There’s nothing like seeing a neglected cult classic at the cinema. Sure, with the power and reach of Netflix, Blockbuster, and Amazon.com it’s possible to obtain movies you can’t exactly find at your local Best Buy, but watching a movie in the comfort of home can’t compare to the thrill of sitting in a dark theater with other film nerds quietly chewing their finger tips. I recently caught a midnight showing of David Lynch’s Eraserhead at the IFC Center in Manhattan. The bass shook the seats and the film became ethereal to me, transforming from half-baked romance to twisted dream. The sublime effect of the big screen was lost on my 27-inch Panasonic.
The Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., is Chicago’s premiere destination for cult and indie classics, and offers a daily smattering of foreign, bizarre, and gripping movies. Films are shown in a couple of theaters, each with its old-time theater aesthetic and none of the generic trappings of your local chain. What follows is a list of great events at The Music Box over the last year:
_Ѣ Wickedly-funny indie filmmaker Guy Maddin showed his 2006 silent film Brand Upon The Brain! last Fall, a strange drama about a guy named Guy Maddin returning to the creepy lighthouse where his adopted parents performed experiments on orphans. It was weird, to say the least. Chicago-native and renowned weirdo Crispin Hellion Glover (of Back to the Future fame) narrated the film with his trademark closet-case rasp while a trio of Foley artists, a small orchestra, and Canadian castrato Dov Houle, created live sounds for the film. Maddin’s newest film, My Winnipeg, starts its run this Friday and although it isn’t silent, it is, for the most part, just as compelling.
_Ѣ Crispin Hellion Glover is quite possibly the strangest filmmaker ever. I saw the second film in his trilogy of perverse art films, called It is Fine, Everything is Fine, which details the homicidal fantasies of Glover’s real-life friend Steven C. Stewart. Oh, and Stewart happens to be disabled by cerebral palsy, but this doesn’t keep him from having relations with buxom women and then promptly and violently murdering them. The film is brilliant in its portrayal of unrequited fantasies and hidden, violent desires. The Music Box doesn’t always show such controversial films, but when they do you’re in for a treat; they even had a bicycle porn festival this year.
_Ѣ The Music Box’s repertoire often includes the choice re-release. Blade Runner: The Final Cut ran last winter, and is a prime example of the merits of seeing a classic in theaters. It was better than Blu-Ray to see Ridley Scott’s dystopian vision of the future restored on a huge screen, Edward James Olmos’ nimble fingers folding origami. The theater also regularly shows foreign films that you can’t even obtain in this country, if you are the subtitles type.
Check out the following films coming soon to The Music Box: Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg starts June 27, Dario Argento’s cult classic Mother of Tears begins July 2, and Warner Herzog’s newest documentary film, Encounters at the End of The World, begins July 11.
