Tag: movies

It’s Still Just The Beginning Of The Year

Spending the first day of the year sitting at home and crossing off overdue tasks from my list was not the most exciting thing, though it did bring some satisfaction. But I had lots of hopes for January 2. It was the first workday of the year, and the weather was supposed to be great (and it was). I went to the office not because I had to, but because I had ambitious plans.

My plan was to go skating after lunch, then, after work, to go to the Chicago Architectural Center to finally see two already-not-so-new exhibits, and then go to the Siskel Center to see Mistress Disspeller. All of the above activities belonged to the category “I want to do this, but I chronically have no time for it.”

Skating became problematic since last season, when Millennium Park cut the skating season short. Instead of having the skating rink operating until mid-March, they close it on February 9, and this year, the last day will be February 1. Since I will be out of the country from January 16 to 29th, I have only two weeks left! And you can’t go skating when it’s raining or when it’s really cold, which limits the options even further. All of the above was a long explanation of why I headed to the skating rink on Friday. I knew it could be a mistake, because it would still be a winter break day, which would mean a big crowd, but the reality surpassed my wildest expectations.

When I arrived four minutes before the start of the session, expecting to show my pass on my phone and put on the skates, I saw a line circling half the rink, and I was told it was for those who had already purchased tickets online! I wanted to turn around and go back to the office, but the sun was shining, the weather was perfect, and I had already paid for a session, so I decided to stay. It took me ten minutes to check in, and when I finally put the skates on, there was barely any space left on the rink. I think there were actually these hypothetical one hundred people there! And at least a third of them couldn’t or almost couldn’t skate.

I made an effort :). I navigated around the people who were moving rather erratically, but after twenty minutes, I gave up.

While this portion of my plan could be considered at least a partial success, the other two failed completely.

I checked the CAC schedule on their website the day before, and the schedule said they are open until 7 PM both Friday and Saturday. I thought that finally, I would go there not to purchase a gift, but to see exhibits. When I arrived at five minutes to five, I saw several people standing puzzled by the CAC door, and when I came closed, I saw a sign, which said that there are “winter hours” in effect, and the Center will be only open until 4 PM on the days it will be open (and it will be closed Tue-Wed, but that was not important at the moment). I felt crushed and decided that I could comfort myself by having dinner at Lea’s Cafe instead of eating a vegan sandwich from work, which was in my backpack.

Lea’s Cafe didn’t fail me :). It was a perfect comfort food, and I even took half a baguette home, because it was a lot.

But after that, there was a huge disappointment at the Siskel Center. I read about this documentary, and it looked interesting, so I was looking forward to seeing it, but it was nothing like what I thought. I honestly could not figure out what the idea behind it was, and how people could act the way they did. It is possible that, at least in part, it was a language and cultural problem combined. The documentary was in Mandarin with English subtitles, and the melody of the language is very different from any other languages I know or know how they sound. I was reading the subtitles, and could not map the words to the emotions projected on the screen. It felt rushed; maybe Mandarin words are too short for translation, I don’t know. Or maybe, it was something wrong with me. At some point, I thought of leaving, but then decided to stay to the end and see whether something would change my mind.

I hope that this day of disappointment won’t represent the rest of 2026, and that my delights won’t be solely culinary!

Rogers Park: The Movie

Now tell me, why I didn’t know about this movie?! I dropped everything I was doing (and trust me, I had enough to do!) and started watching! (That was on Sunday, and I just finished it)

Watch here!

RIFENSTAHL

I just exited the Siskel Center after watching “RIFENSTAHL.” I missed the first screening (with director-in-person) last week, because I hosted the Prairie Postgres User Group at the same time. Today was my only chance to see it, because I am leaving tomorrow and the last screening will be on September 26, before I return. Well, there will be more screenings later, but I will be travelling again, and also – I didn’t want to wait!

I just saw the movie. For the past several months, I was reading my friend’s blog about Riefenstahl’s memoirs, and I wanted to know more, so I queued a couple of books about her in my future reading list. But let me tell you that: it’s one thing to read what she says about herself, and a different thing to hear it, in her own words, with her facial expressions, with her intonations. To see the immense pleasure on her face when she watched the “Triumph of the Will,” conducting the screen music.

Starting with her cynical phrase: The movie was commissioned by Hitler. If Roosevelt were to commission a movie, I would also try my best. If Stalin were to ask me to make a movie for him, I would do my best as well. And all her screams: no, it’s a lie! What people disappear?! There were no such people around me! We didn’t know! No, I didn’t see! And: I would never make a movie about cripples! And isn’t it in all cultures that we admire beautiful bodies?

Oh, and there is footage of how she was making these pictures of Nuba! How she treated them like animals. I will never buy her albums.

Evil, evil, evil. No shades. No “buts”.

Reifenstahl – And I Can’t Make It

It’s just so not fair: Reifenstahl member-only preview is exactly at the time when I host my Postgres meetup! And the regular run is exactly when I will be out of the country!

I hope they will add more screenings later!

2000 meters to Andriivka

I just watched “2000 meters to Andriivka” at the Siskel Center. I started crying even before the documentary title appeared on the screen. Then I stopped crying because there were no tears left. And then I started to cry again when they showed footage of the funerals. And for all these almost two hours, I felt eternal hatred towards those who started this war and those who allowed it to happen.

Horror. Hopelessness. Sorrow for all these lives gone, especially since Mstyslav Chernov tells us which of the soldiers he filmed were injured and died later. And the way he runs the excerpts from the news coverage from the days of the counter-offense, mentioning that “it didn’t deliver to expectations” or whatever the language was.

To say this documentary is difficult to watch is to say nothing. The official trailer below does not give even a remote impression of it. I don’t know how to keep living life as usual when you know that this actually happened, and that the corpses I saw on the screen were not props, and the captured Russian officer was not an actor.

P.S. If you are in Chicago, there are two more screenings.

“Great Migrations: People on the Move”

I watched this four-part documentary a while ago and wanted to mention it. It was streaming on PBS, but now you need to subscribe to watch it. I spent a lot of time trying to embed at least some clips, but failed, so I can only share a link to the whole project.

It’s exceptionally interesting and informative, and as I keep saying, even though I know a lot about Black history, this documentary revealed many things I didn’t know or didn’t understand. Although I feel strongly about “no subscriptions,” I subscribed to PBS Passport to watch these series. It’s still a donation to a good cause, not a Netflix subscription!

“It’s Basic” Documentary

I am on my way home from this event. I was half an hour late, but it was just the right time, as it turned out. The programming started approximately ten minutes after I arrived, and the panel after the screening was only 30 minutes long. After the “official part” was over, half of the audience rushed to the podium to talk with panelists, and I decided I did not want to stand in their way.

I loved the documentary; I cried several times. I am a firm believer in basic income, and I do not need any convincing, but it was great to hear about true stories, scientific analysis of the results, and about what’s next.

One thing that concerns me about this initiative and others like it is the randomness and small size of the groups of people who can benefit. It feels like one extra piece in the boundless mosaic of human services, and when I think about how I would like it to evolve, I would say this program should be as universal as possible.

On another topic: the Green Line was delayed several times both inbound and outbound, but I was able to ignore the surroundings and do something productive on the train.

I am super tired of everything which is happening in my life (including work), but there are things I can’t drop, no matter what.

My main reason to attend was the panelists:

  • Toni Preckwinkle, President, Cook County Board of Commissioners
  • Mayor Michael Tubbs, Special Advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom for Economic Mobility; “It’s Basic” Film Executive Producer
  • Margaret M.C. Thomas, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice

Belarus’ Resistance

To add to my yesterday’s post, a couple of pictures from the Siskel Center foyer where Mara Tomkevich posed with one of the activists of the Chicago Belarusian community and audience members.

She is amazing, and I keep thinking about this movie and how powerful it is. During the Q&A, Tomkevich mentioned that all the scenes from the rallies and arrests were the actual footage and even the soundtrack to the scene by the prison gate was recorded by the prison.

It’s so sad and so unfair that so few people know about the events of 2020 in Belarus, about resistance, rallies, arrests, and prosecution. I hope this movie will spark some interest in these events and that the struggles of the Belarusian opposition will be more widely acknowledged.

Under The Grey Sky

That was the only film I watched during this year’s Chicago European Film Festival (this year hosted by Poland). The film director, Mara Tamkovich, was in the audience and held a Q&A session after the screening. She is brilliant, and the movie is brilliant, and I almost cried almost all the time while I watched it.

From the Siskel Center website:

In Mara Tamkovich’s eerily timely feature debut, journalist Lena is arrested for livestreaming the suppression of a protest against the 2020 Belarusian election, thrusting her husband Ilya into an untenable situation. With the grim possibility that Lena will spend years behind bars, Ilya must consider the sacrifices he may be forced to make to support her. Inspired by the true story of Katsyaryna Andreeva and Igor Ilyash, UNDER THE GREY SKY is a haunting portrait of political repression in the digital age which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and won the Best Debut Director prize at the 2024 Polish Film Festival. 

The Room Next Door: Pedro Almodovar’s Movie

OMG, it’s just striking! I can’t really say “good”. It’s the wrong word for this movie. Powerful. Painful. Real. Beautiful. I thought it should be great, and I wanted to watch it, but all the showtimes didn’t work, even though Siskel had twenty screenings (literally). I thought I could skip a visit to my mom on Monday and come on Wednesday, and I purchased the ticket, but then I realized that I had previously promised to come to the ODS and finally decided to ask my mom whether she would be OK if I came later. In the end, things worked out. All this was just to say I truly wanted to see this movie, and I was not disappointed.

I almost never went to Siskel Center during the fall because I had too many subscription concerts and shows. Still, in late December/early January, I wanted to catch up and went a couple of times, and one of these times was a complete disappointment/wasted time (The Girl with the Needle). This new Almodovar’s movie, however, was magnificent