Ray Pride

In the midst of a welter of holiday advance screenings, the boldest breath of fresh air for me these weeks may be Chris Hefner's truly memorable "Birdcatcher," a super-8 originated collation of images that make Hefner Chicago's own cinematic apocryphalist after the style of Winnipegger Guy Maddin. The cryptic black-and-white imagery moves from birds in flight, moving zoetrope- or Muybridge-style across the curved face of a weather balloon; a rabbit-headed man attempting to process the images winds up tumbling down a listening horn into a room alive with the wax-cylinder crackle of close yet distant sounds, the wither of a singing saw and other oddities such as dancing, floating tablespoons that seem to sing a duet. In its installation, props are presented as sculpture, and the images are fragmented into other forms in the gallery. Its press release describes "a dissection of cinema as an object, a process and result that reaches beyond both," but I just thought it looked and sounded cool. The haunting music is by Jeffrey Bützer.

"Birdcatcher"'s exhibit opens Friday from 6-10pm and continues until a closing performance on January 6. Heaven Gallery, 1550 North Milwaukee, second floor, (773)342-4597. (2006-12-05)

Also by Ray Pride

One Long Movie
"I've been making one long movie," is one of the nice lines Robert Altman had in his quiver to keep from telling journalistic outsiders about just what it was that he did as a filmmaker
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Katharina Otto-Bernstein's years-in-the-stalking standard-issue yet absorbing "Absolute Wilson" traces the "absolute ambition" of the peripatetic 65-year-old workaholic producer-designer-director and establishment avant-garde figure whose work gratifies and annoys viewers in equal measure
(2006-11-28)

School of Cock
Tenacious D plays at being the ultimate rock-blockers: shredding metal music mainline, making fun while giving a big hug to the largest, lamest excesses of fans and musicians
(2006-11-20)

Tip of the Week
Austrian documentarian Nikolaus Geyrhalter's "Our Daily Bread" (Unser täglich Brot) is deeply rooted in landscape and duration, it is hypnotic and magisterial, about moment and passage, about the industrialization of food and the necessity of nurture
(2006-11-20)

Children Afraid of the Night
(2006-11-14)

Craig, Daniel Craig
(2006-11-14)

Tip of the Week
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A Chicago Like No Other
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Tip of the Week
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Tip of the Week
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After the Headlines
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Reeling In the Years
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