Ray Pride

(La sconosciuta, 2006) Opening the same week as "Frozen River," an American movie about trafficking in human souls, "The Unknown Woman," the first feature from Giuseppe Tornatore since 2000's "Malèna," is a heady, overproduced revenge tale about sex trafficking, and it's a heady eyeful. Dervishes whirl; Tornatore's camera spins to the dance of an emphatic, Hermannesque Ennio Morricone score. While some passages in Tornatore's movies tend to the slobbery, such as "Cinema Paradiso," the best moments in his work are deliciously hard-nosed about emotion, and even at its most twisty or solemn or vulgar to the point of obscenity, "Unknown Woman" is captivating post-noir delirium. With Kseniya Rappoport. 118m.

"The Unknown Woman" opens Friday at Siskel.

(2008-08-13)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
For anyone who's ever rued the lack of febrile, singular movies in an indie scene dominated by timid themes and reticent filmmaking, times may be changing. Azazel Jacobs' painful, acute, so-darkly-funny-you-can't-breathe psychological study, "Mama's Man," is due this fall, and sometimes film projectionist Ronald Brownstein's shot-on-16mm "Frownland" is up to bat now
(2008-08-05)

Stealing Beauty
Even after seeing "Man on Wire" three times, at Sundance, as the triumphant closing night of the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri and back in Chicago, I'm ready to see it again: just about any place. It's far and away my favorite film commercially released in 2008 to date
(2008-08-05)

Dil Doings
Chicago has an ample, august history of activism and smoke-stoked malarkey. One such vivid centerpiece of early Gold Coast "hobohemia" began in 1914, spurred by Wobblies, a Chicago Renaissance socio-cultural efflorescence known as "The Dil Pickle Club"—a post-millennial edition inaugurates late afternoon at the Zebra Lounge, tucked away in an apartment building near State and Division
(2008-07-29)

Tip of the Week
"Contempt," a couple years on from its theatrical revival, is a revelation, an overlooked, shockingly accessible masterpiece amid Godard's oft-challenging canon
(2008-07-29)

I Am Curious, Yella
(2008-07-29)

Reality Bites
(2008-07-22)

Tip of the Week
(2008-07-22)

Scarlet Diva, Scarlet Empress
(2008-07-15)

Tip of the Week
(2008-07-15)

Tip of the Week
(2008-07-08)

Hancock Towers
(2008-07-01)

Tip of the Week
(2008-07-01)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment