Ray Pride

* = recommended

Fri 2

*A Grin Without A Cat

(Le fond e l'air est rouge) (1977/1993, France) Directed by Chris Marker. "Epic account of the rise and fall of the New Left... opinionated, angry, playful, poetry and inventive display of the dazzlingly personal style seen in other Marker masterpieces." 179m. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:30.

*Office Space

(1999, USA) Directed by Mike Judge. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

(1975, USA) Directed by Jim Sharman. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

Sat 3

*The Cobweb

(1955, USA) Directed by Vincente Minnelli. 124m. CinemaScope. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 5:15.

*The Godfather

(1971, USA) Directed by Frances Ford Coppola. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, 11:30am.

*My Friend Ivan Lapshin

(Moi Drug Ivan Lapshin) (1984, USSR) Directed by Alexei Guerman. Wrote Ian Christie for the 1988 Toronto Film Festival catalogue, "Guerman looks like the most radical force in Soviet cinema since Tarkovsky... the heroism of a provincial police investigator is recalled fifty years later by one who knew and admired him." 101m. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3:15.

*Ninotchka

(1939, USA) Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Lubitsch biographer Herman Weinberg: "Garbo Laughs!' announced the publicity blurbs... This good-humored satire on Communists vs. Capitalists was Garbo's favorite among all her American films... at the top of his most scintillating form." Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, with Melvyn Douglas. 110m. 35mm. Shown with Otto Mesmer's 1927 cartoon, "Felix in Flim Flam Films." $5. LaSalle Theater (312)904-9442, 4901 W. Irving Park, 8.

*Office Space

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

The Queen Mother

(Si-Gueriki) (2001, Benin-France-Germany) Directed by Idrissou Mora Kpai. A documentary by a filmmaker who returns to his village after ten years away, discovering that his tribe--the Wassangaris of Northern Benin, "fierce warriors ruled by rigid traditions"--continues, after his father's death, to still oppress his sisters and nieces. 62m. 35mm. Shown with Alain Gomis' 2002 "Petite Lumiere," from Senegal, following the inquiries into faith by an 8-year-old girl named Fatima. $9. Facets (773)281-9075, 1517 W. Fullerton, 1.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

*Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

(2003, USA) Directed by Richard R. Perez, Joan Sekler. "Objective" reporting in our modern age is usually a smokescreen for avoiding the premises and outcome of a story. A galling nugget of persuasive agit-prop, "Unprecedented" offers credible reportage suggesting that the Florida vote count debacle was a variation on a long-planned element in an electoral coup, particularly involving the disenfranchisement of black voters. Footage of the faked "spontaneous" riot that stopped the Miami-Dade County recount, stopping and noting which faces belong to which Republican staffers, some of whom now work in the White House, is particularly incendiary and disheartening. Perhaps the most disheartening element, however, is the litany of selective choices made by the Al Gore camp, which remain dishonest even against the background of the greater chicanery of the GOP apparatus. Narrated by Peter Coyote. 50m. Shown with 2003's "Independent Media in a Time of War." $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:45.

*Window to Paris

(Okno V Parizh) (1993, Russia) Directed by Yuri Mamin. The little-known "Window to Paris" opens promisingly with a vodka riot, before moving on to a mix of witty, sarcastic observations about contemporary Russian society and broad, idiotic comedy that works. The cynical, hilarious result is a kind of knockabout magical-social-realism following the denizens (a Pied Piper of a music teacher; immensely obese housewives; a ghost in search of its cat) of a crowded St. Petersburg communal apartment through a chifferobe that opens onto a window to Paris. Day-old fish-out-of-water raise hell with goofy complications. Mamin has a fine knack for a shot that begins as one thing and becomes another--the broad metaphor, that the window opens only every twenty years, is consumed by the bluster of Mamin's Russian archetypes, who still swear, still drink, still complain under whatever system they may live. A distinct pleasure. 87m. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 5:15.

Sun 4

*An American in Paris

(1951, USA) Directed by Vincente Minnelli. 115m. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3.

The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy

(2002, Israel) Key players trace the twenty-five-year history of hip-hop. 97m. BetaSP video. Shown with Doug Lussenhopp's "Suburban Street Rockers," four minutes of Super-8 footage shot of the filmmaker by his father in 1983 in a suburban Burger King parking lot and edited and scored in 2003. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 5:15.

*The Godfather

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, 11:30am.

Terror of MechaGodzilla

(1978, Japan) Directed by Ishiro Honda. Video. Free. Delilah's (773)472-2771, 2771 N. Lincoln, 6.

Mon 5

*My Friend Ivan Lapshin

$8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:45.

*Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

See Jan 3. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6.

Tue 6

*A Grin Without A Cat

See Jan 2. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:30.

Kiss: Live in Houston 1977

(1977, USA) Video. Free. Delilah's (773)472-2771, 2771 N. Lincoln, 7.

Wed 7

*An American in Paris

$8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 8.

*The Terrorizer

(Kongbufenzi) (1986, Taiwan) Directed by Edward Yang. Early work from the director of "Yi Yi"; Asian film scholar Tony Rayns says "Yang's masterly film keeps numerous plot strands going... finds a high level of suspense in all.. and dovetails them... into a composite picture plausible enough to make you cry and shocking enough to leave you gasping." 109m. 16mm. $6. Block Museum of Art(847)491-4900, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, 8.

*Window to Paris

See Jan 3. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:15.

Thu 8

*The Cobweb

$8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6.

The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy

See Jan 4. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 8:30.

*It Happened One Night

(1934, USA) Directed by Frank Capra. 105m. $6. Block Museum of Art(847)491-4900, 40 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston, 8.

(2003-12-30)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
Kurosawa drew from work both Eastern and Western throughout his career, and this tale, finding Toshiro Mifune as a vagabond samurai who sells his services to both sides of a battle in a small town, is utterly indebted to Dashiell Hammett
(2003-12-23)

Wind done gone
"Cold Mountain" is epic yet intimate, strange and shell-shocked
(2003-12-23)

Father figuring
"Big Fish" may be even more epic a story of unreconciled father-son relationships than Ang Lee's "Hulk," with Burton applying his slightly sinister visual whimsy to a best-selling Homeric southern picaresque by Daniel Wallace
(2003-12-23)

Short Runs
This week's limited screenings
(2003-12-23)

Salud
(2003-12-16)

Tip of the Week
(2003-12-16)

Sirkis people
(2003-12-16)

Holiday Movies
(2003-12-16)

Short Runs
(2003-12-16)

Tip of the Week
(2003-12-10)

The goo factory
(2003-12-10)

Christmas gift
(2003-12-10)

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