This buddy pic about loyalty in the workplace is based Eric Garcia’s novel “The Repossession Mambo.” (It’s not a pluralized sequel to 1984’s “Repo Man.”) In the near future, when there’s a “global recession” and an overseas war called Operation Hope Springs Eternal, an organ transplant company called The Union– “Helping You Get More You Out of You”– employs back-office repo men to extract hearts, kidneys, livers, lungs and other body parts with its barcodes from clients in arrears. A pancreas can set you back $618,429 with a 19.6 percent APR. I didn’t catch the price of the 5.5 Neural Net. After a ninety-six-day grace period, your transplant turns into a loaner. “It was never a horror film,” claims Garcia, who co-wrote the screenplay with TV producer–writer Garrett Lerner. “The original was always a comedy.” Miguel Sapochnik directs this anti-corporate thriller with scapel action that elicits multiple squirms per centimeter of incision. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ray Pride

“These bitches suck” was Creem magazine’s timeless takedown of The Runaways when the teenage girl band bobbed to the surface of the 1970s.

In Floria Sigismondi’s writing-directing debut, the making-of-the-band, life-on-the-road, taking-of-the-drugs telling of 1970s teen rockers who made it right to the middle (despite mostly sucking, musically) has the right attitude if not a fully fleshed story. It satisfies in bursts, like an erratically track-sequenced album. Based on Cherie Currie’s slim memoir, “Neon Angel,” “The Runaways” is episodic, and Currie’s decline isn’t as interesting as 15-year-old Dakota Fanning’s embodiment of her rapid slip-slide into neurasthenia and diva-dom. (Fanning’s turn-on-a-dime from sullen to sneering as the band assembles the song “Cherry Bomb” is one of her best moments: “Ch. Ch. Ch. CHERRY BOMB!”) Joan Jett’s survival instincts are more indicated than dramatized, and Kristen Stewart, while as watchable as ever, brings more spark than fire. Michael Shannon, playing oddball Svengali Kim Fowley, is bright and funny as a leering loon, but he’s a man we ought to be fearful of as much as mesmerized by. (Shannon’s memorably theatrical styling of lines like “I am the luckiest dogfucker in space!” are more Walkenesque than truly loony.) Read the rest of this entry »

RECOMMENDED

Sylvie Testud, an axiom of contemporary French cinema, a waif of steel, has made her bold mark in movies like “La France” (Serge Bozon’s lovely, bizarre musical, soon on DVD). In one of this week’s highlights from Siskel’s European Union Film Festival, “Lourdes” (Sat, Thu), she plays a paraplegic in a wheelchair who travels to the city of miracles; in Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s small film, Testud conveys grace in even her most reserved expressions. French writer-director Jacques Doillon’s (“Ponette”) first film in five years, “Just Anybody” (Fri, Wed), posits a messy ménage-a-trois that involves a young woman, a deadbeat dad-cum-drifter and a policeman in a seaside setting who takes note of them. Shooting digitally, Doillon is able to accentuate the fervor of his dialogue-heavy, actor-attentive style. The intimacy of the long takes impresses. Film critic and historian Peter von Bagh’s “Helsinki Forever” (Wed), presented by freelance critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, is a poetic city symphony and cinema-essay, drawing on archival and fictional footage, with twinned male and female narration, in a league with Terence Davies’ Liverpool lullaby, “Of Time And The City.” The cumulative impact is ravishing. The true treasure is Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” (Fri, Mon; pictured), an unexpected gem of Greek black comedy, made with an uncommonly assured hand. A wealthy industrialist and his wife keep their grown children in a compound away from the outside world; things have odd names and superstition abounds. Lanthimos’ work harks back to classics of cinematic surrealism, but never becomes pastiche: its oddities are earned, touching and shocking at once.  (Ray Pride)

For complete listings, go to the Siskel website.

RECOMMENDED

“The Men Who Hate Women” is the blunt original title of the late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s worldwide bestseller; its harsh portrait of that country’s industry and welfare state earns it. But can a story about misogyny inadvertently traffic in it? As “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” it’s a barn-burner of a page-turner, the first of three novels Larsson left behind (films have been made of all three; the other two will be released this summer). The adaptation by director Niels Arden Oplev (“Portland”) is an adroit compression of its angry themes and doesn’t stint on the graphic material. (Its distributor is Chicago-based Music Box Films; see related story.) Financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvis) has been convicted of libel and will be going to prison, which allows an aging industrialist from the fractious Vanger clan to hire him to investigate a forty-year-old mystery about a missing girl. Before he’s hired, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a young investigator with epic hacker skills, investigates him. Their paths cross, and soon they are in league together in an increasingly epic search for a serial killer. The two-and-a-half-hour running time never feels leisurely, although three scenes involving rape and retribution involving Salander and an advocate assigned to her by the state go well into NC-17-level cruelty. (It’s one of the key differences between page and screen, especially involving violence: you imagine only as much as you need to while reading.) While made for television, Oplev’s visual style, from design to lighting to framing, has cinematic sweep (and the men’s cardigan budget must have been daunting). While several plot strands are swept away, there are lingering glances and hints toward them which suggest the filmmakers thought most of their audience would be familiar with the novels. One bit of compression that takes the place of pages of exposition suggests “Blow-Up” mingled with the brief clip that exists of Anne Frank turning her head as seen in a window: it’s the sort of creative solution that lands its own punch. 151m. (Ray Pride)

“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” opens Friday at Landmark Century and Landmark Renaissance in Highland Park.

RECOMMENDED

An auto-interview with the fantastically flaky Nick Nolte (interviewed by a TV journalist alter ego) amuses far more than you’d think: Nolte’s bemused knack for toying with interviewers is matched by his passion for performance. What should the gimmick here be called, one-on-one? Nick-on-Nick action? In making “Nick Nolte: No Exit,” director Tom Thurman is wise to stand aside. It’s not in the same league as James Toback allowing Mike Tyson to narrate the voices that ripple inside that man’s troubled mind, but it’s in that league. The frame falls away in the face of a wry and articulate man’s talky ramble, and appearances by other actors like Ben Stiller and Rosanna Arquette are mostly fun. “Nobody has ever asked me to be silent,” Nolte claims. Not when you’re this entertaining, no. With Jacqueline Bisset, Powers Boothe, F.X. Feeney, Barbara Hershey, Paul Mazursky, Mike Medavoy, Alan Rudolph. 74m. (Ray Pride)

“Nick Nolte: No Exit” opens Friday at Facets.

RECOMMENDED

In a follow-up to “Neil Young: Heart of Gold,” Jonathan Demme shoots Young rocking two nights three years ago in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. On this Chrome Dreams II tour, Young and his band had played two nights at the Chicago Theater the month before. Demme skips the interviews and backstage footage found in his 2006 concert documentary, shot over two nights in Nashville. Country and bluegrass artists don’t share Young’s stage in “Trunk Show,” nor are there the polished tracking shots DP Ellen Kuras crafted for “Heart of Gold.” Cinematographer Declan Quinn, along with Demme and five other shooters, wield digital camcorders for mostly handheld coverage. There’s some Super-8 and a few nine-screen grids, but this is more concert than film from the distributors of “The Singing Revolution,” “We Live in Public” and “Incident at Loch Ness.” Stage design is limited to remnants of an old-time theater marquee with random letters, a red telephone and a pirate flag fluttering by a fan. There is no giant microphone wrangled by hooded druid-like roadies with flashlights for eyes, as in the 1978 San Francisco concert Young turned into the film “Rust Never Sleeps.” In “Trunk Show” he performs an alternately rousing and reflective set, sometimes playing piano and banjo. The 64-year-old Canadian stomps on stage like a shaggy workhorse. Hunched over, he brandishes his electric guitar like a farm tool. His gruff-honey voice has the timbre of hardwood bark. His elderly bandmates come off as seasoned artisans, not burnout longhairs in denial, as one extended instrumental with his bassist and rhythm guitarist proves. 82m. (Bill Stamets)

“Neil Young Trunk Show” opens Friday at the Music Box.

Brian Andreotti and Bill Schopf/Photo: Alyssa Miserendino

By Tom Lynch

You’re probably sick of hearing it by now, but “The Hurt Locker” is the least-seen of all Best Picture Oscar winners in history. In an age when funding for modest pictures is scarce, and studios are less interested in taking risks with films lacking marquee names, an art-house action drama (of considerable caliber, of course) bested the highest-grossing movie of all time. This was no small upset: On a Wednesday a full month after its release, “Avatar” took in more money than “The Hurt Locker” did during its entire theatrical run.

With cash tight all over, movie studios have been limiting their independent-film divisions. In 2008, despite co-producing high-quality pictures like “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” most of Paramount Vantage was consolidated into its parent studio. (Paramount retained the brand name, however.) But when most film studios were sprinting as fast as they could away from art-house fare, Music Box Theatre owner Bill Schopf saw an opportunity.

The Music Box Theatre, on Southport Avenue in the Lakeview neighborhood, has maintained a solid reputation as both a high-class art-film exhibitor and midnight-movie cult-film destination. Built in 1929 and barely changed since, the theater’s overwhelming old-time movie-house atmosphere is as much a part of the experience as the actual film you’re there to see—whether it be a midnight screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a weekend matinee of some Hitchcock, or the new Terry Gilliam film. And, of course, there’s the live organist.

In 2007, Schopf, a high-profile attorney and real estate developer, who took control of the Music Box in 2003, began considering an expansion, first horizontally. His team began searching for other theater possibilities in Chicago, but the realities of actually finding a good venue set in quickly, and distribution entered the conversation. The vertical leap of a movie theater venturing into film distribution is a substantial move, and a risky one at that, given the financial climate. At first, everyone tried to talk Schopf out of it. Read the rest of this entry »

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When would’ve been the right time for Paul Greengrass’ latest headlong movie, a heady venture into a foreign land, the Morocco-shot Iraq War fable “Green Zone,” which suggests one honest man, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (played by a more-than-solid Matt Damon) could have unburied the truth about nonexistent WMDs, or weapons of mass destruction. A week shy of seven years since “shock and awe,” its opening weekend didn’t do so well, and its further commercial prospects are dire, but the director of the latter two “Bourne” films has done “too soon” already, and well, with “United 93.” Miller crosses lines of authority when faced with both a Paul Bremer-like bureaucrat (an oleaginous Greg Kinnear) and a Judith Miller-like journalist (Amy Ryan, working for the Wall Street Journal rather than transcribing for the New York Times; she’s vital with very little dialogue) who have their own running dogs in the game. Within minutes, or hours, in screen time, it’s “Bourne” in the fashion of 1970s conspiracy thrillers like “Three Days of the Condor,” “Green Zone” proves its metaphoric acumen by eliciting cries of “anti-American”! from august journalistic corners such as the New York Post. Working from a script credited to Brian Helgeland (“L.A. Confidential”), Greengrass captures the perspective of those on the ground, particularly Iraqis, in a way that maybe only the documentary “No End In Sight” has among American ventures into this subject matter, and the final shot is a blunt about why we’re there. Still, a little more skepticism would be in order, as in “Condor,” which ends with CIA retainer Robert Redford, having dropped information in the lap of the New York Times, is asked by his handler, Cliff Robertson, “What makes you think they’ll print it?” With Brendan Gleeson. 115m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Ray Pride)

“Green Zone” is playing wide.

Walking up the stairs in the space owned by Chicago Filmmakers is not weird. Walking up those wooden stairs on the second Saturday of the month when a group with the name Dyke Delicious hosting a “Babes in B-Movies” night really isn’t even that weird. In fact, it’s downright inviting. On the second floor, amid posters of previous showings and a spread of chips, salsa and Girl Scout cookies, one of the Dyke Delicious leaders, Sharon Zurek, and a host of dedicated volunteers welcome each audience member. It’s like walking into one of those storied bars, only the regulars don’t glare, rather they are quick to embrace. The group started showing their films about seven years ago at Chicago’s annual Reeling Festival, but as Zurek says, “We didn’t want to wait a whole year to get together.” Now they show films every second Saturday of the month. “We usually try to make it fun and irreverent,” says Sharon. “Well, mostly irreverent.”

Tonight, ladies are grouping up around a table to make 3-D glasses. A few discuss beading and the difference between “craft” and “Craft.” The reel of black-and-white commercials featuring none other than Ronald Reagan stops, and Zurek tells everyone to try out their new glasses. A scene projects on the front screen with a few blurry faces. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Ray Pride

By Ray Pride

An assured polemic that plays as an eyes-wide thriller, Don Argott’s “The Art of the Steal” is also a rousing entertainment as layered and skeptical as a marathon of episodes of “The Wire.”

The Barnes Foundation operates a museum, five miles from Philadelphia, in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, created by the late Dr. Albert C. Barnes to hold his Post-Impressionist and early Modern art. The numbers bloom: 181 Renoir, sixty-nine Cézannes, fifty-nine Matisse, forty-six Picasso, seven Van Gogh, six Seurat. Barnes didn’t care for the elite of Philadelphia, 1922.

“People didn’t like him. He insulted people,” one of the many articulate interviewees tells us, and the art establishment of Philadelphia used similar language about the documentary. Horrors! Barnes was “extremely inflammatory toward his contemporaries.” At his death in 1951, Barnes left the collection to a small African-American college, but in recent years, there’s been a movement to break the strict conditions of his bequest and relocate the multi-billion-dollar-valued collection to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Read the rest of this entry »