Quintessential Chicagoan John Cusack counts down his top five break-ups in this music driven comedic drama based on Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel.
When independent record store owner Rob Gordon gets dumped by his girlfriend, he launches into the one thing that makes him feel secure: lists. As he lists his top five break-ups of all time, including the current one, he comes to realize that memory isn’t always a reliable resource and perhaps the answer to his problems lies in growing up. Set in the Wicker Park section of Chicago at the height of the late 1990s indie music scene, High Fidelity captures the slacker-ness of the time through the beautiful pain of losing someone you love. It’s like John Cusack becomes Lloyd Dobbler for the2000s. Also, Jack Black is stunningly brilliant in his role of the abrasive, loud-mouth, offensive record store employee.
Starring: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towlers
When we meet Henry (Michael Rooker) he has left carnage in his wake – piles of bodies in all forms, though often female. Landing in Chicago, he moves in with ex-prison buddy Otis (Tom Towles), whose sister Becky (Tracy Arnold) is also seeking shelter, escaping her abusive husband. Otis easily follows the violence that Henry unleashes, with Becky catching only the charming side of Henry.
Decades after its release, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer remains a shocker, grimy and matter-of-fact in its depiction of a psychopath who kills just as easily as he might eat a meal. The film also introduced the world to Michael Rooker, an intense presence who embodies Henry with a simmering rage.
Starring: Tony Todd, Virgina Madsen, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons
Set in Chicago’s infamous public-housing project Caprini-Green, Clive Barker’s Candyman is a corporeal horror film that embodies racial and gender politics.
Skeptical graduate student Helen Lyle’s investigation of the “Candyman” urban legend – where a hooked-hand killer can be summoned by saying his name five times in a mirror – not only initiates a series of new unexplained murders but also ignites a realization that personal traumas can violently exist beyond the grave. With its inclusion of architectural connections and spiritual conversions (rooms within the projects are linked to each other and are from where Candyman emerges), Candyman destablizes and eviscerates the results produced when urban development and cultural politics collide.
Malaysian director Dain Said’s second feature film centers around a complicated and violent family living in the small village of Bunohan (translation: murder).
Bunohan: Return to Murder deals with family histories, rural isolation, and the inevitability of development through the complicated evolution of three estranged brothers – a kickboxer, a businessman, and an assassin. Murky, violent, and a little fantastical (mixed in are talking birds and a strange ghost-women), the brothers in Bunhan fight for their lives in a “dark web of deceit, regret and murder.” It’s definitely not your conventional Asian crime film.
Film fact: though it was not short-listed, Bunohan was only the second Malaysian film to ever be nominated for the Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Language Film by the The National Film Development Corporation Malaysia.
Being stood up has never been so adventurous this late 80s action romp through Chicago.
After her boyfriend cancels their anniversary date, 17-year old Chris Parker (the young and dancing Elisabeth Shue) decides she’ll babysit the Anderson’s kids (15-year-old Brad and 8-year-old Sara) and settle in for a boring evening in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. However, a distress call from her good friend Brenda kicks starts a whole series of misadventures: broken down cars, gang fights on the “L” train, dangling outside of skyscrapers, and supposed superheroes.
Starring: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell, Thelma Tixou, Sabrina Dennison, Adan Jodorowsky
Santa Sangre is a Mexican-set avante-garde thriller whose psychedelic cinematic exploration into the twisted lives of a circus family vividly shows the horrifyingly weird consequences to their violent actions. The story unfolds as follows: while performing her high vantage circus act, the mother sees that her husband is fooling around with the tattooed lady. So, she throws acid on his privates. He cuts off her arms and kills himself. Their young son Fenix enters the insane asylum. Years later, all grown up and somewhat sane, Fenix rejoins his mother on a murderous revenge spree by providing her the arms she needs.
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, Tom Wilkinson
What is the power of memory? Is it something that can be wiped out in order to move forward in life with less pain or are we simply doomed to repeat ourselves? This philosophical quandary of love and loss is at the very heart of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a surreal science-fiction film written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Michel Gondry, and starring a multi-color-haired Kate Winslet and sentimental Jim Carrey.
Come watch The Big Game 2013 on the Big Screen at Nitehawk as the Baltimore Ravens battle the San Francisco 49ers for football’s biggest title!
You may have a large screen television but nothing beats seeing The Big Game on Nitehawk’s big theater screen with table-side service. Buying our $25 food and beverage voucher saves you a seat to watch the game with friends, family, and football fan strangers. We’ll be serving up our House Made Hot Wings and will be featuring beer specials from the region of each team. To cap it all off, the Puppy Bowl with its saucy Halftime Kitten Show plays in the lobby.
Go team!
The persistent memory of his involvement in the deaths of his wife and daughter come back to haunt Michael Courtland in a very real way.
Unhinged and unable to forgive himself for the part he played in the deaths of his kidnapped wife and daughter, New Orleans real estate developer Michael Courtland (Cliff Robertson) winds up on a treacherous journey through the haunting and constructed fiction of memories. The traumatic occurrences of losing his family repeat themselves after he re-marries a much younger woman who is, rather eerily, a spitting image of his former wife. Admittedly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Obsession’s structure folds in on itself as the narrative twists and turns to reveal a terrifying truth.
Part of Nitehawk’s THE WORKS – BRIAN DE PALMA series.
First she mates, then she terminates! A young woman becomes possessed by an ancient maneater in this Indonesian low-budget version of The Terminator.
So let’s get something straight: Lady Terminator doesn’t actually involve robots however it IS the Indonesian rip-off of The Terminator and it does deal with a young woman possessed by a black-widow spirit of “The South Sea Queen.” It also vaguely has something to do with an eel and a vagina. This young anthropologist (not a lady!) gets possessed by the man-killer Queen in order to kill the great-granddaughter of the man who did her in. We can’t spoil all the fun in this description so just trust us when we say that you definitely don’t want to miss this lovely low-budget exploitation flick!
