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J.R. Jones

Mumblecore and Something More

Beeswax transcends the insular genre its filmmaker accidentally invented.

The Will to Survive

Posted by Ed M. Koziarski on Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 10:11 AM

Working on Walmart commercials in Savannah, Chicago advertising executives Al Hawkins and Kathleen M. Humphries became intrigued with the Gullah/Geechee people who live on several islands on the south Atlantic coast, retaining the closest linguistic and cultural ties to Africa found in the U.S.

Hawkins and Humphries spotlight Sapelo Island, off the coast of Georgia, site of the most intact Gullah/Geechee culture, in their documentary The Will to Survive: The Story of the Gullah/Geechee Nation.

It screens for free, Tuesday 2/9 at Noon at Kennedy King College.

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Cuba: An African Odyssey

Posted by Ed M. Koziarski on Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:20 AM

Che Guevara in Cuba: An African Odyssey

  • Che Guevara in "Cuba: An African Odyssey"

In her 2007 documentary Cuba: An African Odyssey, Egyptian-French filmmaker Jihan El-Tahri follows Cuba's role in African anticolonialist campaigns, from Che Guevara's failed 1965 bid to oust Belgium from the Congo, to the 450,000 troops Castro committed to take on Portugal, South Africa, and the CIA in Angola.

The second half of Cuba: An African Odyssey screens Monday 2/8 at Biblioteca Popular.

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Dinner & a Show: Saturday 2/6

Posted by Whet Moser on Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 2:36 PM

James Blackshaw
  • James Blackshaw
Music

Show: James Blackshaw A 12-string guitar can be an unwieldy thing, but in the right hands it's a peerless source of rich sonorities. Young Englishman James Blackshaw has such hands, and he puts them to good use on the splendid live album Waking Into Sleep (Kning), a solo performance recorded in Sweden in 2006: the stirring melodies of "Spiralling Skeleton Memorial" and "Sunshrine" billow into kaleidoscopic patterns of swirling tones.

10 PM, Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401, $8, $5

Dinner: Big Star Unlike Paul Kahan's other ventures (Blackbird, Avec, the Publican), Big Star is a bar. But you may have to remind yourself of that, because it's got probably the tastiest Mexican menu of any bar in Chicago. Both food (by Justin Large, formerly of Avec) and drink (by Michael Rubel of Violet Hour) are pitched to a very agreeable price point, making the place a surefire, low-cost, high-value good time.

1531 N. Damen, 773-235-4039

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More Film blog posts … 

Movies To See Today

[Critic's Choice] Fish Tank British filmmaker Andrea Arnold made her feature debut with Red Road (2006), an eerie, low-budget suspense story about a woman stalking, seducing, and  …  » Music Box

[Recommended] An Education In London during the early 60s, a precocious 16-year-old schoolgirl (Carey Mulligan) is seduced by a middle-aged grifter (Peter Sarsgaard) so good at  …  » Century 12 and CineArts 6, Gardens 7-13, Kerasotes Theatres Glen 10, Landmark's Century Centre, Marcus Addison Cinemas, Marcus Gurnee Cinemas, Marcus Orland Park Cinemas, Regal Lake Zurich Theatres 12, Renaissance Place and River East 21

[Recommended] Avatar: An IMAX 3D Experience More than a decade in the making, James Cameron's 3-D fantasy about a colony of human astronauts hoping to plunder an alien rainforest  …  » Navy Pier IMAX Theatre

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