Chicago International Film Festival
ADVANCE SALES Cinema/Chicago, 30 E. Adams, suite 800; Borders, 2817 N. Clark and 830 N. Michigan. By fax: 312-683-0122. By phone: 312-332-3456; Ticketmaster, 312-902-1500.
This documentary by Bradley Beesley and Sarah Price (American Movie) follows 90 kids at a Wisconsin nature camp; with music by the Flaming Lips. 85 min. aRiver East, 4 PM
The Magicians
Six short works from the U.S., Brazil, Chile, Iceland, and Spain. 90 min.
The latest feature by Hungarian Oscar winner Istvan Szabo (Mephisto), based on a popular novel by Zsigmond Moricz about the corruption of a small-town politician. In Hungarian with subtitles. 110 min. aLandmark, 6:30 PM
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R Quite possibly the wisest, most moving monster movie ever made, Bong Joon-ho’s feature deservedly became South Korea’s biggest ever box-o°ce success. Six years after the U.S. army poisons Seoul’s Han River, a giant lizardlike creature emerges and rampages along the banks. It may carry a lethal virus, one the U.S. decides it’s responsible for eradicating. Among the monster’s prisoners is a young girl, and her colorfully dysfunctional family–her narcoleptic father is mildly retarded, his educated brother full of resentment, the grandfather stubbornly conservative–must scheme against a repressive state apparatus to rescue her. Bong’s film brilliantly mixes frights, gentle humor, outrageous Grand Guignol, and sharp political satire: you don’t have to look hard to find a disquieting allegory about real terror, state-imagined terrorism, and local resistance. In Korean with subtitles. 119 min. (SK) aLandmark, 11 PM
