What To See? We've Got You Covered In Our Film Roundup
By Steven Pate in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 15, 2012 7:00PM
Image Courtesy of the Found Footage Festival.
What to see this weekend? Tonight, we've got you headed to Black Dynamite at the Music Box. Tomorrow? Missing a screening of The Princess Bride at the Landmark would be inconceivable. And Sunday, we've already explained, is Father's Day with 007.
If that's not enough for your cinematic calendar, we are here to help with this roundup.
- The Found Footage Festival returns to The Music Box with a one-night only evening of comedy and dusty VHS nuggets, which will be taped live for the Festival's upcoming DVD. Among the unearthed gems on the bill: a video about caring for your pet ferret, psychotically overenthusiastic sponge painting, and unseen footage footage of the Andy Kaufmann-esque Yo-Yo Master, Kenny "K-Strass" Strasser. Saturday, June 16 at 8:30 p.m. at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport Ave.)
- The 24th Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival kicks off next Thursday with twelve different programs of diverse fare from around the world showing at two locations. We are tantalized by the screening of Raúl Ruiz's first film, long thought lost, La Maleta and Robert Todd's cut of the first 3 episodes of the Star Wars to just the light sabers, Dangerous Light, but there is an abundance of interesting offerings in the festival's largest incarnation yet. Begins Thursday, June 23 at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. Clark St.) and Chicago Filmmakers (5243 N. Clark St.)
- The new session of Facets' long-running Night School program gets underway next weekend, Filipino kung-fu, Bettie Page, epic Sci-Fi fail Yor: The Hunter from the Future and lots of other delicious trash will be brought together by the tireless proprieters of The Underground Multiplex for your edification. Each session features lecture, a screening and a discussion, but often other fun activities are on offer as well. You are not going to beat that for $5. Classes start June 23 at Facets Cinémathèque (1517 W. Fullerton Ave.)
- Outliers, Vol. I: Iceland, the documentary project we urged you to help kickstart last year, will be released this month and premiere at Lincoln Hall in July. We're quite interested in what came out of this collaboration between film collective Scenic, two photographers and composer Deru, and recommend you grab the one song from the soundtrack already available at Gapers Block.
If none of this can dislodge you from the front of monitor, you can still get your cinematic fix. Plucked from the recently-announced winners of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, here is Jesse McLean's short, Remote, which pulled down the Made in Chicago Award: