Ray Pride

* = recommended

The Seventh Annual First Nations Film & Video Festival appears at three venues in and around Uptown; call (773)275-5871 for information; Select Media Festival 2 plays at the Siskel Film Center; see below and Tip of the Week for selected events.

Fri 21

*Blue Collar

(1978, USA) Directed by Paul Schrader. Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto go up against the man. Former drinking buddy of Schrader, Pauline Kael, wrote: "Three Detroit auto workers rob their union headquarters; the destruction of their friendship as a result of the robbery is used to illustrate the you-can't-win-thesis. Shot in an ominous, fatalistic style, the film says that the system grinds all its workers down, that it destroys their humanity and their hopes. Schrader's jukebox Marxism carried the kind of cynical charge that encourages people in the audience to yell 'Right on!' His hostile, melancholy tone unifies this amalgam of pilfered pieces of old pictures and ideologies, but he has imposed his personal depression on characters who, in dramatic terms, haven't earned it." Reportedly, this review ended their friendship. I have pleasant memories of its glum tone; maybe if I'd ever gone drinking with Schrader, I'd be as pissed as Pauline. 114m. 35mm. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6.

Brakhage Remembered: Trilogy and Dark Night of the Soul

Another memorial to the veteran teacher and filmmaker who died this spring, with "I Take These Truths"; "We Hold These," "I..." and "Dark Night of the Soul," one of Brakhage's last works. 62m. $7. Chicago Filmmakers at Columbia College (773)293-1447, 600 S. Michigan, 8.

*Ed Wood

(1994, USA) Directed by Tim Burton. Burton's smooch at another director-naïf; goofy script from Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, and a goofier performance from Johnny Depp. 127m. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

Harold and Maude

(1972, USA) Directed by Hal Ashby. Black comedy of a rich, death-obsessed teenager (Bud Cort) who has a sexual relationship with a "daffy" death-camp survivor (Ruth Gordon). Among Ashby's least-successful films. Songs by Cat ("Salman Rushdie Must Die") Stevens. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

*My Own Private Idaho

(1991, USA) Directed by Gus Van Sant. A strange and wonderful collage from the writer-director of "Mala Noche" and "Drugstore Cowboy," dense with his deadpan humor and idiosyncratic visual poetry. Van Sant again invests his intelligence in superficially unsavory material, in this case, two male hustlers circling the idea of love. River Phoenix, very good, plays a giddy innocent, a narcoleptic in love with his best friend (Keanu Reeves), a rich kid out to mock his upbringing. The result is more fragmented than his remarkably controlled earlier features, but semicoherence of this quality is preferable to any dozen unambitious cathode-spawn pictures. 104m. 35mm. $6. Block Cinema (847)491-4000, 40 Arts Circle, Evanston, 8.

*Product Re-Placements

Cultural interference, including Eric Fensler's inspired dada re-voicing of old G.I. Joe cartoons and Steve Seid and Peter Conheim's "Value Added Cinema," a forty-eight minute history of product placement in movies. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 8.

Seabiscuit

(2003, USA) Directed by Gary Ross. 141m. 35mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 6, 9, Midnight.

The Testament of Orpheus

(Le testament d'Orphee) (1960, France) Directed by Jean Cocteau. 80m. Archival 35mm print. Shown with Cocteau's 1952 "home movie," "La villa Santo Sospir." 35m. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3.

Sat 22

*Baghdad in No Particular Order

(2003, USA-Iraq) Directed by Paul Chan. Chan, a member of the Iraq Peace Team, hoping to prevents U.S. attacks through nonviolent actions, videotaped his impressions of Baghdad from Dec. 14-Jan. 14. Shown with Deborah Stratman's "Energy Country," a short about southeast Texas and its petrochemical landscape. Program 74m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3.

*Digital Video Detournement

Short works by those who "detourne," or re-fashion existing media to their own ends, including Electrodist's "Alice in Wonderland, or, Who is Guy DeBord?" and Evolution Control Committee's "Rocked by Rape." Program 80m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 8:15.

*Ed Wood

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

Harold and Maude

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, Midnight.

Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park

(1978, USA) Directed by Gordon Hessler. Video. Free. Delilah's (773)472-2771, 2771 N. Lincoln, 6.

*Out of the Past

(1947, USA) Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Remarkable, archetypal film noir finds somnolent, sleepy-eyed Robert Mitchum hiding from his dark past in a small town. Years earlier, thug Kirk Douglas hired Mitchum to find his temperamental girlfriend Jane Greer, and he fell in love with her. After a string of deaths and double-crosses, Mitchum's escaped to an honest life running a rural filling station. Douglas' henchmen come after him, leading to a tangled web of flashbacks. Based on Daniel Mainwaring's novel "Build My Gallows High," the script's dialogue is particularly arch and fatalistic. Tourneur and photographer Nicholas Musuraca provide a glossary of noir visual style. 94m. Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, 11:30am.

*Road to Morocco

(1942, USA) Directed by David Butler. 83m. Shown with Dave Fleischer's 1925 "Koko's Thanksgiving" and the 1932 "Crooner's Holiday" with Bing Crosby. $5. LaSalle Theater (312)904-9442, 4901 W. Irving Park, 8.

*The Scarlet Empress

(1934, USA) Directed by Josef Von Sternberg. Expressionist glories galore in next-to-last Sternberg-Dietrich collaboration. She's Catherine of Russia; he's the one behind the camera. 104m. Archival 35mm print. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3:15.

The Subversion Agency

(2003, USA) Directed by Mark Boxwell. Paranoid fantasy about an invitation-only golf match in a communist Caribbean country. 70m. BetaSP video. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 4:30.

*Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

(2003, USA) Directed by Jonathan Mostow. 108m. 35mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 6:30, 9, 11:30.

*Thunderbolt

(1929, USA) Directed by Josef Von Sternberg. Sophisticated sound marks what Andrew Sarris has called "less a gangster film than a gangster fantasy." 85m. Archival 35mm print. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 5:15.

Sun 23

Aesthetic Underground + Hecho DF

"Eye candy," they say, from Cory Wrench, Usama Alshaibi, Paper Rad and Jon Satrom, along with "Hecho DF," a thirty-minute compilation of shorts from young Mexico video artists. 90m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:15.

Beauty and the Beast

(La belle et la béte) (1946, France) Directed by Jean Cocteau. The classic fairytale, told with grave, deliberate beauty. At the greatest moments in Cocteau's films, there's a magic, a sureness of fantasy unmatched by any other filmmaker. The elegant, icy look (such as the Beast's sumptuous castle) was provided by designer Christian Bernard and master cinematographer Henri Alekan ("Wings of Desire," among many other movies). With Jean Marais, Josette Day. 95m. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3.

Burnt By the Sun

(1995, Russia) Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. A try at a Chekhovian country interlude, from the director of "Slave of Love." Mikhalkov defines lugubriousness. 152m. 35mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

Friends Forever

(200, USA) Directed by Ben Wolfinsohn. The nights and days of a band that only plays from their van in parking lots rather than traditional venues. BetaSP. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 5:15.

The Ghost and the Video

New work programmed by "Team Fagtastic Team Fabstastic," including from Diana Joy Parke, Eric Luken, Math Bass, James Tsang, Tara, and Steven Remmington. Program 90m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 3:15.

*Out of the Past

Music Box (773)871-6604, 3733 N. Southport, 11:30am.

Perfect Blue

(1997, USA) Directed by Satoshi Kon. Manga-manga. Video. Free. Delilah's (773)472-2771, 2771 N. Lincoln, 6.

*Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines

$3. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 2.

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election

(2003, USA) Directed by Richard R. Perez, Joan Sekler. "Objective" reporting in our modern age is usually a smokescreen for avoiding the premises and outcome of a story. A galling nugget of persuasive agit-prop, "Unprecedented" offers credible reportage suggesting that the Florida vote count debacle was a variation on a long-planned element in an electoral coup, particularly involving the disenfranchisement of black voters. Footage of the faked "spontaneous" riot that stopped the Miami-Dade County recount, stopping and noting which faces belong to which Republican staffers, some of whom now work in the White House, is particularly incendiary and disheartening. Perhaps the most disheartening element, however, is the litany of selective choices made by the Al Gore camp, which remain dishonest even against the background of the greater chicanery of the GOP apparatus. Narrated by Peter Coyote. 50m. Perez and Sekler will appear. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:30.

Mon 24

*corpus callosum*

(2002, Canada) Directed by Michael Snow. 92m. 16mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

*Flying in the No-Fly Zone

Dara Greenwald curates short work about artist's projects outside gallery venues; see Tip of the Week. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:15.

*Homeland Insecurity

Critiques of power, including Bryan Boyce's jarring "State of the Union," Haik Hoisington's "Lies Lies Lies"; Mike Nourse's "Terror Iraq Weapons" and Indymedia Mohawk's "Public Media in a Time of War." 75m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:45.

*The Scarlet Empress

$8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6.

Tue 25

*Blue Collar

Sergio Mims lectures on the film. See Nov 21. $8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6.

*The Branches of the Tree

(1990, India) Directed by Satyajit Ray. One of Ray's last. 130m. 35mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

*Surplus

(2003, USA) Directed by Erik Gandini. A world journey to find why protestors in Seattle, Genoa and Gothenburg wanted to smash instead of spend. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:15.

*Stop Making Sense

(1984, USA) Directed by Jonathan Demme. Video. Free. Delilah's (773)472-2771, 2771 N. Lincoln, 6.

*The Tactics of Interference

Documentaries about inventive forms of protest, including "Confessional Robotics," Guerilla News Network's "Copwatch," Igor Vamos' "Blo Night News" and one I can't pass judgment on, Ray Pride's "Six Corners," about a Wicker Park protest at the onset of the Iraq incursions. Program 115m. $8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:45.

Wed 26

*Subliminal Subversion

"Subliminal forces and their implications," with work by Robert Todd, Kent Lambert, Jim Finn's cool "Supermax" and Andy Spletzer's "Apoplexy." $8. Chicago Underground Film Festival and Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 8:15.

*The Tactics of Interference

$8. Select Media Festival at Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 7:45.

*Thunderbolt

$8. Siskel Film Center (312)846-2600, 164 N. State at Randolph, 6:15.

*The Wild Bunch

(1969, USA) Directed by Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah's original cut of his enduring masterpiece, including eight minutes of flashbacks by William Holden's character that were deleted after the first release. It's a remarkable film. Peckinpah's violence, beyond the minor element of his much-lampooned slow-motion device, actually hurts. There's a searing melancholy in his story of doomed men of a doomed West fighting their last, middle-aged battles. If the brash Quentin Tarantino is the barroom compulsive who keeps flinging out folderol and bluster as long as the drinks keep coming, then the sage Peckinpah is the demon in demon rum. Tarantino may be under the influence, but Peckinpah's the distilled stuff. Panavision. 145m. 35mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

Thu 27

*The Lady Vanishes

(1938, England) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. English critic Tony Rayns: "Critical orthodoxy has it that Hitchcock's move to Hollywood in 1940 was some kind of breakthrough in his career; that his American movies are his 'mature' work, making the earlier English ones look trivial and provincial. It's true that the qualities of his work changed in America, but a look at an early movie like this knocks the rest of the orthodox view sideways. It still looks as fresh and funny as it must have done in 1938... There's a sheer pleasure in watching the way the plot turns so smoothly round [the missing lady], and it's compounded by Launder and Gilliat's consistently witty dialogue and the all-round excellence of the cast." With Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers. 97m. 16mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

*The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

(1972, France) Directed by Luis Bunuel. 79m. 16mm. $4. DOC Films (773)702-8575, 1212 E. 59th, 7.

(2003-11-19)

Also by Ray Pride

Tip of the Week
As compiled by Dominique Auvray, a friend of the late French novelist Marguerite Duras ("The Lover"), "Marguerite: A Reflection of Herself" is an interesting amalgam
(2003-11-13)

Fearless
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" has a readymade audience in the acolytes of Patrick O'Brian's twenty seafaring novels
(2003-11-13)

Potter's field
"Repainting the Sistine Chapel": That's the insult one journalist hurled at Keith Gordon for having the audacity to shoot Dennis Potter's film script revisiting his "The Singing Detective"
(2003-11-13)

Short Runs
This week's limited screenings
(2003-11-13)

Blackbird flies next door
(2003-11-13)

Tip of the Week
(2003-11-05)

The revolution will not be realized
(2003-11-05)

I miss the innocence
(2003-11-05)

Short Runs
(2003-11-05)

Tip of the Week
(2003-10-29)

Looking for Mr. Bad Cop
(2003-10-29)

Passed is prologue
(2003-10-29)

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