“Andrei Rublev”
1
Detour
(Siskel, opens December 7)
Edgar G. Ulmer’s elegant, stripped-bare masterpiece about fate’s way with cinema’s truest loser, the bleakest of noirs, circulated for decades in subpar prints and video renditions. This 4K restoration from original elements is a thrilling punch from the past, as startling a present-tense artifact as Orson Welles’ latest picture, “The Other Side Of The Wind.” Essential viewing.
2
Wings of Desire
(Siskel, opens December 28)
Wenders saw angels. Essential viewing.
3
Andrei Rublev
(Siskel, opens December 28)
When the boy, terrified of certain, sudden death, hears the first peal of the bell he has crafted: but one of dozens of shattering instances in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece. Essential viewing.
4
The Thirty-Fifty Annual Music Box Christmas Sing-A-Long With “White Christmas” and “It’s A Wonderful Life”
Just this once won’t hurt you.
5
The Mule
(Opens December 14)
Impatient Mr. Eastwood completes another last-minute awards-contending drama: how many more times will the eighty-eight-year-old actor-director leap into the year-end fray?
Ray Pride is Newcity film critic and a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine. He is also a photographer: his history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” in words and images is forthcoming. Previews on Twitter (twitter.com/chighostsigns) as well as daily photography on Instagram: instagram.com/raypride. Twitter: twitter.com/RayPride. (Photo: Jorge Colombo.)
