BACinema
Beverly Arts Center
2407 W. 111th St.
773-445-3838
beverlyartcenter.org
“Letters to Juliet” ??? (U.S.; Gary Winick, 2010) Miraculously, packaged as a vehicle for Amanda Seyfried, who plays a fact-checker and aspiring writer accompanying her restaurateur fiance (Gael Garcia Bernal), on a foodie vacation to Verona, Italy, “Letters” is enjoyable. 7:30 p.m. Wed.
Bank of America Cinema
4901 W. Irving Park Road
312-904-9442
“Moonrise” ???1/2 (U.S.; Frank Borzage, 1948) This visually luscious backwoods film noir about guilt, love and revenge — with Dane Clark as a man haunted by a violent past and hunted by his neighbors — was a late classic by the great Hollywood romantic director Borzage. Pictorially stunning, it’s a black-and-white gem of shadow and light, a thriller with a tender heart. 8 p.m. Sat.
Doc Films
University of Chicago
Ida Noyes Hall
1212 E. 59th St.
773-702-8575
docfilms.uchicago.edu
“The Lost Weekend” ???1/2 (U.S.; Billy Wilder, 1945) Wilder won his first best picture, writer and director Oscars for this ironic, sometimes annihilating drama of a New York alcoholic’s last bender — which also won best actor honors for Ray Milland and shared the grand prize at the first Cannes Film Festival. With Jane Wyman, Howard Da Silva. 7, 9 p.m. Fri.
“Dazed and Confused” ??1/2 (U.S.; Richard Linklater, 1993) Some of “Dazed and Confused” is, well, sophomoric, and it grows a bit tedious after a while. But generally, there’s a fresh exuberance and, particularly, an appealing cast headed by Jason London (“The Man in the Moon”) as Randy “Pink” Floyd, the signal-caller with the attitude problem, who represents his contemporaries’ feelings of being trapped in between the lost idealism of the ’60s and the emerging materialism of their own decade. 7, 9 p.m. Sat.
The Music Box Theatre
3733 N. Southport Ave.
773-871-6604
musicboxtheatre.com
“Gleaming the Cube” ? (U.S.; Graeme Clifford, 1989) “Gleaming the Cube” offers the opportunity to cast a jaundiced eye on the terrifying mallscapes of Southern California, and the movie does function as an under-the-table documentary on the atrocities of Orange County’s suburban sprawl, from John Wayne Airport to a split-level high school. But Clifford can muster no interest in the cardboard characters or absurd plot developments (which include a right-wing group that unsubtly smuggles weapons to Vietnam in cases labeled “Vietnamese Anti-Communist Relief Fund”), which leaves “Gleaming” to limp along listlessly between indifferently filmed skateboard demonstrations. Midnight Fri., Sat.
Northbrook Public Library
1201 Cedar Lane
847-272-6224
northbrook.info/lib_programs_films.php
“Shrek: Forever After” ??? (U.S.; Mike Mitchell, 2010) Middle-age angst suits Shrek and the movie quite nicely. After a dive, at least creatively, in 2007’s “Shrek the Third,” “Forever After” comes back with more heart and much of the kick-in-the-pop-culture-keister cleverness that made the greenish brute such a breath of fresh animated air when “Shrek” blew into town nearly a decade ago. 2, 7:30 p.m. Sat.
“Sadie Thompson” ??? (U.S.: Raoul Walsh, 1928) Set in a deliriously stylized Pago Pago, the Somerset Maugham play is about a good-time girl with a shady past (Gloria Swanson) who earns the resentment of a fiercely repressive clergyman — the self-appointed moral guardian of the South Seas, played by Lionel Barrymore. Threatened with deportation, Sadie falls under the clergyman`s spell and repents, only to find herself the victim of his long-denied sexual urges as they come bubbling to the surface during a midnight prayer session. 1, 7:30 p.m. Wed.
*indicates a film not reviewed by the Chicago Tribune, but of interest.
