, Chicago Film Archives, Rock the Kasbah, Bill Murray, Afghan Star, Room movie, Lenny Abrahamson, Frank movie, Charles Barton, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Chris Costello, Wim Wenders, The American Friend, Robert Bresson, L’Argent, Edmund Goulding, Dark Victory, Bette Davis, Don Siegel, Dirty Harry, George Cukor, My Fair Lady, F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu, Dennis Scott, Tobe Hooper, Poltergeist, La Promesse, Paul Verhoeven, Robocop, Eric Rohmer, The Green Ray, Charles Burnett, To Sleep With Anger, Chicago International Film Festival, Andrew Stanton, WALL-E, Abigail Derby Lewis, Ingmar Bergman, Wild Strawberries, Witchcraft Through the Ages, Chicago International Children's Film Festival, Chicago Rot, The Cockups, Mad Max: Fury Road, Cinema Slapdown, Music Box of Horrors, Video

Blogs, Bleader May 22, 2015
Video
Mad Max is back, plus the rest of our new reviews and notable screenings

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Opening, Film, Mad Max: Fury Road, George Miller, Mad Max, The Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Ben Sachs, The Thoughts That Once We Had, Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself, Animals movie, Good Kill, Ethan Hawke, I'll See You in My Dreams, Blythe Danner, Martin Starr, The Lesson movie, On the Way to School, Slow West, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Tomorrowland, George Clooney, Douglas Sirk, Magnificent Obsession, Music Box Chicago, Robert Bresson, A Man Escaped, University of Chicago Doc Films, Orson Welles, Othello, Frederick Wiseman, Public Housing, Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away, Gene Siskel Film Center, Jay Levey, Weird Al Yankovic, UHF, Northwestern University Block Museum of Art, Chris Sullivan, Consuming Spirits, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Jan 18, 2015
Notes on the cinematographer: Robert Bresson's five best films

Highlights from the filmography of Robert Bresson
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Weekly Top Five, Film, Robert Bresson, Pickpocket, the Trial of Joan of Arc, L'Argent, A Man Escaped, Au Hasard Balthazar, Carl Theodore Dreyer, the Passion of Joan of Arc

Blogs, Bleader Nov 6, 2014
William Shatner wrestles with his soul at 4 AM, and this priest has it on videotape

Rediscovering the Twilight Zone-esque Catholic television series Insight, which ran from 1960 to 1983
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Piety, Television, Film, Insight, Ellwood Kieser, syndicated television, agnosticism, UCLA Film & Television Archive, Nightingale Cinema, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Walker Percy, Luis Buñuel, Hollywood Priest, Paulist Fathers, Isaac Hecker, William Shatner, Ted Post, Catholicism, Locusts Have No King

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

Film, Movie Review May 21, 2014
Recommended Video
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski delivers a spiritual masterpiece

In Ida, an innocent girl raised in a convent comes face-to-face with evil.
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Movie Review, Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland, My Summer of Love, The Woman in the Fifth, Robert Bresson, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Neighbors, Jan T. Gross, Aftermath, Wladyslaw Pasikowki, Recommended, Video

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 23, 2014
Weekly Top Five: Films directed by actors

Notable films directed by actors
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Weekly Top Five, Film, J.R. Jones, Bad Words, Jason Bateman, Arrested Development, Horrible Bosses, Little Murders, Dave Kehr, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Tommy Lee Jones, Sam Peckinpah, Anthony Mann, Bulworth, Warren Beatty, Wanda, Barbara Loden, Robert Bresson, The Night of the Hunter, Charles Laughton, Robert Mitchum

Film, Movie Sidebar Mar 5, 2014
Video
Our guide to the European Union Film Festival at Gene Siskel Film Center

More than 60 new features make their Chicago premieres through March.
- Tags: Movie Sidebar, Child's Pose, Luminita Gheorghiu, Bogdan Dumitrache, Razvan Radulescu, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Tuesday, After Christmas, Calin Peter Netzer, Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love, Robert Bresson, Agata Trzebuchowska, Agata Kulesza, Run & Jump, Edward MacLia, Maxine Peake, Will Forte, Steph Green, A Spell to Ward Off Darkness, Ben Rivers, Ben Russell, Two Years at Sea, Let Each One Go Where He May, Robert Lowe, The Strange Little Cat, Ramon Zürcher, What Now? Remind Me, Joaquim Pinto, Chris Marker, Sans Soleil, Jean-Luc Godard, Anne-Marie Miville, Soft and Hard, Video

Film, Movie Review Jan 1, 2014
Recommended Video
Back to school for Frederick Wiseman

In the epic At Berkeley, the director turns his lens on higher education in the age of George W. Bush.
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Movie Review, Frederick Wiseman, At Berkeley, Domestic Violence, Belfast Maine, Ballet, Boxing Gym, Welfare, Public Housing, Manoeuvre, Missile, State Legislature, The Store, Hospital, Near Death, Robert Bresson, David Lean, High School, Law and Order, Near Death, University of California, Berkeley, Athens, Our Town, Thornton Wilder, Robert Reich, Goldman School of Public Policy, Daniel Kasman, Free Speech Cafe, Republican Party, Recommended, Video

Blogs, Bleader Nov 27, 2013
L'Argent, Mary Poppins, and other Reader recommended movies to watch online this week

Some recommended movies from Old Movies to Watch Now, in which Reader film capsules guide what you should watch online.
- By Reader staff
- Tags: Old Movies to Watch Now, Film, Old Movies to Watch Now, Netflix, Hulu, online streaming, Dave Kehr, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Fred Camper, Bill Stamets, J.R. Jones, Ben Sachs, L'Argent, Robert Bresson, Black Girl, Ousmane Sembene, Burden of Dreams, Les Blank, Werner Herzog, Fitzcarraldo, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Luis Bunuel, History is Made at Night, Frank Borzage, Mary Poppins, OSS 117: Lost in Rio, Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Otto Preminger, Dana Andrews, Small Soldiers, Joe Dante, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Gulliver's Travels

Blogs, Bleader Jan 2, 2013
A list of 20 notable classics and rediscoveries that screened in Chicago in 2012

The year in revival screenings
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Year in Review, Film, Best of 2012, year in review, revival screenings, Gene Siskel Film Center, Facets Multimedia, the Nightingale, Doc Films, Bill Douglas, My Ain Folk, My Way Home, Bill Douglas Trilogy, Robert Bresson, Four Nights of a Dreamer, White Nights, Two Lovers, La Notti Bianche, The Devil's Cleavage, George Kuchar, Daughters Wives and a Mother, Mikio Naruse, Hideko Takamine, Satyajit Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World, Charulata, Northwestern University, Block Cinema, The Gang's All Here, Busby Berkeley, Les Blank, CIMM Fest, Macunaima, Impala Sound DJs, the Whistler, The Oak, Lucian Pintilie, Romanian Cinema, The Sign of Leo, Eric Rohmer, Whisper of the Heart, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, One People, African Diaspora Film Festival, Come Back Africa, Welcome to Pine Hill, You and Me, Fritz Lang, Northwest Chicago Film Society, Portage Theater, Cinema Borealis, Urban Peasants, Ken Jacobs, The Movie Orgy, Joe Dante, The Hole, Gremlins 2, South Side Hub of Projection, Poetry Foundation, Stan Brakhage, Deus Ex, Hauling Toto Big, Robert Nelson, experimental film, The Smiling Star, Werner Schroeter, Philippines, Kingdom of Naples, Palermo or Wolfsburg, Aleksei Guerman, Twenty Days Without War, My Friend Ivan Lapshin, Nothing But a Man, Michael Roemer, The Plot Against Harry, Robert Young

Blogs, Bleader Nov 7, 2012
Video
The funniest filmmaker you've never heard of

French comedian Pierre Etaix makes a comeback at Gene Siskel Film Center
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Film, Gene Siskel Film Center, Pierre Etaix, Jackie Chan, Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Rumba movie, The Fairy movie, Jacques Tati, Mon Oncle, Robert Bresson, Pickpocket movie, Pierre Etaix Rupture, Happy Anniversary Pierre Etaix, Pierre Etaix The Suitor, Buster Keaton, Cirque Medrano, Spite Marriage, Pierre Etaix Yoyo, Chaplin The Circus, Chaplin Limelight, Sherlock Jr, Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere, Belle de Jour, The Milky Way, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, As Long As You're Healthy, Pierre Etaix Le Grand Amour, Jacques Tati Playtime, Land of Milk and Honey, The Day the Clown Cried, Jerry Lewis, Micmacs, Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Aki Kaurismaki, Le Havre, French cinema, comedy, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Oct 17, 2012
CIFF notes: Darezhan Omirbaev's Student

First impressions of the respected Kazakh filmmaker's latest, now playing at the Chicago International Film Festival
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Foreign, Food Chain, Film, Darezhan Omirbaev, Student, Kent Jones, central Asian films, Kazakh films, Robert Bresson, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Physical Evidence, Chicago International Film Festival

Blogs, Bleader Sep 28, 2012
Video
This week's movies, and the rest of this week's movies

New reviews and notable screenings in this week's issue
- By J.R. Jones
- Tags: Film, Can movie, Gene Siskel Film Center, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel, Vogue, Music Box, Head Games, Steve James, Hoop Dreams, Stevie movie, At the Death House Door, Hotel Transylvania, Adam Sandler, Steve Buscemi, Cee-Lo Green, House at the End of the Street, Elisabeth Shue, Jennifer Lawrence, How I Ended This Summer, Gold Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival, Looper, Rian Johnson, Brick movie, The Brothers Bloom, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Lou Harrison: A World of Music, Love Likes Coincidences, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Logan Lerman, Pitch Perfect, Anna Kendrick, Elizabeth Banks, Rebel Wilson, Snowman's Land, Harold Pinter, The Dumb Waiter, Vulgaria, Bernardo Bertolucci, Before the Revolution, Block Museum of Art, John Carpenter, Dark Star, University of Chicago Doc Films, Michel Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Facets Cinematheque, James W. Anderson, Northwestern University, Howard Hawks, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Fred Camper, Robert Bresson, Pickpocket, Jack Conway, Red-Headed Woman, Chicago Horror Film Festival, Audre Lord's Cultural Legacy, Audre Lord: The Berlin Years 1984-1992, The Edge of Each Other's Battles: The Vision of Audre Lord, movies, Video

Blogs, Bleader Apr 3, 2012
People who care most about movies are the ones who stay home

Some reasons why it's better to watch movies at home rather than in a theater.
- By Drew Hunt
- Tags: Things I Hate, Film, moviegoing, AMC Theaters, Music Box, Gene Siskel Film Center, Bruno Dumont, Hors Satan, Robert Bresson, Au Hasard Balthazar

Blogs, Bleader Mar 23, 2012
Hail Satan; or, faith doesn't have an end point

A conversation with Gene Siskel Film Center programmers Marty Rubin and Barbara Scharres about Bruno Dumont's latest
- By Ben Sachs
- Tags: Piety, Film, Hors Satan, Bruno Dumont, Outside Satan, Gene Siskel Film Center, Marty Rubin, Barbara Scharres, Robert Bresson, spiritual filmmaking, European Union Film Festival

1 2 next »

Browse by Issue

Other Searches