THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week at CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about Djibril Diop Mambéty's wonderful short film, the posthumously released THE LITTLE GIRL WHO SOLD THE SUN. Mambéty is celebrated as a surrealist, an original and an innovator—at once a great modern griot and avant-garde poet. However, this one's as simple, linear, and playful as a folk tale. I suppose it might shatter some preconceptions about Third World cinema. It is also a display of some of the finest smiles in cinema history. To read my review, head over to CINE-FILE Chicago.

 

 

WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? and LOVING VINCENT (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

I wrote about two films at CINE-FILE Chicago this week, under "Also Recommended." First, I talk about Morgan Neville's WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? (For reasons of space, I had to cut the bits about the parts that left me blubbering. So I'll just say: Jeff Erlanger, and Koko. If you see it, you'll know what I mean.) Then, I caught up with Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman’s beautiful LOVING VINCENT. "Maybe we can take death to go to a star."   

THAT SUMMER (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week over at CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about Göran Hugo Olsson’s THAT SUMMER. Once more to that funky, ramshackle Gothic house by the sea, and one more dance with Little Edie and Big Edie, ex-toasts of high society, scions of the fading American aristocracy. As Peter Beard puts it, "They lived in a dream world, and it was okay. They had great inner poetry, bringing up new ideas, talking to their cats...I never thought of the Beales as sad or unfortunate, or anything except very excellent at feeling what it was like to hold onto the past. They just had nothing but echoes of songs and dreams of a family history long gone." It plays this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center. To read my review, please go to CINE-FILE Chicago and scroll down to "Also Recommended."

THE DEATH OF STALIN (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week over at CINE-FILE Chicago, under "Also Recommended," I wrote about Armando Iannucci's THE DEATH OF STALIN, where the ironic intelligence, and essential humanity, of English farce runs up against its opposite, the humorless stupidity of authoritarianism. It plays this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center. 

GHOST HUNTING at 17th Annual Chicago Palestine Film Festival (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week at CINE-FILE Chicago I recommend Raed Andoni's GHOST HUNTING, which plays Saturday, April 28 at 8:15pm at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the 17th Annual Chicago Palestine Film Festival. It's a real surprise: a film about torture that comes to reaffirm your faith in the human spirit. To read my review, please go over to CINE-FILE Chicago. For more information, please head to Gene Siskel Film Center.