Limited runs and special events:
@ Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, 312/744-6630: International Dinner and A Movie – Black Orpheus (Feb. 18) – South American cuisine served Taste of Cherry (Mar. 18) – Iranian cuisine served M (Apr. 15) – German cuisine served. Rififi (May 20 & 21) – French cuisine served
@ DOC Films @ U of C/Max Palevsky Cinema, 1212 E. 59th St, 773/702.8574: Queer Heroes – Eyes of Tammy Faye and Scout’s Honor 1.23. Trembling Before G-d 1.30. Before Night Falls 2.6. Paris Is Burning and Benjamin Smoke 2.13 Wilde 2.20. Southern Comfort and My Left Breast 2.27 The Man Who Drove With Mandela and Tongues Untied 3.6 I’m The One That I Want 3.13
@ Facets Cinematheque, 1517 W. Fullerton, 773/281-4114: The Slaughter Rule (Jan. 24 – 30). MC5*A True Testimonial (Feb. 19). Dead Alive: Final (Feb. 28, Mar. 1 – 6)
@ Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, 312/846-2600: The Merry Widow – directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Edward Everett Horton (Jan.18, 22) The Student Prince In Old Heidelberg – Directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Ramon Novarro (Jan. 26)
@ WNEP Theater, 3209 N. Halsted, 773/296-1100 (reservations): The Neutrino Project – Saturdays (Jan. 25 – Feb. 1)
In theaters:
Nicholas Nickleby—Without a single overtly homosexual character in the story, Douglas McGrath’s film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Victorian-era novel Nicholas Nickleby is still one of the gayest movies of the year. Charlie Hunnam, who played young, gay love interest Nathan in the British version of Queer As Folk, is Nicholas Nickleby. Following the death of his dedicated, but destitute, father, 19-year-old Nicholas becomes head of the family and must find a way to support his mother and younger sister. The trio finds themselves at the mercy of the evil Ralph Nickleby, the senior Nicholas’s well-to-do brother. While there is a happy ending, getting to it over the course of more than two hours is somewhat brutal, with abuses suffered at the hands of a twisted headmaster and his wicked wife, a lecherous old man, and others. There are moments of levity, provided by gay actor Nathan Lane and Barry Humphries (a.k.a. Dame Edna Everidge) as a married couple running a theatrical troupe, as well as openly bi-actor Alan Cummings, who plays a member of the troupe. Jamie Bell, best known for his portrayal of Billy Elliot, plays Smike, the abused orphan that Nicholas rescues. Kevin McKidd, who played the gay character Leo in Rose Troche’s Bedrooms & Hallways, plays Browdie, a friend to Nicholas. Nearly 20 years ago Tom Courtenay, Ralph Nickleby’s badgered and berated, but ultimately vengeful personal assistant Noggs, won a Golden Globe award for playing the homosexual personal assistant to Albert Finney’s hammy actor in The Dresser. Both Jim Broadbent and Juliet Stevenson, the aforementioned headmaster and wife, also recently played characters in the movies Iris and Food of Love, respectively, in which a gay plot or subplot figured into the story. B
25th Hour (Touchstone): Had I seen it sooner, Spike Lee’s most mature and most Hollywood movie, 25th Hour, might have made it into my end of the year ‘best-of’ list. Based on David Benioff’s debut novel, Lee’s movie adaptation takes us into Monty Brogan’s (Edward Norton) last day as a free man before turning himself in to the authorities to begin serving a seven-year prison sentence for drug dealing. The people around him, including his girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson), his father James (Brian Cox), his ’employers’ Nikolai (Levani Outchaneichvili) and Kostya (Tony Siragusa), and his two closest male friends prep-school teacher Jakob (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and stockbroker Francis (Barry Pepper), do what they can to make his last day memorable. Elements of Monty’s personality reveal themselves through flashbacks (when he first meets Naturelle, for example) and a poetry-slam like dialogue with his own reflection in the bathroom mirror of a bar where he rails against the residents of New York (including the Chelsea Boys) and then comes to his senses, accepting responsibility for the actions that led him to his fate. Part homage to Lee’s beloved home, 25th Hour is also full of images of a post-9/11 New York, rebuilding itself. In a way, Monty is like New York, and must also begin to reconstruct himself. B+
On TV:
Sundance Channel (check local listings for times) – L. I. E. (Jan. 25), Our Lady of the Assassins (Jan. 27), Scotland, PA (Jan. 31). ‘Anatomy of a Scene: The Deep End’ (Jan. 22)