Movie Roundup

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 25, 2008 6:20PM

Movies! Aside from preparing for and then recovering from your T-Day food coma, what else ya gonna do?

Tomorrow night the PBS series "Independent Lens" features the new documentary The Atom Smashers. It follows a group of scientists at Illinois' Fermilab and their quest to find the elusive Higgs boson --- a particle so important to the understanding of how the universe is held together that it's been dubbed the “god particle.” Chicago filmmakers Clayton Brown, Monica Ross and Andrew Suprenant blend physics and politics in this look at cutting-edge science. Broadcast schedule is here.

Last week, the Illinois General Assembly passed an enhanced film and television production tax credit. The tax credit was upped from 20 percent to 30 percent. Also important: the previous measure's sunset clause, which had made annual renewal necessary, has been dropped. To qualify, minimum Illinois film and television production spending would have to exceed $100,000 and minimum Illinois commercial production spending would have to exceed $50,000. Paging Christopher Nolan ...

U of C's Smart Museum continues their Three Gorges Dam film series on December 7 with filmmaker Feng Yan's Bing Ai (Bing’ai). Shot over a period of several years, it focuses on a woman farmer from Hubei, Zhang Bing’ai. She and over two million other Chinese residents will eventually be forced to move because of the massive Three Gorges Dam. Zhang Bing’ai however refuses to relocate without proper compensation from the government, a perilous commitment as you can imagine. The film, which is free, will be introduced by Paola Iovene, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. It's at the Cochrane-Woods Art Center, University of Chicago, 5540 S. Greenwood Avenue, room 157. More info here.