sign in sign up
<<
Home , And Suddenly the Dawn, Ann Dowd, B movie, John Barrymore, Noah Beery, Olivier Assayas

CALENDAR JUNE 8 - AUGUST 9, 2018

DAMSEL, starring Robert Pattinson & Mia Wasikowska Opening June 29

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

AMERICAN CINEPOCALYPSE ROBIN WILLIAMS FREE LOONEY TUNES STEPHEN KING ANIMALS FILM FESTIVAL SERIES ON 35MM FEST OPENS JUNE 8 JUNE 21-28 TUESDAYS IN JULY JULY 14 & 15 JULY 27 & 28 Welcome TO THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE! bartonperreira.com bartonperreira.com exclusively available at Custom Eyes exclusively available at Custom Eyes FEATURE 5 AMERICAN ANIMALS OPENS JUNE 8 6 COLD WATER OPENS JUNE 8 6 MOUNTAIN OPENS JUNE 15 8 DAMSEL OPENS JUNE 29 10 THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS OPENS JULY 6 10 WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST OPENS JULY 13 12 THE KING OPENS JULY 20 12 MAQUIA OPENS JULY 27 14 THE CAPTAIN OPENS AUGUST 3

16 COMMENTARY SERIES 22 CLASSIC MATINEES 26 CHICAGO FILM SOCIETY 28 SILENT CINEMA 29 FROM STAGE TO SCREEN 35393539 N. N. SOUTHPORT SOUTHPORT AVE.AVE. CHICAGO, ILIL 6065760657 | 773.871.2773 871 2020020 30 MIDNIGHTS www.customeyes2www.customeyes2020.com020.com SINCE 2003 SPECIAL EVENTS 5 MUSIC BOX MOVIES AT GALLAGHER WAY MAY 16-SEPTEMBER 19 7 CINEPOCALYPSE JUNE 21-28 8 JUNUN JULY 5 9 TUESDAYS WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS TUESDAYS IN JULY 11 LOONEY TUNES ON 35MM JULY 14 & 15 11 SUMMER ON SOUTHPORT JULY 14 & 15 13 STEPHEN KING FILM FESTIVAL JULY 27 & 28 14 48 HOUR FILM FESTIVAL JULY 29-AUGUST 2

Brian Andreotti, Director of Programming VOLUME 36 ISSUE 150 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 Kyle Westphal, Programming Associate Cover Image from the film DAMSEL, opening June 29 Rebecca Lyon, Assistant Technical Director at Music Box Theatre. See page 8 for more information.

Music Box Theatre 3733 North Southport musicboxtheatre.com 773-871-6604 showtimes 773-871-6607 office 3 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

MAY 16 - SEPTEMBER 19 SPECIAL EVENT

MUSIC BOX THEATRE MOVIES AT GALLAGHER WAY

Every Other Wednesday, May 16 - September 19 at 7:30pm Gather your friends and family and come enjoy Gallagher Way’s free summer movie series brought to you by Chicago’s premier venue for independent and classic films, the Music Box Theatre. Running every other Wednesday through September, join us as we screen classic films including GREASE, , , TWISTER and more. All screenings take place at Gallagher Way, located at 3637 N Clark Street, Chicago. Visit GallagherWay.com for more information and events. There is no cost for Music Box Theatre Movies at the Gallagher Way, join us for free.

OPENS JUNE 8

READ RAY PRIDE’S COMMENTARY ON PAGE 16

AMERICAN ANIMALS A riveting college-boy crime “caper that tiggers along on pure movie-movie adrenalin, DIRECTED BY: Bart Layton before U-turning into a sober- STARRING: Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Ann Dowd ing reflection on young male 116 mins, DCP privilege and entitlement.” –Variety The unbelievable but entirely true story of four young men who attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history. When Spencer and Warren, two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Kentucky, leave for college, the realities of adult life begin to dawn on them. Determined to live lives that are out BUY YOUR COPY TODAY AT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE of the ordinary, they plan the brazen theft of some of the world’s most valuable books from the special collections room of the college library. Enlisting two more friends, accounting major Eric and fitness fanatic Chas, and taking their cues from heist movies, the gang meticulously plots the theft. Unfolding from multiple perspectives, and innovatively incorporating the real-life figures at the heart of the story, writer-director Bart Layton (THE IMPOSTER) takes the heist movie into bold new territory. @musicboxfi lms musicboxfi lms.com Features and Special Events 5 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

OPENS JUNE 8 FEATURE FILM

COLD WATER New 4K Restoration READ PAT MCGAVIN’S COMMENTARY ON PAGE 18 DIRECTED BY: Olivier Assayas STARRING: Cyprien Fouquet, Virginie Ledoyen 1994, 92 mins, DCP, In French with English subtitles An acclaimed early work by Olivier Assayas that has long remained unavailable, the deeply felt coming-of-age drama COLD WATER at long last makes its way to U.S. theaters. Drawing from his own youthful experiences, Assayas revisits the outskirts of Paris in the early 1970s, telling the story of teenage lovers Gilles and Christine, whose open rebellion against family and society threatens to tear them apart, as Christine is sent to an institution by her parents and Gilles faces an uncertain future after running into trouble at school. With a rock soundtrack that vividly evokes the period, and provides the backdrop for one of the most memorable party sequences ever committed to film, COLD WATER is a heartbreaking immersion into the emotional tumult of adolescence.

OPENS JUNE 15 FEATURE FILM

MOUNTAIN ««««. A sublime rush of “ adrenaline and orchestral beauty.” – DIRECTED BY: Jennifer Peedom 74 mins, DCP A ravishing feat of “vertiginous filmmaking.” Only three centuries ago, setting out to climb a mountain would – have been considered close to lunacy. Mountains were places of peril, not beauty, an upper world to be shunned, not sought out. Why do mountains now hold us spellbound, drawing us into their dominion, often at the cost of our lives? From Tibet to Australia, Alaska to Norway armed with drones, Go-Pros and helicopters, director Jennifer Peedom has fashioned an astonishing symphony of mountaineers, ice climbers, free soloists, heliskiers, snowboarders, wingsuiters and parachuting mountain bikers. Willem Dafoe provides a narration sampled from British mountaineer Robert Macfarlane’s acclaimed memoir Mountains of the Mind, and a classical score from the Australian Chamber Orchestra accompanies this majestic cinematic experience.

6 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Features and Special Events 7 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

OPENS JUNE 29 FEATURE SPECIAL FILM EVENT TUESDAYS WITH ROBIN

Every Tuesday in July at 7pm This July, the Music Box celebrates the work of the incomparable Robin Williams, with weekly screenings of films starring the Oscar-winning actor and comedian. Included in the series: The animated Disney classic ALADDIN; a 25th Anniversary presentation of the family blockbuster MRS. DOUBTFIRE; ’s magical New York fantasy THE FISHER KING; Bobcat Goldthwait’s pitch- WORLD’S GREATEST DAMSEL Delightful…Mia Wasikowska “can do no wrong.” DAD; and the action-adventure based on the beloved children’s book JUMANJI. DIRECTED BY: David Zellner and Nathan Zellner –New York Magazine STARRING: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner Beautiful and 25th 113 mins, DCP “unpredictable.” –The Guardian Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson), an affluent pioneer, ventures Anniversary! across the American Frontier to marry the love of his life, Penelope (Mia Wasikowska). As Samuel traverses the Wild West with a drunkard named Parson Henry (David Zellner) and a miniature horse called Butterscotch, their once-simple journey grows treacherous, blurring the lines between hero, villain and damsel. A loving reinvention of the genre from the Zellner brothers (KUMIKO THE TREASURE HUNTER), DAMSEL showcases their trademark unpredictability, off-kilter sense of humor, and unique brand of humanism. July 3 ALADDIN JULY 5 SPECIAL (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992, 90 mins, DCP) EVENT July 10 MRS. DOUBTFIRE (Chris Columbus, 1993, 125 mins, DCP)

Preceded JUNUN by ’s DAYDREAMING July 17 Thursday, July 5 at 9:30pm on 35MM THE FISHER KING (Terry Gilliam, 1991, 137 mins, DCP) DIRECTED BY: STARRING: Shye Ben Tzur, , The Express (2015, 54 mins, DCP) Spring 2015, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, hosts Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, Nigel Godrich, Paul Thomas Anderson and a dozen Indian musicians. The team assembles a makeshift studio at the Maharaja’s Fort, and over the following three weeks create the joyous collaboration that becomes the music and film of JUNUN (madness of love). Junun is a cross-cultural, cross religious meeting point between the mystical Islam of Sufi, Qawwali, and Rajasthani Gypsy musicians interwoven with devotional poetries in , Hebrew, and Hindi. Composed by Shye Ben Tzur, an Israeli musician and July 24 poet who lived for 15 years in India, the music was crafted and shaped by the influences of Jonny July 31 Greenwood and Nigel Godrich, and captured on film by Paul Thomas Anderson. The results deliver WORLD’S the close camaraderie of artistic collaboration and a sonic, visual and sensory experience that will JUMANJI GREATEST DAD intrigue and capture your imagination. (Joe Johnston, 1995, 104 mins, DCP) (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2009, 97 mins, 35mm)

8 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Features and Special Events 9 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

OPENS JULY 6 FEATURE JULY 14 & 15 SPECIAL FILM EVENT

Winner - Special Jury Award -

THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS A documentary that A READ STEVE PROKOPY’S plays like a nerve- COMMENTARY ON PAGE 20 “ SUMMER ON DIRECTED BY: Tim Wardle jangling .” –The Wrap SOUTHPORT 96 mins, DCP SPECIAL! Tim Wardle’s acclaimed documentary THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS LOONEY TUNES ON 35MM! is the most amazing, incredible, remarkable true story ever told. Three strangers are reunited by astonishing coincidence after being born identical triplets, separated at birth, and adopted by To coincide with the annual Summer on Southport street festival, we’re presenting a series of Warner three different families. Their jaw-dropping, feel-good story instantly becomes a global sensation Bros. cartoons on 35mm. Join Bugs, Daffy, Wile E. Coyote and the rest of the gang as we screen some complete with fame and celebrity, however, the fairy-tale reunion sets in motion a series of events classic cartoons guaranteed to bring out the kid in you. that unearth an unimaginable secret— with radical repercussions for us all. Over 3 hours of cartoons that we’re showing FOR FREE, starting at 10am on Saturday & Sunday. Take a THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS is an exuberant celebration of family that transforms into a thriller break from the outdoor activities to catch classic Looney Tunes on the famous Music Box big screen. with colossal implications and proof that life is truly stranger than fiction. Come and go as you please!

OPENS JULY 13 FEATURE JULY 14 & 15 SPECIAL FILM EVENT

WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST

As sharp-lined as one of DIRECTED BY: Lorna Tucker “Westwood’s showiest 80 mins, DCP catwalk gowns” –Variety Dame Vivienne Westwood is ’s Grande Dame. One time SUMMER ON SOUTHPORT agent provocateur, the doyenne of British fashion, an eco-conscious 4 Stars...An access-all- In the Music Box Lounge & Garden activist and one of the most influential originators in recent history. “areas look at Britain’s foremost fashion designer.” The film explores her uphill struggle to success, looking closely at her –Total Film July 14 & 15 artistry, her activism and her cultural significance. Blending iconic archive and newly shot observational footage, this era defining, intimate origins story is told in Vivienne’s Visit the Music Box Lounge & Garden during the Southport Arts Festival! Beat the summer heat with own words, and through touching interviews with her inner circle of family, friends and collaborators. complimentary Beer, Wine & Spirits tastings, our famous Build-Your-Own Bloody Mary Bar, Frozen WESTWOOD: PUNK, ICON, ACTIVIST encompasses the remarkable story of one of the true icons of Cocktails, Food Trucks, Live Music and much more. Come celebrate the Arts and enjoy the beautiful our time, as she fights to maintain her brand’s integrity, her principles—and her legacy. weather in the Music Box Garden!

10 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Features and Special Events 11 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

OPENS JULY 20 FEATURE FILM

Opening Weekend - Director In Person!

THE KING The most insightful and com- “prehensive profile of the icon DIRECTED BY: Eugene Jarecki ever been captured on camera” 109 mins, DCP –Indiewire Forty years after the death of Elvis Presley, two-time Sundance Grand Hugely moving and enor- Jury winner Eugene Jarecki’s new film takes the King’s 1963 Rolls-Royce “mously bombastic in a way that is pure Elvis.” on a musical road trip across America. From Memphis to New York, –The Wrap Las Vegas, and beyond, the journey traces the rise and fall of Elvis as a metaphor for the country he left behind. In this groundbreaking film, Jarecki paints a visionary portrait of the state of the American Dream and a penetrating look at how the hell we got here. A diverse cast of Americans, both famous and non, join the journey, including Alec Baldwin, Rosanne Cash, Chuck D, Emmylou Harris, , Van Jones, Mike Myers, and Dan Rather, among many others.

OPENS JULY 27 FEATURE FILM

MAQUIA: WHEN THE PROMISED FLOWER BLOOMS

DIRECTED BY: Mari Okada STARRING: Manaka Iwami, Miyu Irino, Ai Kayano 115 mins, DCP, In Japanese with English subtitles Though only 15, Maquia knows she will live for centuries without aging past adolescence. She belongs to the Iorph, a clan of ageless beings just like her. Maquia’s elders warn her not to fall in love with anyone outside their realm, lest she wish to encounter true loneliness in the end. But fate pushes Maquia out into the mortal world one night, when an invading territory separates her from the clan. There she discovers an orphaned baby, Erial, and takes him in as her own child. From this point, Maquia will suffer extreme heartbreak in the name of motherhood, as she watches Erial grow and seeks to reconnect with her lost Iorph friends, all torn apart by the cruel world of Mesate.

12 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Commentary 13 FEATURES AND SPECIAL EVENTS

OPENS AUGUST 3 FEATURE FILM

Opening Weekend - Director In Person!

THE CAPTAIN Relentless…Arresting… “ Darkly evocative.” DIRECTED BY: Robert Schwentke –The Hollywood Reporter STARRING: Max Hubacher, Milan Peschel, Bernd Hölscher Fully understands the 118 mins, DCP, In German with English subtitles “psychology of the German soldiers and offers Based on a disturbing true story, THE CAPTAIN follows Willi Herold, unflinching, timeless truth.” a German army deserter who stumbles across an abandoned Nazi –RogerEbert.com captain’s uniform during the last, desperate weeks of the Third Reich. Newly emboldened by the allure of a suit that he stole only to stay warm, Willi discovers that many Germans will follow the leader, whosoever that happens to be. A parade BUY YOUR COPY TODAY AT THE MUSIC BOX THEATRE of fresh atrocities follow in the self-declared captain’s wake, and serve as a profound reminder of the consequences of social conformity and untrammeled political power. @doppelgangerreleasing A historical , a tar-black comedy, and a sociological treatise, THE CAPTAIN presents fascism doppelgangerreleasing.com as a pathetic pyramid scheme, a system to be gamed by the most unscrupulous and hollow-souled.

14 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Features and Special Events 15 COMMENTARY AMERICAN ANIMALS OPENS JUNE 8. SEE PAGE 5 FOR DETAILS. them: John James Audubon’s singular “Birds of America.” As a born-and-bred Kentuckian, that batty plan and those indelible illustrations are as enthralling as the recreation of a modern crime of the Commonwealth. (Plus, a first edition of “Origin of Species” by Charles Darwin on the side.) As the plan spirals upward and outward, Layton has many more tricks than the post-teens weaned on heist movies: he introduces real-life figures into the onrushing tale to narrate the progress (and fates) of their onscreen avatars. What do these men know a decade-and-a-half later that their callow fictional kidlings do not? The dynamics are there; the screws tighten. The acts are audacious and immoral, and as things speed up, a careen toward disaster seems fated. Their mad cluelessness suggests the weird and damming all-American confidence that anyone can do any job if they’ve ever seen it portrayed, anywhere. Layton’s darkly enveloping visual palette is marzipan-meets-Mars-light, with colors upon colors and hue upon chroma in aromatic profusion. Time schemes and the musical score shift with showy bravura, objective representations of the subjective delusions of this mild bunch. The brilliance burns to the touch. These boys’ gaudy crime fantasia was born from the very mass of mass media that Layton repurposes to his own substantial narrative ends. Ray Pride is film critic of Newcity, editor of MovieCityNews.com and a contributing editor CAREENING TOWARD DISASTER of Filmmaker magazine. He is also a photographer: his book of words and images of Chicago “Ghost Signs” is forthcoming. Head Down the Rabbithole of AMERICAN ANIMALS By Ray Pride

Successive generations of filmmakers get farther and farther from classic and the stuff GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER of familiar stories, refracting them through their own experience of life and art, and that is one of the most thrilling things about feature-length filmmaking a century on. Wisecracking post- BOOM Tarantino ironic meta-fiction for a decade past RESERVOIR DOGS was a decadent phase, and FOR LIQUID now movies like Bart Layton’s exemplary heist canvas, AMERICAN ANIMALS, bloom from that REAL SKY wreckage. He takes the most grandiloquent visual devices of cinematic masters/monsters like THE LATE TEENAGE JUNE 29 - JULY 5 Tarantino, Michael Mann, Oliver Stone and Tony Scott and just gets on with it in a tonally YEARS OF insolent thriller copping its primary facts from a 2003 true crime. JEAN-MICHEL NEW 4K DIGITAL BASQUIAT RESTORATION Layton’s first picture, THE IMPOSTER (2012), demonstrated his interest in blurring lines of fact JUNE 22 - 28 and fiction, and fact succumbed to the gorgeous patterning of visual style and ironic a-has. Some may think Layton has only gone deeper down a rabbithole of style atop substance, but what a 164 N State • siskelfilmcenter.org glorious, richly suggestive rabbithole it is. AMERICAN ANIMALS is a sleek monster all its own, but the quickest shorthand would be an effective hybrid of THIN BLUE LINE and both versions of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123. “This is not based on a true story,” the opening credits of AMERICAN ANIMALS read, briefly, before “not based on” disappears from view. What is “truth” in the mind that conceives of vastly preposterous schemes and the heart that holds success is not only possible, but also certain? Two male friends from the average suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky, headed to college, want more of their lives. Spencer wants to be an artist but doesn’t think he’s suffered; Warren’s upbringing led him to believe he is destined for unspecified greatness. The suffocating dissatis- faction of these Nietzsche-reader-style ne’er-do-wells leads them to an unlikely and wildly ambitious heist of rare books from the local Transylvania University special collection. Among

16 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Commentary 17 COMMENTARY COLD WATER OPENS JUNE 8. SEE PAGE 6 FOR DETAILS. Fouquet). Impulsive and fanciful, Christine has constructed a harsh, tough surface to conceal the dreariness of her working class roots and the attendant difficulties of her broken home life. Gilles also is the product of divorced parents though he has access to greater material comfort and an intellectual art-history father (played by the great French-Hungarian actor László Szabó, a crucial player in the early ). He is more sheltered, admitting he has his books, records and papers but he lacks experiences. The two become separated when Christine is detained by store security during a shoplifting spree. The movie meditates on themes of freedom and confinement. Assayas has always excelled at orchestrating movement and he wields the camera expressively. He is great at tethering the camera to the interior emotional states of his actors. After her father commits Christine to an institution, the camera floats and whirls outside in revealing the open- ness of the countryside in brutal contrast to the restriction of her new institutional environment. Avid for adventure, Gilles seems to be making a transition from delinquency to outright anarchy after he acquires some explosives. He seems trapped by extremes, the solidity of his home and the energy and excitement of the forbidden. Smart though unformed, Gilles is seeking his own identity. The reaching for that yields one of the film’s best scenes of Gilles wandering at night through the woods as he recites American poet Allen Ginsberg’s difficult, dense text, “Wichita Vortex Sutra.” The movie’s extraordinary centerpiece is set off by the rendezvous of the central couple at an FRESH AND MONUMENTAL abandoned chateau in the countryside. The bacchanal, at once thrilling and tense, is enthralling Follow Doomed Lovers in the Classic COLD WATER to take in at the mass of bodies arrayed off one another, getting high, dancing, making out, the alert and probing camera capturing mood and atmosphere with a tactile immediacy. By Patrick Z. McGavin The music is so adroitly interwoven and suggestive, the liberation of Joplin’s “Me and Bobby Few things in cinema are as exciting as the breakout emergence of a spectacular talent. From McGee,” the freedom of ’s “School’s Out,” Dylan’s haunting “Knockin’ on Heaven’s the moment it premiered at the in 1994, COLD WATER was an instant classic, Door,” and Cohen’s bracing “Avalanche,” punctuated by the abrasive sound of the needle skip- a lyrically bracing and emotionally tense work about doomed young lovers on the outskirts of ping along the tracks. Paris in 1972. The imagery and sounds coalesce and carry a sense of wonder, surprise and unease. Photo- The movie is the fifth feature of the French writer and director Olivier Assayas. Despite generat- graphed by Denis Lenoir, the movie has a speed and clarity. A deeply accomplished actress ing tremendous reviews at festivals in Toronto and New York, the movie suffered a fractured and who made films during the same time with Benoit Jacquot, Claude Chabrol and Taiwanese random history in English-speaking markets. The complications of securing the music rights to master , Virginie Ledoyen is sensational. She holds the different pieces together. songs performed by Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen scuttled any American distribu- She is heartbreaking, showing off a self-destructive energy disclosing a tender and volatile tion deal. vulnerability. In his first film part, Fouquet allows his lack of technical training to his advantage, underscoring his own uncertainty. Two years later, Assayas made the stylistically audacious , revealing a stylistic fluency and acuity that proved his breakout. Even as his career soared, there was always a lingering disap- All films age differently as some works achieve greater subtlety and artistic range and others pointment the director’s most significant early work was effectively rendered invisible. Janus suffer by changing standards or tougher inspection under a close glare. COLD WATER feels as Films and Criterion (which has done extraordinary work in making Assayas’s diverse, adventurous fresh and monumental as the time of that first public screening at Cannes 24 years ago. Olivier body of work widely available) have deftly navigated the music-rights issues and present this Assayas has made more challenging and ambitious films. He has never made a film, like COLD extraordinary work under the best possible conditions with a pristine and hauntingly beautiful WATER, that leaves you shaken and unmoored. 4K restoration. Patrick Z. McGavin is a Chicago writer and film critic. His reviews, interviews and festival The story pivots on the relationship of the two criminally beautiful sixteen-year old outlaw lovers, dispatches have appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Reader and RogerEbert.com. the feral and magnetic Christine (Virginie Ledoyen) and the romantic, amoral Gilles (Cyprien He is also a contributing critic to Magill’s Cinema Annual.

18 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Commentary 19 FEATURESCOMMENTARY AND SPECIAL EVENTS

she had them. She arranged to hand her children over to an elite Jewish adoption agency, Louise Wise Services, which specialized in matching babies born to Jewish mothers with Jewish families, which is exactly what happened to the subjects of this documentary. Using archival footage and re-creations, Wardle does an impressive job capturing the period and the frenzy that surrounded the times, but he also adds a layer of the sinister when discussing the adoption agency, and for good reason, including a wonderful moment when the adoptive parents confront the agency in their search for information and end up learning more than they’d bargained. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS OPENS JULY 6. Although some critics have openly discussed the film’s biggest and most explosive turns and SEE PAGE 10 FOR DETAILS. reveals, it’s almost criminal to have those moments spoiled since audiences all along the festival circuit have reacted audibly to every new detail. The real hero of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS CONTROLLED GROUP is journalist Lawrence Wright, who never gave up investigating Louise Wise Services, and serves as the conduit for a great number of the movie’s most dramatic moments. By the conclusion, the The Captivating Story of THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS birth mother’s mental health comes back to haunt them, mysterious figures in their lives growing By Steve Prokopy up suddenly make sense (to them and their parents), and a deeper understanding of how thor- oughly our search for knowledge can corrupt our morality becomes all too clear. For a brief time in 1980, the three most talked about people in and the country were Bobby Shafran, Eddy Galland, and David Kellman. They were all 19-year-old, nice, Jewish Some of the most interesting interviews come courtesy of the adoptive parents, not just for the boys who grew up near each other but never met until, on Shafran’s first day of community information they provide, but also because their demeanor and self-admitted parenting styles college, he was mistaken for Galland by everyone he met. It didn’t take long for one of Galland’s were so radically different—a fact that comes into play as the true nature of this story opens friends to connect the two, verifying the only possible truth: that they were twin brothers, up. It’s difficult to watch THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS and not feel for these kids who were separated as infants. Since both knew they’d been adopted, this didn’t seem that out of the denied growing up with their siblings, who they are clearly so close to in later years. But as more realm of possibilities. Before long, local papers were running stories about the long-lost siblings, recent interviews reveal, even the tightest knit of families can be divided and hurt each other. At along with photos of the pair, which caught the attention of Kellman, also adopted, also 19, and one particularly difficult moment, the brothers realize that even though they look the same, they also bearing a striking resemblance to the recently reunited brothers. And just like that, the twins barely know each other. became triplets, and the media coverage exploded. In all likelihood, the movie will enrage you, but it’s the type of emotional response that’s difficult The handsome lads were built for talk shows. They would show up dressed identically, answer to aim in a specific direction, making it all the more frustrating as a morality tale. The film ends certain questions in unison, discuss the uncanny number of common traits and interests they with discussions of legal battles and documents that won’t be available for review until long af- had, and do just about anything that seemed amusing just because having three lookalikes doing ter these men are dead, which sounds anticlimactic, when in fact, almost nothing about this work it together made it funnier. They went to Studio 54 as a group, and even cameoed in the film is. THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS is an early frontrunner for the best documentary of 2018. DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN alongside a young Madonna. It took some time for anyone to ask Steve Prokopy is the Chief Film Critic for the Chicago-based arts outlet Third Coast Review (www. the question: “Why were these brothers separated?” and more importantly, “How did they end ThirdCoastReview.com), where he contributes film reviews and filmmaker and actor interviews. up being raised by such vastly different parents, whose only common trait was that they were all For 20 years, he was the Chicago Editor for Ain’t It Cool News, writing under the name “Capone.” Jewish?” Now, director Tim Wardle tells the entire, stranger-than-fiction tale of the triplets—one in which the reunion is only the beginning of something far more unnerving and unethical. Winner of a Special Jury Prize for Storytelling (Documentary) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS hits theaters at a time when interest in serialized, true-crime podcasts and series is seemingly at an all-time high. But rather than expand this complex and layered mystery across several hours, director Wardle opts to boil every moment down to its most shocking elements while never pulling back on the humanity of the three men caught in the middle of this captivating story. The filmmaker takes his time pulling back micro-layers of secrets, revealing just enough to keep audiences on a hook, thinking things couldn’t get any more devious, when in fact they can. One especially heartbreaking sequence involves the brothers as young men seeking out and find- ing their mother, who it turns out was underage, desperate and not entirely mentally stable when

20 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Commentary 21 CONTINUING SERIES CLASSIC MATINEES Sunday, June 10 at 2:00pm SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS AT 11:30am THE BREAKING POINT (, 1950, 97 mins, 35mm) An adaptation of the same Ernest Hemingway story that served MICHAEL CURTIZ: A RETROSPECTIVE as the basis for TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, THE BREAKING POINT casts John Garfield as a beleaguered fishing boat captain forced June 9 - August 5 into unchartered moral waters in this exemplary working-class noir. New 35mm print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Although he is best known for the immortal CASABLANCA, Michael Curtiz directed over 150 films in a Preservation funding provided by Warner Bros. in association with career that spanned half a century. He turned out between two-to-seven features every year from 1926 The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. to 1952, making film noirs, swashbucklers, , comedies, westerns, horror films, musicals, and patriotic paeans to his adopted country. NOIR CITY maestro Alan K. Rode will be joining the Music Box on June 9 & 10 to screen double features of several Curtiz landmarks and discuss his new book, MICHAEL Sunday, June 17 at 11:30am CURTIZ: A LIFE IN FILM, with additional Curtiz matinees throughout the summer. VIRGINIA CITY Saturday, June 9 at 11:30am (Michael Curtiz, 1940, 121 mins, 35mm) Chiefly known as the movie that preposterously cast Humphrey Bogart as a Mexican bandito with a pencil mustache, VIRGINIA (Michael Curtiz, 1931, 81 mins, 35mm) CITY remains one of Curtiz’s most entertaining Westerns, with One of Curtiz’s finest and most neglected pre-Code films, terrific stunt work and sultry Painted Desert vistas. In the waning THE MAD GENIUS is an elaborately daft vision of the director’s days of the Civil War, Union officer learns of a con- European roots. stars as frustrated puppeteer spiracy to prop up the Confederacy by diverting a gold shipment Vladimir Ivan Tsarakov, who vows to turn a boy he derides as to Jefferson Davis himself. Can he trust showgirl Miriam Hopkins “a disjointed bag of bones” into a first-rate dancer. A psycho- to smash the Rebs? logical that finds room for extended ballet sequences, 35mm preservation from the THE MAD GENIUS was the BLACK SWAN of its day.

Saturday, June 23 at 11:30am Saturday, June 9 at 1:30pm DOCTOR X THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (Michael Curtiz, 1932, 76 mins, 35mm) (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley, 1938, 102 mins, 35mm) The great granddaddy of body horror movies, DOCTOR X is a Errol Flynn brings the New Deal to the dispossessed of genre mash-up that may as well have been grafted together on the Sherwood Forest in this all-time classic swashbuckler. The operating table with a healthy dollop of synthetic flesh. beautifully-paced action sequences and elaborate costume Simultaneously a gruesome moonlight murder mystery and a saucy design are rendered in eye-popping three-strip , pre-Code newspaper comedy, DOCTOR X was photographed in with first-rate symphonic support from Erich Korngold. the two-strip Technicolor process, which renders the morgue visits, the grisly medical experiments, and Fay Wray in an eerily unreal Sunday, June 10 at 11:30am color palette. Presented as part of CINEPOCALYPSE.

CASABLANCA Saturday, June 30 & Sunday, July 1 at 11:30am (Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 mins, 35mm) There is no greater tribute to Curtiz’s narrative mastery than MILDRED PIERCE CASABLANCA, his roving camera deftly catching a dozen (Michael Curtiz, 1945, 111 mins, 35mm) memorable and quotable performances (, provides the last word in motherly sacrifice Ingrid Bergman, , Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, in this perverse noir of spoiled teenagers, loutish Dooley Wilson, et al.) in Rick’s Cafe Americain. A World War II husbands, and chain restaurants. Later re-made as a Todd that remains a beloved touchstone as time Haynes mini-series with Kate Winslet, the Curtiz original is goes by, this Best Picture Academy Award winner represents a concentrated powerhouse with an excellent grasp of the golden age Hollywood filmmaking at its height. minute gradations of Southern California social hierarchy.

22 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Matinees 23 CONTINUING SERIES Music Box Member Saturday, July 7 & Sunday, July 8 at 11:30am THE SEA HAWK Becoming a member at the Music Box is a great way to (Michael Curtiz, 1940, 109 mins, 35mm) High-seas privateers plunder across the screen in this fleet pirate support the quality programming at the independently saga with a timely interventionist message. Queen Elizabeth is counseled to appease Spain and ignore its growing Armada, but owned and operated historic movie theatre, lounge Captain Geoffrey Thorpe (Errol Flynn) knows better and recognizes a military threat when he sees one. Building upon the spectacle of and garden. This includes our holiday classics, talk their earlier CAPTAIN BLOOD, Curtiz and Flynn achieve the zenith of the seafaring genre. backs, film festivals, visits from directors, producers, and actors, as well as our regular midnight, matinee, Sunday, July 22 at 11:30am and feature presentations. (Michael Curtiz, 1933, 73 mins, 35mm) Widely regarded as the best screen adaptation of S.S. Van Dine’s Philo Vance mystery novels,THE KENNEL MURDER CASE cast as the suave detective a year join today before he soft-shoed his way into the not dissimilar Nick Charles role in THE THIN MAN. A B-movie plot tricked • Discounted tickets • Restaurant discounts out with A+ technique and impressive forward momen- tum, THE KENNEL MURDER CASE secured Curtiz’s repu- • Deals on Music Box Films DVD’s tation as a studio craftsman who could enliven any script. • Members-only screenings • Advanced purchase for • Bottomless popcorn Sunday, July 29 at 11:30am special screenings • Discounted wines NOAH’S ARK (Michael Curtiz, 1928, 100 mins, 35mm) Curtiz’s answer to Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 telling of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, NOAH’S ARK mixes its Old Testament para- ble with a modern tale of civilizational catastrophe with a World War I backdrop. The cast has dual roles, including as Noah’s nemesis King Nephiliu and lecherous Russian spymaster register online Nickoloff. Shot as a but released with music and effects track and several dialogue sequences, NOAH’S ARK at musicboxtheatre.com confirmed Curtiz’s command of spectacle. 35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film or visit our box office! & Television Archive.

Saturday, August 4 & Saturday, August 5 at 11:30am FLAMINGO ROAD (Michael Curtiz, 1949, 94 mins, 35mm) Joan Crawford re-teams with Curtiz for this downmarket MILDRED PIERCE, which asks whether a carnival dancer can rise to the posh confines of Flamingo Road. Crawford must beat a gauntlet of corrupt sheriffs, scheming politicos, and bordello whispers in this landmark of camp.

24 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Matinees 25 CONTINUING SERIES

H EST THE CHICAGO FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS TC AT A E The Chicago Film Society hosts monthly B W presentations featuring classic films, underseen L I rarities, cult movies, short subjects, reels and L N more, all on glorious celluloid. For more information, A E

visit www.chicagofilmsociety.org. M R

S Y RIO BRAVO (Howard Hawks, 1959, 141 mins, 35mm) Monday, June 18 at 7pm A Western about relationships, honor, purple light in the canyon, and • O • the inexhaustibly fine line P K between “good” and “good E E N E enough,” RIO BRAVO is just 7 DAYS A W about perfect. stars as John T. Chance, a small town sheriff who must keep the peace with a task force that embarrasses his conservative sense of professionalism: drunken deputy Dean Martin, guitar-slinging kid Ricky Nelson, game-legged oldster Walter Brennan, fiercely independent Angie Dickinson, and loquacious Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez. An ambling, seemingly shapeless movie that thinks nothing of stopping the action for a song or two, RIO BRAVO boasts a screenplay that is a genuine model of economy and an endless fount of arid wisdom. Screening in an original IB Technicolor print!

URGH! A MUSIC WAR (Derek Burbidge, 1981, DABLON 96 mins, 35mm) Monday, July 16 at 7pm Unabashed propaganda for the new wave of rock ’n’ roll VINEYARDS on the rise at the head of the Reagan era, URGH! A MUSIC WAR captured some of the most exciting musical acts of its era live in prime form. URGH! provided each of its 24 bands the space Winery & Tasting Room of a single song to leave an indelible impression before moving along. URGH! has endured as a vital time capsule of its musical moment, presented in hi-fi with relatively little corporate intervention. So please join us as we present Devo, Echo & the Bunnymen, X, 999, Klaus Nomi, Au Pairs, Oingo Boingo, UB40, The Cramps, Gary Numan, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, XTC, and many more in the musical event of 1981. • • Co-presented with CHIRP 107.1 FM 111 W. Shawnee Rd. Baroda, MI 49101

• 26 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 269-422-2846 DABLON.COMSilent Cinema 27 CONTINUING SERIES SILENT CINEMA FROM STAGE TO SCREEN Classic silent films the way they were meant to be seen! The Music Box proudly presents the greatest in filmed theatrical Featuring a live musical score on the famous Music productions from around the world! Box organ by Dennis Scott, Music Box House Organist. Co-presented by Chicago Film Society. THE CURIOUS FEEL MY PULSE INCIDENT OF THE DOG (Gregory La Cava, 1928, 63 mins, 35mm) IN THE NIGHT-TIME Saturday, June 16 at 11:30am ENCORE PRESENTATION Bebe Daniels began her acting career at the age of seven; by fourteen, she was PRESENTED BY NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE a frequent co-star of Harold Lloyd and Directed by: Marianne Elliot by the end of the silent era, Daniels had Wednesday, July 25 at 7pm become a star and accomplished co- medienne in her own right. This rollick- Captured live from the National Theatre in ing comedy offers Daniels a wonderful London, this critically acclaimed production showcase for knockabout antics and sub- directed by Marianne Elliot (ANGELS IN tler character work. Hypochondriac heir- AMERICA, WAR HORSE), has astonished audiences around the world and has received seven ess Daniels heads to an island sanitarium Olivier and five Tony Awards®. where everything is not as it seems. The Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs. Shears’ dead dog. It has been speared with a doctor (William Powell) is really a bootlegger in disguise and all the attendants, save for undercover garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight and Christopher is under suspicion. He records reporter Richard Arlen, are lieutenants in his rum-running army. You’ll never look at surgical equip- each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington. He has an ment the same way again. extraordinary brain, exceptional at math while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never Preservation Print courtesy of the Library of Congress ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world. THE LIGHTHOUSE “A phenomenal combination of storytelling and spectacle” – The Times KEEPERS “Dazzlingly inventive” – Evening Standard (Jean Grémillon, 1929, 73 mins, 35mm, In French with English subtitles) Saturday, July 21 at 11:30am Initially trained as a documentary filmmaker before dabbling in the avant- PRESENTED BY NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE garde, Jean Grémillon transitioned to Directed by: Rufus Norris narrative features at the very end of the Tuesday, August 7 at 7pm silent era. His second, THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS, was shot in a studio, but retains Shakespeare’s most intense and terrifying trage- the flavor of Grémillon’s native Brittany. dy, directed by Rufus Norris (THE THREEPENNY A father tends a remote lighthouse with OPERA, LONDON ROAD), will see Rory Kinnear his son, who longs to be reunited with his (YOUNG MARX, SKYFALL) and Anne-Marie Duff fiancée. Unbeknownst to the father, the (OIL, SUFFRAGETTE) return to the National The- son was recently bitten by a rabid dog and atre to play Macbeth and finds himself slowly going insane and turning violent. Adapted by Jacques Feyder from a one-act Lady Macbeth. play, THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS is notable for its expressionistic distortions and masterful editing, The ruined aftermath of continually finding new ways to represent abnormal psychological realms. a bloody civil war. Ruthlessly fighting to survive, the are pro- Print courtesy of National Film Archive of Japan pelled toward the crown by forces of elemental darkness.

28 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Stage to Screen 29 CONTINUING SERIES

MIDNIGHTS FRIDAYS & SATURDAYS AT MIDNIGHT

June 8 & 9 LOWLIFE July 6 & 7 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD (Ryan Prows, 2017, 96 mins, DCP) (George Miller, 2015, 120 mins, 35mm)

June 15 THE ROOM July 13 & 14 DROP DEAD GORGEOUS & July 20 (Tommy Wiseau, 2003, 99 mins, 35mm) (Michael Patrick Jann, 1999, 97 mins, 35mm) June 16 THE ROCKY HORROR & July 21 PICTURE SHOW August 3 & 4 SWEET SWEETBACK’S (Jim Sharman, 1975, 100 mins, 35mm) BAADASSSS SONG (, 1971, 97 mins, DCP) June 29 & 30 SPRING BREAKERS (Harmony Korine, 2012, 94 mins, 35mm)

LOWLIFE (Ryan Prows, 2017, 96 mins, DCP) Cinepocalypse Jury Award-Winning Film Returns: What happens when you throw together a fallen Mexican wrestler with serious rage issues, a just-out-of-prison ex- con with a regrettable face tattoo, and a recovering junkie motel owner in search of a kidney? That’s the premise of the berserk, blood-spattered, and wickedly entertaining feature debut from Ryan Prows.

DROP DEAD GORGEOUS (Michael Patrick Jann, 1999, 97 mins, 35mm) This endlessly-quotable black comedy follows Minnesotan teenage beauty queens vying for the title of American Teen Princess—and the killer intent on taking out the competition! Bringing together a jaw-droppingly talented cast including Kirstie Alley, Kirsten Dunst, , , Brittany Murphy, Denise Richards, and the film debut of Amy Adams, DROP DEAD GORGEOUS is a modern camp classic that proves if looks can kill, laughter is twice as deadly.

SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSS SONG (Melvin Van Peebles, 1971, 97 mins, DCP) New 4K Restoration! Director/writer/producer/editor/ composer Melvin Van Peebles stars as a black orphan raised in a brothel and groomed to be a sex show performer. Set up by his boss and two corrupt cops for a murder he didn’t commit, Sweetback escapes custody and is thrust into an increasingly hallucinogenic world of violence and bigotry where no one can be trusted, and the possibility of death lurks at every corner. Featuring a rousing score from a nascent Earth, Wind, & Fire, as well as surrealist visuals from stalwart genre cinematographer Robert Maxwell (THE CANDY SNATCHERS), Van Peebles creates an unforgettable study of perseverance in the face of racism.

30 Music Box Theatre June-August 2018 Midnights 31