Ray Pride

A diverse, eclectic program opens the latest edition of the long-running Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival, and shows stunning range. Co-presenter and Chicago Filmmakers favorite son Kyle Canterbury toys with repetition and the texture of fire on video with "Man"; career avant-gardist Ken Jacobs animates a single stereoscopic photograph from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair in "The Surging Sea of Humanity," evoking a crowd and street long passed; Olivo Barbieri makes aerial abstraction of Seville, Spain from helicopter heights in "SEVILLA --> (?) 06"; Israeli filmmaker Guy Ben-Ner charms by adapting Melville’s "Moby Dick" with his small daughter entirely in their apartment; and Bill Morrison, who made the fantastic epic "Decasia," from decaying nitrate footage of worlds of the past century’s dawn, contributes a hypnotic 35mm widescreen effort, "Outerborough," with split-screen matching of two 1899 "ghost train" films, which will be accompanied live by Ken Vandermark and Fred Lonberg-Holm. Best is Jean-Luc Godard’s thirteen-minute "Origin of the 21st Century," describable but hardly fathomable—magnificent, unforgiving, haunting. 97m. Various formats.

The opening night program plays 8pm, Thursday June 14 at Siskel.

(2007-06-05)

Also by Ray Pride

One Dish
Yellow Submarine, aka Odge's, a decades-old burger-and-hotdogs joint on the ground floor of an eccentric four-story brick building with a green-shingled mansard roof, and boldly colored, flat paintings of unattractive food on the outside walls. The crinkle-cut fries are very good, the oil doesn’t add flavor of other foods
(2007-06-01)

Only Disconnect
"Falling Man" is an imperfect book, necessary, but necessarily elusive. A couple chapters near the end seem to dawdle. This deceptively flat late passage has to be accommodated as he seems to lose his pace in slower movements, lesser themes, events damped in decrescendo. And with fearsome suddenness and rapacity, all heck breaks loose, returning to the opening chapters as a man who worked at the World Trade Center wanders from dust to light
(2007-05-29)

Tip of the Week
Five hours plus a few fast forwards on visual search that amounted to a couple more hours on the preview DVD reveal a bit of stodge and stiffness, but many fascinating tableaux that CGI can never duplicate, and no budget will ever merit again
(2007-05-29)

Mommy, I Googled Murder
The gift of Judd Apatow’s work: he understands the place of mortification; when we’re embarrassed for something we’ve done ourselves, we empathize more with a character who’s just been a dubious shit
(2007-05-29)

Summer Guide 2007: June Movies
(2007-05-22)

Summer Guide 2007: July Movies
(2007-05-22)

Summer Guide 2007: August Movies
(2007-05-22)

At First Sight
(2007-05-22)

Tip of the Week
(2007-05-22)

One Dish
(2007-05-18)

Film Review
(2007-05-18)

How goes the Jihad?
(2007-05-15)

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