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Home , A Fantastic Woman, Black comedy, Black Orpheus, Daniela Vega, Daryl Hannah, Harmony Korine

FILM CALENDAR FEBRUARY 16 - MARCH 29, 2018

A FANTASTIC WOMAN 2018 Academy Award Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film

Chicago’s Year-Round Film Festival 3733 N. Southport Avenue, www.musicboxtheatre.com 773.871.6607

STAFF PICK DAVE OSCAR-NOMINATED ’S OUR BLOOD IS WINE MATINEES 25TH ANNIVERSARY DOCUMENTARY HAPPY END A MUSIC BOX FILMS FEBRUARY 11 - FEBRUARY 18 AT 2PM SHORTS MARCH 9-15 RELEASE MARCH 25 OPENS FEBRUARY 23 MARCH 16-22 TAKE A RISK. TELL A STO RY. Welcome TO THE MUSIC BOX ! MAKE A SCENE. FEATURE FILMS Over the last 45 years, Piven Theatre 5 PHANTOM THREAD NOW PLAYING Workshop has become a nationally- 5 NOW PLAYING 9 LOVELESS OPENS MARCH 2 recognized leader in theatre training. 9 HAPPY END MARCH 9-15 From the novice to the professional, jump 10 OUR BLOOD IS WINE MARCH 16-22 on stage, have a laugh, and take a risk. 10 OPENS MARCH 16 11 LEANING INTO THE WIND OPENS MARCH 23 Adult Classes in improv, audition 12 KEEP THE CHANGE OPENS MARCH 23 technique, and scene study are now open for registration at piventheatre.org. 14 INTERVIEW WITH Located right off the Noyes Purple line A FANTASTIC WOMAN stop, sign up for a class today! DIRECTOR SEBASTIAN LELÍO Get 15% off tuition with the code MUSICBOX. 18 COMMENTARY SERIES 24 CLASSIC MATINEES 847.866.6597 26 CHICAGO FILM SOCIETY 27 SILENT CINEMA [email protected] 28 FROM STAGE TO SCREEN 30 MIDNIGHTS

SPECIAL EVENTS 6 THE HUMP! FILM FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 16 & 17 bartonperreira.com bartonperreira.com 6 PRESIDENTS’ DAVE WEEKEND FEBRUARY 18 exclusively available at Custom Eyes exclusively available at Custom Eyes 7 DUNKIRK IN 70MM FEBRUARY 23-25 8 2018 OSCAR-NOMINATED DOCUMENTARY SHORTS OPENS FEBRUARY 23 11 BOB DYLAN: TROUBLE NO MORE MARCH 14

Brian Andreotti, Director of Programming VOLUME 36 ISSUE 148 Ryan Oestreich, General Manager Copyright 2018 Southport Music Box Corp. MusicBoxTheatre.com Buck LePard, Senior Operations Manager Stephanie Berlin, Public Relations Manager Published by Newcity Custom Publishing Newcitynetwork.com Claire Alden, Group Sales and Membership Manager For information, email [email protected] Julian Antos, Technical Director and Assistant Programmer or call 312.243.8786 Cover Image from the film A FANTASTIC WOMAN NOW PLAYING AT Music Box Theatre. See page 5 for more information.

35393539 N. N. SOUTHPORT SOUTHPORT AVE.AVE. CHICAGO, ILIL 6065760657 | 773.871.2773 871 2020020 www.customeyes2www.customeyes2020.com020.com Music Box Theatre 3733 North Southport musicboxtheatre.com SINCE 2003 773-871-6604 showtimes 773-871-6607 office 3 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

NOW PLAYING

Nominated for 6 , including Best Picture,

Best Director & Best Actor

PHANTOM THREAD A rare combination of audacity “and precision, impeccably tailored yet full of mystery DIRECTED BY: and ” STARRING: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps –NPR 130 mins, DCP Set in the glamour of 1950’s post-war London, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock and his sister Cyril are at the center of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, debutants and dames with the distinct style of The House of Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock’s life, providing the confirmed bachelor with inspiration and companionship, until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by love. With his latest film, Paul Thomas Anderson paints an illuminating portrait both of an artist on a creative journey, and the women who keep his world running.

NOW PLAYING FEATURE FILM

2018 Academy Award Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film

READ STEVE PROKOPY’S INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR LELIO ON PAGE 14

A FANTASTIC WOMAN Shocking and enraging, funny and “surreal, rapturous and restorative” –The Hollywood Reporter DIRECTED BY: STARRING: , Francisco Reyes, Luis Gnecco Chilean director Sebastián Lelio and 104 mins, DCP, In Spanish with English subtitles “star Daniela Vega give the growing bracket of transgender drama a new, A FANTASTIC WOMAN is the story of Marina, a waitress and luminous touchstone work.” singer, and Orlando, an older man, who are in love and planning –Variety for the future. After Orlando suddenly falls ill and dies, Marina is forced to confront his family and society, and to fight again to show them who she is: complex, strong, forthright, fantastic.

Features and Special Events 5 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

FEBRUARY 16 & 17 SPECIAL FEBRUARY 23-25 SPECIAL EVENT EVENT

DAN SAVAGE’S HUMP! FILM FESTIVAL

February 16 & 17 at 7pm and 9:30pm The HUMP! Film Festival has been bringing audiences a new kind of porn since 2005. The festival features short dirty movies—each less than five minutes—all created by people who aren’t porn stars but want to be for one weekend. The filmmakers and stars show us what they think is hot and sexy, creative and kinky, their ultimate turn-ons and their craziest fantasies. The carefully curated program is a cornucopia of body types, shapes, ages, colors, sexualities, genders, kinks, and fetishes—all united by a shared spirit of sex positivity. HUMP! is a celebration of creative sexual expression.

FEBRUARY 18 SPECIAL EVENT Nominated for 8 Academy Awards!

PRESIDENTS’ DAVE WEEKEND A 25th Anniversary screening of DAVE DUNKIRK IN Sunday, February 18 at 2pm 70MM! (Ivan Reitman, 1993, 110 mins, 35mm) February 23-25 This Presidents’ Day weekend, the Music Box hails to the chief with a special screening of DAVE! In (Christopher Nolan, 2017, 107 mins, 70mm) this classic ‘90s , Kevin Kline is Dave Kovic, an ordinary man who happens to look exactly like the President of the United States. To avoid a scandal when the President suffers a stroke, the good- Christopher Nolan’s epic WWII DUNKIRK returns to the Music Box for encore 70MM screen- natured Dave must secretly assume the role of Leader of the Free World. Surprisingly, he’s pretty ings. DUNKIRK has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and good at ! Best Cinematography. Director Ivan Reitman (GHOSTBUSTERS) and Kline craft an intelligent, hopeful political from an DUNKIRK opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy Oscar-nominated screenplay by Gary Ross (BIG). A box office success on its release, DAVE proves that forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the when the right people are in charge, a little bit of good can come out of Washington D.C. enemy closes in.

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OPENS FEBRUARY 23 SPECIAL OPENS MARCH 2 FEATURE EVENT FILM 2018 OSCAR-NOMINATED DOCUMENTARY SHORTS 2018 Academy PROGRAM A PROGRAM B Award Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film

READ STEVE PROKOPY’S COMMENTARY ON PAGE 18

TRAFFIC STOP HEROIN(E) (Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, USA, 30 mins, DCP) (Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon, USA, 39 mins) LOVELESS [Zvyagintsev] continues to solidify his place as one of the Featuring footage caught on a dashcam, TRAFFIC STOP Once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, West “ DIRECTED BY: Andrey Zvyagintsev most important and original tells the story of Breaion King, a 26-year-old African- Virginia has become the epicenter of America’s modern STARRING: Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvey Novikov voices in world cinema.” American school teacher from Austin, whose opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the –RogerEbert.com 127 mins, DCP, In Russian with English subtitles routine traffic violation quickly escalated into a dramatic national average. Peabody Award-winning filmmaker arrest at the hands of a white police officer. Elaine McMillion Sheldon shows a different side of the Zhenya and Boris are going through a vicious divorce marked by fight against drugs—one of hope. Sheldon highlights resentment, frustration and recriminations. Already embarking on new lives, each with a new partner, three women working to change the town’s narrative they are impatient to start again, to turn the page—even if it means threatening to abandon their and break the devastating cycle of drug abuse. Fire Chief 12-year-old son Alexey. Until, after witnessing one of their fights, Alexey disappears… Jan Rader spends the majority of her days reviving those who have overdosed; Judge Patricia Keller presides over drug court, handing down empathy along with orders; FEATURE and Necia Freeman of Brown Bag Ministry feeds meals MARCH 9-15 FILM to the women selling their bodies for drugs. As America’s HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405 opioid crisis threatens to tear communities apart, the (Frank Stiefel, USA, 40 mins, DCP) original short documentary HEROIN(E) shows Mindy Alper has suffered through multiple commitments how the chain of compassion holds one town together. to mental institutions and a 10-year period without speech. Her only means of communicating has been to channel her hyper self-awareness into drawings and sculpture that eloquently express her emotional state. Through an examination of her work, interviews, reenactments, the building of an eight and a half foot READ RAY PRIDE’S papier-mâché bust of her beloved psychiatrist, we learn COMMENTARY ON PAGE 22 how she has emerged from a life of isolation to a life that includes love, trust and support. KNIFE SKILLS (Thomas Lennon, USA, 40 mins, DCP) HAPPY END Old Haneke is back with What does it take to build a world-class French “a vengeance” restaurant? What if the staff is almost entirely men and DIRECTED BY: Michael Haneke –RogerEbert.com STARRING: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu Kassovitz women just out of prison? What if most have never A disquieting, blisteringly cooked or served before, and have barely two months 107 mins, DCP, In French and English with English subtitles “funny evisceration of the bourgeoisie” to learn their trade? KNIFE SKILLS follows the hectic “All around us, the world, and we, in its midst, blind.” launch of Edwins restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio. In this –Los Angeles Times EDITH + EDDIE improbable setting, we discover the challenges of men A magnificent cast—Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Mathieu (Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright, USA, 29 mins, DCP) and women finding their way after their release. They Kassovitz and Toby Jones—headlines Austrian master Michael Haneke’s follow-up and partial sequel Edith and Eddie, ages 96 and 95, are America’s oldest all have something to prove, and all struggle to launch to his Palme d’Or- and Academy Award–winning AMOUR, set at a palatial estate in Calais where the interracial newlyweds. Their love story is disrupted by new lives—an endeavor as pressured and perilous as the high-strung Laurent clan begins to unravel after an accident on one of the family firm’s construction a family feud that threatens to tear the couple apart. ambitious restaurant launch of which they are a part. sites brings class tensions between them and their workers to a boil.

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MARCH 16-22 FEATURE MARCH 14 SPECIAL FILM EVENT

A Music Box Films Release Official Selection Culinary Cinema OUR BLOOD IS WINE Berlinale 2018

DIRECTED BY: Emily Railsback 78 mins, DCP BOB DYLAN: TROUBLE NO MORE Local filmmaker Emily Railsback and award-winning sommelier Jeremy Quinn provide intimate A access to rural family life in the Republic of Georgia as they explore the rebirth of 8,000-year-old One Night winemaking traditions almost lost during the period of Soviet rule. By using unobtrusive iPhone Wednesday, March 14 at 9:30pm Only technology, Railsback brings the voices and ancestral legacies of modern Georgians directly to the (Jennifer LeBeau, 2017, 60 mins, DCP) viewer, revealing an intricate and resilient society that has survived regular foreign invasion and repeated attempts to erase Georgian culture. The revival of traditional winemaking is the central TROUBLE NO MORE showcases Dylan’s creative and spiritual mindset during his gospel force driving this powerful, independent and autonomous nation to find its 21st century identity. era, which encompassed three LPs: 1979’s Slow Train Coming, 1980’s Saved and 1981’s Shot of Love. For the performances included in the film, the folk-rock icon’s backing band included keyboardists Enjoy a special tasting of Georgian wine in the Music Box Lounge after the screening on Spooner Oldham and Terry Young, Little Feat guitarist Fred Tackett, bassist Tim Drummond, drummer Saturday, March 17 at 1pm, hosted by Railsback, Quinn, and the winemakers featured in OUR Jim Keltner and vocalists Clydie King, Gwen Evans, Mona Lisa Young, Regina McCrary and Mary BLOOD IS WINE. Introduced by University of Toronto archeologist Stephen Batiuk. Elizabeth Bridges.

OPENS MARCH 16 FEATURE OPENS MARCH 23 FEATURE FILM FILM

March 17 LEANING INTO THE WIND and Will inspire anyone who “sees it to look at the beauty PARADOX Daryl Hannah DIRECTED BY: Thomas Riedelsheimer in every gust, to admire how nature rearranges itself, In Person! STARRING: Andy Goldsworthy and us along with it” DIRECTED BY: Daryl Hannah 97 mins, DCP –Indiewire STARRING: Neil Young, Lukas Nelson, Micah Nelson Sixteen years after the release of the groundbreaking film RIVERS 74 mins, DCP AND TIDES: ANDY GOLDSWORTHY WORKING WITH TIME, director Time is fluid in this far-fetched, whimsical tale of music and love. Somewhere in the future Thomas Riedelsheimer has returned to work with the artist. LEANING INTO THE WIND follows Andy past, The Man In the Hat hides out between heists at an old stagecoach stop with Jail Time, the on his exploration of the layers of his world and the impact of the years on himself and his art. As Particle Kid, and an odd band of outlaws. Mining the detritus of past civilizations, they wait… for the Goldsworthy introduces his own body into the work it becomes at the same time even more fragile Silver Eagle, for the womenfolk, and for the full moon’s magic to give rise to the music and make the and personal and also sterner and tougher, incorporating massive machinery and crews on his bigger spirits fly. projects. Riedelsheimer’s exquisite film illuminates Goldsworthy’s mind as it reveals his art.

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OPENS MARCH 23 FEATURE FILM COMING SOON TO THE MUSIC BOX

KEEP THE CHANGE Charming, romantic. An ode to “self-discovery and acceptance DIRECTED BY: Rachel Israel that’s as funny as it is sweet.” STARRING: Brandon Polansky, Samantha Elisofon, Jessica Walter –Variety 93 mins, DCP A tart and touching love story.” When aspiring filmmaker David is mandated by a judge to attend a “–New York Observer social program at the Jewish Community Center, he is sure of one thing: he doesn’t belong there. But when he’s assigned to visit the Bridge with the vivacious Sarah, CINEPOCALYPSE sparks fly and his convictions are tested. Their budding relationship must weather Sarah’s romantic past, David’s judgmental mother, and their own preconceptions of what love is supposed to look like. June 21-28 Under the guise of an off-kilter New York , KEEP THE CHANGE does something quite CINEPOCALYPSE, the Midwest’s largest gathering of films and the cinephiles who love them, radical in offering a refreshingly honest portrait of a community seldom depicted on the big screen. returns to the Music Box Theatre for another year of debauchery. We’re hard at work putting While thoroughly charming and quite funny, rarely has a rom-com felt so deep and poignant. together another fantastic slate of premieres, special guests, and more, with films that run the gamut from horror to action to B-movie classics to thriller, and everything in between. If you thought our 2017 festival was wild, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

NOIR CITY: CHICAGO August 17-23 Noir City: Chicago returns to the Music Box, as the Foundation presents a festival that combines extraordinary rarities with revivals of recognized classics! Hollywood’s biggest stars are back on the silver screen for tales of murder, greed, betrayal, crimes gone wrong, deceitful dames and no-good thugs, for the 10th great year!

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which the world is perceiving Marina as a threat or a danger. The question is, why? Why is everyone so afraid of her? Why is she considered dangerous? What is the problem? I had read somewhere that you studied journalism at some point in your life. Are you a very research-heavy writer? Do you immerse yourself in a world—especially one you are not a part of—before you start writing about it, the way a journalist might? SL: Not in that sense, but, for example, when the idea of making the story happen with a transgender woman appeared, I felt that I needed to stop writing and meet some transgender women in Santiago, especially because I live in Germany, so I needed to find out what was happening in my city. Then I met Daniela [Vega], and that was very important in the process. She agreed to become a “cultural consultant” for the project. I was still trying to understand if I wanted to make the film or not, and knowing her was very important because I realized I wanted to make it and I wasn’t going to make it without a transgender actress. A FANTASTIC WOMAN IS PLAYING NOW. Then at the end of the writing process, I realized SEE PAGE 5 FOR DETAILS. that she was the one, that I didn’t need to do casting, and I guess that’s because I spent a year talking to her. In that sense, you can consider TIMELY & TIMELESS that research. In a very organic way, I was deeply An Interview with Oscar-nominated A FANTASTIC WOMAN getting to know a person, and then I built a nar- director/co-writer Sebastián Lelio rative around that, a narrative, but what remained real was her presence and the fact that By Steve Prokopy Daniela is Marina, and Daniela is a transgender woman, and her body carries a story that is hard Considered one of the foremost filmmakers of post-dictatorship Chilean cinema, Sebastián Lelio (much to reproduce. It would have been hard to repro- like his contemporaries Pablo Larraín, Andrés Wood and Sebastian Silva) has been making some of the duce for a cisgender actor, for example. fascinating movies of the past decades, many of which focus on characters who don’t often stand at What was it about Daniela specifically? the center of contemporary films. In the case of his latest film, A FANTASTIC WOMAN, Lelio centers Can you put it into words why she was the on a transgender woman named Marina (newcomer and transgender actress Daniela Vega) whose older one that you ultimately wanted to play boyfriend dies shortly after they move in together. To make the experience all the worse, the family he this character? abandoned to be with her comes looking to kick her out of the apartment and leave her destitute in the process. SL: Well, I didn’t realize that she was the one when I met her. It was a slow process of under- Much like his Chilean counterparts, Lelio is moving into English-language productions and working with standing. But when I met her, it did have a great actors whom he’s admired from afar and now get the chance to direct. But A FANTASTIC WOMAN is affect on me, that conversation, because I was fascinated by her. I found her magnetic and witty and very much a Chilean work (and is the country’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Acad- very political and funny at the same time, which is something I really like in people. She was fascinating, emy Award, for which it was recently nominated), although the messages of prejudice, identity and complex, beautiful and strange. I liked her very much, and then we became friends in the process of acceptance seem all-too global in a time when the personal is political. Enjoy this spirited conversation talking for a year. with Sebastián Lelio… When I understood that I wanted her to play the main role, I thought that she had the perfect There’s a great deal going on in your movie, but at its core, it’s about a woman just trying to find a cinematic presence because her presence on screen would always be isolating in front of our eyes. moment to mourn the loss of a loved one. She isn’t really given a chance to do that and she’s just The spectator was going to be seeing more than one thing because of the game of projections upon searching for a time and place where she can just be with her thoughts, but her life can’t stop for projections. Since Marina is more or less an enigmatic character, the spectator was going to be trapped that. Talk about that aspect of your story. in the game of trying to understand her, trying to see or define what they are seeing on screen. This SL: Yeah, that’s precisely what the story is about. It just so happens that the woman that is experiencing identity or presence in flux is something that I find very, very cinematic. all of this is a transgender woman, and that puts everything in a different dimension, not because of her I know she had acted a little bit before this. Did you have to convince her to do it, or did she like but because of how the world treats her. Marina already transitioned years ago; she won that battle. the idea right away when you offered it to her? The film is not about that, it’s not about the consequences of transitioning. Marina is ready for the world; the only little detail is that the world is not ready for her, but that’s not her fault. So yeah, you’re SL: [laughs] Well, she didn’t know I was writing this for her, because I realized that I wanted her to right. The film is combining a story that is the main story, which is a story of mourning or the attempt play the role about halfway through the writing process, but I didn’t tell her anything. She had no of mourning and saying goodbye to a loved one, but everything is so distorted, because of the way in idea about what the script was about or anything. And when we had the first draft, I sent it to her and

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extended the invitation to play the main role, and she thought I was crazy. I had to say to her that I was Music Box Member convinced that she could do it, and the story [she tells] says that she went parking for a couple of days, and when she came back, she finally agreed. Becoming a member at the Music Box is a great way to I know you’ve been working on this for a while, but transgender stories have certainly come out of the underground and into the foreground in film and television over the last couple of years. support the quality programming at the independently Your timing could not have been more perfect. SL: It’s not the same, but something relatively similar happened with GLORIA, my previous film. It’s owned and operated historic movie theatre, lounge different, because we all know that women approaching sixty exist, but the way in which the film was looking at Gloria connected with a certain zeitgeist that, after the film was released, the subject and garden. This includes our holiday classics, talk seemed to be everywhere. Now I feel something similar. When I started writing about this, it was be- fore the subject started exploding in popular culture, and when I started shooting it is when I saw the backs, film festivals, visits from directors, producers, first magazine covers and thought “Wow, this is going mainstream.” Then the world turned backward. The entire world politically did this big shift, and suddenly the film felt timely and urgent. and actors, as well as our regular midnight, matinee, And political. and feature presentations. SL: Well, yeah. For me, it was always political. But the paradox is that, of course, I’m aware of that, but my goal is timelessness. It’s to make a film that is a product of the times, but at the same time, it will hopefully survive and be seen in the future because it’s a film about identity, about freedom, about cinema, about genre and gender, so hopefully it’s the combination of being timely and being timeless. join today A year or so ago, I met Pablo Larrain [JACKIE, NERUDA, THE CLUB] for the first time, who is your producer on this. I also did a Q&A a couple of years ago with Sebastian Silva [], so • Discounted tickets • Restaurant discounts Chilean filmmakers have taken over my life over the last couple of years, and all of you have moved on to English-language films as well. What is the appeal of doing that, of moving into • Members-only screenings • Deals on Music Box Films DVD’s American productions? SL: Well, I want to make film. I want to make films until I die, and I’m from Chile, and it’s very hard to • Advanced purchase for • Bottomless popcorn make films there, even though it’s easier than a few years ago. I believe in growing and expanding the limits of what’s possible and in excitement, and for me the two films I’ve made in English—even though special screenings • Discounted house wines they still have not come out—the energy that moved me to make them, was similar to the energy that made me do GLORIA or A FANTASTIC WOMAN. A hunger for cinema, the feeling that there was hurt and danger in those subjects, and the excitement that those films could be beautiful or provocative or affect people in a positive way, inspire. It’s the same thing. You’re playing the same game in a different arena, if you know what I mean. You seem very committed to telling stories about people that we don’t typically see on screen very often. Is that something you’re doing deliberately, or is that just how it’s worked out? register online SL: It’s easier to connect the dots when you look backwards, and in that sense, I have to admit that yes, at musicboxtheatre.com of course what you are saying is there, but I’ve been following my intuition, really. What moves me. It’s not part of a big strategy or something that is too planned, but I have to admit that it’s very surprising or visit our box office! when people sometimes ask me about this “trilogy” about women for example. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” But I like the idea of taking a character that somehow society doesn’t consider central and put it in the absolute center and to film these studies about them that are at the same time an exaltation and an examination of them, and there’s something about the gesture that is really challeng- ing and moving to me. Sebastian, thank you so much. Congratulations again. Best of luck. And please encourage Daniela to keep acting, because I think she’s great. SL: I will! I want to see more of her. Thank you again. Take care. SL: Thank you. Bye-bye.

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(Alexey Rozin) and Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) can’t stand the sight of each other, and they have no issues allowing the toxicity of their relationship to spill over onto their 12-year-old son, Alyosha (Matvey Novikov), who has become so dam- aged from even being near the war between his parents that he walks through life like a specter. He works at his computer, cries intermittently, but mostly Alyosha just listens and absorbs every word like a body blow. Both having moved on to new lovers in their individual lives (in fact, Boris’s girlfriend is many months pregnant), neither really has the time to deal with their son, making him feel all the more unwanted. It takes days for this self-absorbed, toxic twosome to even realize that Alyosha has gone missing, and for a while both they and the police believe the deeply un- happy child is simply hiding or has run away. But as time progresses, this scenario seems unlikely, and Boris and Zhenya are forced to be somewhat civil in a joint effort to find their son. In any other movie (particularly one made in America), the filmmakers might use this desperate search as a device to bring the parents together, but Zvyagintsev (along with co-writer Oleg Negin) already accepts that

LOVELESS OPENS MARCH 2. SEE PAGE 9 FOR DETAILS. GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER GONE BOY MARCH 9 - The Powerful and Gutsy LOVELESS Defies Expectation APRIL 5 By Steve Prokopy

Filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev has become something of a master at conveying what many of the dark corners of Vladimir Putin’s Russia look like without saying it outright. It’s a skill I’m guessing many Russian artists have mastered since he took over as President of the Russian Federation in 2000, just a few years before 164 N State • siskelfilmcenter.org/ceuff Zvyagintsev landed his first directing credit with 2003’s THE RETURN, a film about a long-absent father who returns to visit his two sons and whip them into shape to become “real men.” Hmmmm… Since then, Zvyagintsev has made one impressive and revealing film after another, including 2011’s ELENA and the 2014 Oscar-nominated LEVIATHAN. At the 2017 , he debuted his latest emotionally devastating work LOVE- LESS (recently nominated for an Oscar as well), which begins as a story of a missing child but turns into a not-so-subtle examination of the deep-seated corruption that is rotting the political and social infrastructure of so much of Russia today. Defying expectation once again, Zvyagintsev introduces us to a married couple still living together but in the death throes of a particularly bitter divorce. Boris

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this relationship is dead and buried. He’s far more interested in the mechanisms “BLOWS ANY OTHER that are set in motion to find the missing child. VERSION OUT OF The police seem annoyingly intent on labeling Alyosha a runaway, thus keeping THE WATER” - DON’T RUN their stats down on unfound missing children. Combining that attitude with the parents’ general lack of interest, and it becomes clear that the filmmaker is delivering a condemnation on the state of caring about anything or anyone outside of one’s own interests in Russia. Presumably by design, even the film itself frequently drifts away from the search to explore the deeper recesses of the parents’ lives. Boris’s girlfriend, Masha (Marina Vasilyeva), has an intolerable mother always whispering in her ear about what a bad provider Boris is. He works for a company with conservative values that would look down on him living with a pregnant woman who wasn’t his wife, so he’s desperate to finalize the divorce and remarry as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Zhenya is seeing an attentive, rich, older man, Anton (Andris Keishs), who seems to satisfy her on most fronts. While both new relationships appear better than the ones they are escaping, there’s something decidedly hollow and opportunistic about all of it—likely another comment on the new Russia. With the police being of little help, a citizens’ action group steps in and takes the lead on the search for Alyosha. Not to imply that the director abandons the missing-child storyline, in fact, large portions of the movie are devoted to the slow and arduous task of investigating his disappearance. A handful of false leads are devastating, but the dedication of the resourceful volunteer group is one of the film’s few, genuine beacons of hope. “NEVER LOOKED Honing his craft over a handful of films across 15 years, Zvyagintsev has mastered BETTER” - SLANT the art of allowing very specific events to fuel his allegory concerning both the collective empathy of the Russian people and the destructive power that results when love is destroyed. What is almost more powerful and gutsy about LOVE- LESS is its moving commitment to avoiding a clean resolution to a great number of story threads. We’re simply extracted from this family’s many dramas and are forced to contend with the realization that most things in life don’t get closure, as much as we desire it. With cinema, more than life, we are used to an artificial sense of resolution, but this film refuses to offer an easy sense of completion, and if that leaves a knot in your stomach, then LOVELESS has done its job. Steve Prokopy is the chief film critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review (www.ThirdCoastReview.com). For nearly 20 years, he was the Chicago BUY YOUR COPY TODAY AT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE Editor for Ain’t It Cool News, where he contributed film reviews and filmmaker and actor interviews under the name “Capone.”

@doppelgangerreleasing 20 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 doppelgangerreleasing.com Commentary 21 FEATURESCOMMENTARY AND SPECIAL EVENTS

an acquired taste, Haneke manages not to fall into self-parody, or collapse his narrative edifice into semi-connected skits. HAPPY END whistles past all the graves: a family, a country, Europe. Haneke’s control as writer-director is almost without parallel, a cold marvel. (But there are moments of his little-remarked, astringent whimsy throughout his first feature since 2012.) His fixation on surveillance informs much of the cool, static placement of the camera, as well as one superb iPhone-shot scene among ominous, even disturbing cell phone videos. Since encountering the rude pulsations of CODE UNKNOWN blind around the turn of the century, I’ve admired the finery of Haneke’s late work, which in other hands would doodle into curdled misanthropy or haphazard hauteur, but instead pulses with his serene disapproval. (Haneke’s earliest work feels more thesis-driven, less prone to outbursts of chance and fate that challenge distracted or apathetic protagonists.) Haneke has begun work on KELVIN’S BOOK, his largest project at the age of seventy- HAPPY END OPENS MARCH 9. five, a 10-hour English-language series. (“After ten TV movies and twelve films, SEE PAGE 9 FOR DETAILS. I wanted to tell a longer story for once.”) The series is set in a near-future dystopian world, and a group of young people crash-lands into a part of their home country OH, HANEKE! they’ve never seen, and discover their world is far different from how they were Let Us Count the Overdoses, Car Crashes and Crunched Bones in HAPPY END instructed. Huh! Sounds like all those Hanekes of the past two decades: surfaces By Ray Pride shine, faces frown, strange truths erupt from what seem like placid everyday surfaces and acts and actions. Haneke’s world, our world, cruel and endlessly Oh, Haneke! Sharing a title from that old ray of sunshine Sam Beckett, the severe playful, grows more otherworldly the more we hope to understand it. yet shiny, measured yet slashing HAPPY END is aptly summed by the distributors’ single-line précis of Austrian master Michael Haneke’s latest brute, weirdly Ray Pride is longtime film critic of Newcity, editor of MovieCityNews.com and a funny and intermittently ironic : “A snapshot from the life of a bourgeois contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine. He is also a photographer: his book European family.” of words and images of Chicago “Ghost Signs” is forthcoming. In the modern-day north of , the murderous affairs of that roundly decadent, embattled bourgeois brood led by a faltering patriarch (Jean-Louis Trintignant, L’AMOUR, THE CONFORMIST) and Isabelle Huppert (well, much of the best of French cinema) are transacted with malice and only kilometers from where terrible things are visited upon refugees to Europe trapped in the port of Calais nearby. Nearer to home, let us count the overdoses, car crashes, hoped-for assisted suicides, crunched bones, construction accidents, live-streamed murder attempts, such a wealth and welter of domestic brimstone, energetic libels and lithe lies. Haneke apotheosizes Haneke: even when his characters are not atop his greatest- shits lists, their behavior twangs with the sourness of the human song. Long takes alternate with blinks of sinister social media. While his relentless attack can be

22 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 Commentary 23 CONTINUING SERIES

CLASSIC MATINEES Presented March 11 SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS AT 11:30am on 35MM! MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (, 1991, 104 mins, 35mm) MUSIC BOX STAFF PICKS! Picked by Flynn, Front of House The Music Box Matinee programming has been turned over to our excellent house staff! Come River Phoenix and star as Mike see classic films selected by the folks who sell the tickets, make the popcorn, mix the drinks, and Scott in this haunting tale about two young project the movies, and keep the Music Box running. street hustlers. Navigating a volatile world of junkies, thieves and johns, Mike takes Scott on February 11 a quest along the streets and open highways of the Pacific Northwest. Flynn says: MY OWN STRANGERS ON A TRAIN PRIVATE IDAHO is the kind of queer, grunge, (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951, 101 mins, 35mm) Shakespearean, outsider cinema that the world Picked by Cody, Front of House needs right now. Cody says: Hitchcock! Trains! Tennis! A way-too-fast carousel! While it may not be as widely-seen as some of Hitchcock’s March 17 & 18 better known movies, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is probably my personal favorite of his. Featuring a creepy but somehow- POLICE STORY 2 charming villain performance by Robert Walker, this tale of (, 1988, 101 mins, 35mm) mistaken intention shows what happens when a bad is told to the wrong person. Come for the stunning cinema- Picked by Audrey, Manager tography, stay for the subtly homoerotic plot. Audrey says: POLICE STORY 2, this awesome sequel is the perfect follow-up to the success- ful POLICE STORY. It’s a film brimming with ex- February 18 plosions, incredible fight sequences, and all the Jackie Chan charm you can ask for. This movie BLACK was a staple in my household as a kid due to its (, 1959, 100 mins, 35mm) frequent showings on TV by the late 90’s, and Picked by Alvin, Front of House still holds a special place in my heart. The best The ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and is transported kind of action flick to watch in the afternoon to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in . with friends and family, to take you back to the Alvin says: One of my first drum teachers while I was in high time when you were obsessed with arguing school immigrated from Brazil to my hometown of Atlanta, theories about how Jackie did that crazy stunt. Georgia. Shortly after I started studying with him, he wanted me to watch in order to introduce me to Bra- zilian music, specifically Brazilian percussion. BLACK ORPHEUS March 24 & 25 showcases some of the most incredible and playing, while giving a modern twist to a classic story. SPLIT (, 1974, 108 mins, 35mm) February 24 & 25 Picked by Rebecca, Projectionist Rebecca says: Elliott Gould and star in one of Altman’s finest films; a bitter- LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE sweet and gentle comedy about compulsive (Jean Cocteau, 1946, 93 mins, 35mm) gamblers and one of the most elusive types of Picked by Ernie, Manager human relationships: Friendship. We follow Bill Jean Cocteau’s adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, in which and Charlie from the racetrack to the casino the pure love of a beautiful girl melts the heart of a feral but to the haze of the 5am poker table, all with gentle beast. Ernie says: This French adaptation blends fan- Altman’s signature rich cacophony at every tasy and romance, creating magical visions that are brought turn. As Gould would tell an interviewer on to life through exquisite performances, stunning costumes the film’s 40th anniversary, “It’s not about and scenery, and enchanting practical effects. gambling at all. It’s about staying alive.”

24 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 Matinees 25 CONTINUING SERIES THE CHICAGO FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS SILENT CINEMA The Chicago Film Society hosts monthly Classic silent films the way they were meant to be seen! Featuring a live musical presentations featuring classic films, underseen score on the famous Music Box organ by Dennis Scott, Music Box House Organist. rarities, cult movies, short subjects, trailer reels and more, all on glorious celluloid. For more information, visit www.chicagofilmsociety.org. DRIFTING (Tod Browning, 1923, 82 min, 35mm) Saturday, February 17 at 11:30am TWO WEEKS IN Co-presented by Chicago Film Society ANOTHER TOWN Tod Browning’s last film for Universal is an Monday, February 19 at 7pm old-fashioned barnstormer about the drug (Vincente Minnelli, 1962, 107 min, 35mm) trade, loose morals, and the redemptive power of love. Based on a 1910 play by Adapted from a novel by Irvin Shaw but retrofitted as John Colton that had enjoyed a successful a spiritual sequel to the Oscar-winning satire THE BAD Broadway revival in 1922, DRIFTING toned AND THE BEAUTIFUL, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER down its source material considerably at TOWN is a mad melodrama that charts Hollywood’s the request of star , whose decline while frolicking in the detritus. Kirk Douglas “lady of easy virtue” became a run-of-the- stars as Jack Andrus, the Serious Actor discharged from mill opium smuggler in China. Dean’s petty criminal finds herself making common cause with her a sanitarium after being called to Rome for two weeks underworld rival and strives to throw government agent off their trail. of work under the direction of longtime collaborator review probably says it best: “a very improbable story, directed with gusty Maurice Kruger (Edward G. Robinson). Upon his arrival, flights of imagination.” Andrus finds a runaway production that Kruger cannot 35mm courtesy of George Eastman Museum control. This Metrocolor debauchery plays Amer- ican neuroses against European cynicism and everybody comes up plastered. LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE (Colin Campbell, 1918, 58 min, 35mm) Saturday, March 10 at Noon Co-presented by Chicago Film Society Monday, March 26 at 7pm One of the final features produced by (, 1985, 84 min, 35mm) Chicago’s own Selig Polyscope before the Advertised as something akin to a queer BLAZING company’s bankruptcy, LITTLE ORPHANT SADDLES, Paul Bartel’s LUST IN THE DUST is far more ANNIE is a film steeped in deprivation: by faithful to the genre’s B-movie roots than most of the day children fight over dinners rescued Westerns produced during the revisionist heyday. Re- from garbage cans and by night they cower uniting gay icons and , previously under the covers, menaced by seen together in John Waters’s POLYESTER, LUST IN puppet . Into the breach steps THE DUST is ostensibly concerned with a love triangle Little Orphant Annie (Colleen Moore, between Hunter’s gunslinger, Divine’s chorus girl-cum- in her earliest extant performance), an prostitute, and Lainie Kazan’s saloon-owner. There’s also eternal optimist and skilled storyteller a search for gold, but Bartel is most excited to play in whose fireside parables teach the other his genre sandbox, trying on tropes and casting off any ragamuffins that “the Gobble-uns’ll git you Ef you Don’t Watch Out!” Adapted from the 1885 poem useless seriousness. by James Whitcomb Riley that would later inspire the Little Orphan Annie comic strip, the film is a work of dark whimsy and homespun special effects. LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE has been painstakingly Plus: THE SECRET CINEMA (Paul Bartel, 1966, 30 mins, 16mm) reconstructed by independent archivist Eric Grayson using materials from the Library of Congress Restored by the Academy Film Archive and the Film and assorted film collectors. Foundation with funding provided by the George Lucas Introduced by Eric Grayson Family Foundation.

26 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 Silent Cinema 27 SPECIAL EVENTS

H EST FROM STAGE TO SCREEN TC AT A E The Music Box proudly presents the greatest in filmed theatrical B W productions from around the world! L I L N CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF A E PRESENTED BY NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE M R Directed by: Benedict Andrews S Y Monday, March 5 at 7pm Tennessee Williams’ twentieth century masterpiece CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF played a limited season in London’s West End in 2017. Benedict Andrews’ “thrill- ing revival” (New York Times) stars , Jack O’Connell and Colm Meaney. On a steamy night in Mississippi, a Southern family gather to celebrate Big Daddy’s birthday. The • O • scorching heat is almost as oppressive as the lies they tell. Brick and Maggie dance round the secrets P K and sexual tensions that threaten to destroy their marriage. With the E E N E future of the family at stake, which version of the truth is real—and 7 DA A W which will win out? YS “«««« A bold reimagining…innovative and powerfully acted” –Sunday Times “«««« A brilliant, lacerating account of the play… unforgettable” –The Independent

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE PRESENTED BY MORE2SCREEN Directed by: Dominic Dromgoole Tuesday, March 20 at 7pm “One can survive everything nowadays, except DABLON death, and live down anything except a good reputation.” — Olivier award-winner Eve Best and BAFTA-nominated actress Anne Reid star in this new, classically staged production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy directed by Dominic Dromgoole, former Artistic VINEYARDS Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, at the Theatre in London’s West End. An earnest young American woman, a louche English lord, and an innocent young chap join a house party of fin de siècle fools and . Nearby a woman lives, cradling a long-buried secret. First performed in 1893, Oscar Wilde’s marriage of glittering and Ibsenite drama satirised the socially Winery & Tasting Room conservative world of the Victorian upper-class, creating a vivid new theatrical voice which still resonates today. “«««« Sublimely funny” –The Independent “«««« Eve Best is outstanding” –Sunday Times 111 W. Shawnee Rd. • Baroda, MI • 49101

• 28 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 269-422-2846 DABLON.COM CONTINUING SERIES

MIDNIGHTS FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT MIDNIGHT THE IRON ROSE Presented by Cathode Love February 16 & 17 February 24 THE ROCKY HORROR (Jean Rollin, 1973, 86 mins, DCP) (, 1997, 89 mins, 35mm) & March 24 PICTURE SHOW (Jim Sharman, 1975, 100 mins, 35mm) A film whose pervading sense of ennui would make February 16 & 17 LYRICAL Baudelaire proud. LA ROSE DE FER is Rollin’s most NANOHA: REFLECTION March 2 & 3 LIPS OF BLOOD personal work. A highly rewarding slow-burner that, (Takayuki Hamana, 2017, 106 mins, DCP) (Jean Rollin, 1975, 88 mins, DCP) though certainly , plays like an allegory of In Theatre 2 March 9 & 10 THE IRON ROSE failed love rather than a “horror” film. Almost en- February 23 & 24 THE LODGERS (Jean Rollin, 1973, 86 mins, DCP) tirely self-financed, the film sits in stark contrast to (Brian O’Malley, 2017, 92 mins, DCP) the paid “erotic” work of the period, with its som- In Theatre 2 March 16 & 17 THE DARK BACKWARD ber, stream-lined decadence, and brooding sense (Adam Rifkin, 1991, 101 mins, 35mm) of broken love and deepening dread. Losing track February 23 & March 23 (Tommy Wiseau, 2003, 99 mins, 35mm) March 30 & 31 FASCINATION of time, two young lovers wander through a cemetery before dusk, explore the crypts (perhaps a bit too (Jean Rollin, 1979, 80 mins, DCP) deeply), and re-emerge to find themselves lost. All paths covered in darkness, they are forced into ethereal new dynamics, to cope with their shifting madness, questions of possession, and identity. Perhaps the most personal and poetic statement in Rollin’s oeuvre. GUMMO Presented by The Front Row, A.V. Club and Daily THE DARK BACKWARD Presented by The Front Row, A.V. Club (Harmony Korine, 1997, 89 mins, 35mm) and Daily Grindhouse Beloved by and Errol Morris (Adam Rifkin, 1991, 101 mins, 35mm) and declared the worst picture of 1997 by the “Grotesque” seems too polite an adjective for New York Times, Harmony Korine’s directorial Adam Rifkin’s 1991 THE DARK BACKWARD, a re- debut has been a magnet of controversy since lentlessly toxic fable dressed up in the oversized its premiere. Detailing the decades-later fallout suit of bilious . Judd Nelson is cringe of a tornado that ripped through the town of incarnate as Marty Malt, a sweaty nebbish whose Xenia, OH, Korine’s décollage takes the form of dreams of stand-up stardom become a Kafkaesque a series of off-the-rails vignettes concerned with nightmare when a third arm starts growing out of feral, unsupervised youth and disenfranchised his back. Eager to cash in on Marty’s deformity is accordion-wielding garbageman Gus, played with literal adults. In addition to his gift for crafting strong images suffused with a pseudo-ethnographic gutter poetry, shit-eating glee by Bill Paxton in what may be his most committed performance (or perhaps, the performance Korine excels at casting, populating his film with true homegrown eccentrics, professional skateboarders, that should have gotten him committed). Unfolding across garbage-strewn hellscapes and dumpster-dive former daytime talk show guests, and cult performer , teenage star of . 21 years bars seemingly lit entirely with radioactive isotopes, THE DARK BACKWARD is an infernal belch in the face from its initial release, it’s still hard to believe that Korine’s cat-killing, glue-huffing transgressive masterwork of good taste that must be seen to be believed—and can never be unseen. has reached drinking age against all odds. FASCINATION LIPS OF BLOOD Presented by Cathode Love Presented by Cathode Love (Jean Rollin, 1979, 80 mins, DCP) (Jean Rollin, 1975, 88 mins, DCP) One of Rollin’s most clever and prescient takes on A mysterious photograph of ruins at a perfume the genre depicts a coven of aristocratic launch party triggers an obsession with the women feeding on blood as “health tonic,” whose strange, angelic girl in white, encountered one taste for ox blood can no longer satisfy. Meeting night while lost as a boy. Melancholic, down- annually at a private chateau, they await an unsus- beat, and carried on the wings of and pecting male victim, when an enterprising thief serialized mystery films, LIPS OF BLOOD merges escapes into the woods to this remote chateau to Rollin’s love of the mystery serial with his sig- “escape” danger. Taking the two innocent chamber- nature melancholia and slow-burning visual poetics in this tale of romantic nostalgia and obsession with maids hostage, a sadistic game of sexual and mental manipulation begins to unfold as he awaits the cover of finding the truth. LIPS OF BLOOD blurs the line between the real and the imagined, both past and present. nightfall to leave. FASCINATION employs the dark of Rollin’s work with a role-reversing play on Increasingly haunted by the ghostly apparition, beckoning him to the ruins, where one of Rollin’s most “captive” and “captor,” done with pacing that is at times almost transcendent, and, the film contains some fleshed-out works sees one of his most touching and poetic endings. A true masterpiece of the “.” of Rollin’s most potent, surreal, and dramatic imagery...with a haunting score to match.

30 Music Box Theatre February-March 2018 Midnights 31 “A woman whose voice drew forth a song's every emotion.” - Variety BUY YOUR COPY TODAY AT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE

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