C-U Blogfidential

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

10/16: Chaz Ebert (producer/host, Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, College of Media, UIUC, Champaign, IL)
10/18: Mike Everleth (publisher, Underground Film Journal, Los Angeles, CA)
10/20: Lana Wildman (volunteer, Route 66 Film Festival, Springfield, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

Monsters from lore, aliens not of this earth, and beings that are arguably human exist all around us if you believe the films being made by a new collective, Horror Dadz Productions, and in this Report we reveal how to find their found footage exploits. Follow our leads (but beware!) if you want to explore more…

We’ve mentioned before a Horror Dad named Joshua Brucker who hails from Watseka, a small Illinois town within easy driving distance of Hoopeston and Onarga, and his group specializes in the “reality” horror subgenre launched a quarter of a century ago with THE LAST BROADCAST and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT that has seemingly never let up since. In various producing combinations over the last few years, the Horror Dadz have pumped out around ten shockers so far that are told, at least in part, from the camera’s vantage point. The Report won’t even try to unravel all the nitty gritty of their combined oeuvre within this space, so we’ll focus on Brucker’s own work as director/writer to send us down a few of their “Cryptidverse” rabbit holes. There are four major projects realized under his creative watch so far.

The Clifton native came to our attention about a year ago when he arranged for a premiere screening of his then-new tale, THE WOODMEN, at the former Little Lorraine black box theater in Hoopeston. It is a co-production between Horror Dadz, Brucker’s Gray Sky Pictures, and partner 105ive Films, with the latter releasing the film on Blu-ray commercially back in June and securing it spots at VOD sites like Amazon Prime and AVOD such as Tubi. Filmed in eastern Tennessee in 2023, the film pits a trio of explorers played by Anna Clary, Dan Grogan, and Hunter Nino against a band of the titular creeps who haunt the Smoky Mountains with feral savagery. This is Brucker’s second feature.

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Before that came MOTHMAN, a previous joint between Gray Sky and Horror Dadz, in which a couple played by Liz Fletcher and Christopher Kuriata go searching in the central Ohio wilds for the truth behind the disappearance of the wife’s brother (Randall Cole) seemingly connected with the well-known cryptid. This title was issued in both standard and collector Blu-ray editions at the beginning of 2024 by a label called Not Quite Reality Distribution, which counts several of the Dadz’ pictures in its catalog. On a separate site run by Horror Nerd Productions (sounds … familiar?) is the Blu-ray for SPLIT SCREEN, a duology feature with segments shepherded by Dillon Brown – “Greys: The Nevada Alien Incident” – and Brucker – “The Illinois Valley Murder Tapes” – the latter of which stars Samantha Hupp, Tayler Holler, and Nino and has the distinction of being the first Cryptidverse story to be shot in our region.

The second, UNTITLED FOOTAGE, is an extension of the “Murder Tapes” serial killer segment and involves the sister of Hupp’s character, played by Tori Zanoni, heading out with a camera-equipped friend (Rodney B. Snyder) to uncover the truth behind Nino’s “Claw Hammer Killer.” It is one of the first features to debut exclusively on the just-launched service, Found TV, which is populated with exactly the types of indies you think such a site would love and curate. Found joins the established POV Horror site as go-to destinations for found footage fare, and you’re guaranteed to find the Horror Dadz lurking within.

Brucker himself is responsible for a segment in Horror Fix Films’ upcoming anthology, F’D: TALES FROM THE END TIMES, and has more Horror Dadz duties in store. As for what we make of it all, right now we’re awaiting copies of his material evidence that allegedly captures the unexplainable in America from our unnamed sources – why spoil the first-time viewing with commercials? – and will report back on our findings. That’s assuming we make it through to the final minutes without being abducted or something…

Don’t try it, Dadz. We have eyes in the backs of our heads. Oh … wait … we redact that comment. Carry on, then.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

Since we spent a lot of effort digging into the on-screen mythology and conspiracy being set up here, we’re keeping it simple with this week’s Images and presenting to you a map of Horror Dadz hot spots (it can be enlarged with a click) and some artwork from Brucker’s contributions.

There is certainly more to unearth (read: Facebook), and here are a few prompts for your Google-y fingertips. The current Dadz line-up includes Michael Rock, Matt Van Bodegraven, Dustin Tamplen, Nino, Brown, and Brucker, who are located throughout the Midwest and Southwest. [Not twenty-four hours after this Calendar went live, CUBlog received a mysterious message that pinpointed the artists’ whereabouts as being in Indiana, Michigan, and Nevada as well as Illinois … the same locations as the sightings noted on the map. Coincidence? – ed.] Other films in the Cryptidverse and beyond include GHOST (demonic forces!), LIGHTS OVER MONTGOMERY COUNTY (aliens!), TAHOE JOE (Bigfoot!), TAHOE JOE 2 (Bigfoot back for more!), and MIDNIGHT FEATURE, a five-part, half-hour anthology series with a possibly undead host, “The Curator,” played by the busy indie horror actor John Potash.

We mere mortals will be swarmed with phenomena films from the Horror Dadz stable in the near future such as a second season of MIDNIGHT FEATURE, Brown’s slasher with a stylistic switch-up, THE SUMMER WE DIED, and Brucker’s newly announced werewolf romp, THE FAIRFIELD COUNTY FOUR. We’re also going to need to set up a custom idea board in the spare office space of MFHQ Deux in order to keep track of all this. Sigh. Our work is never done…

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

30 Years Ago … Friday, October 21, 1994: Following early-bird reviews by The New York Times‘ Caryn James and The Los Angeles Times‘ Kenneth Turan, The Chicago Sun-Times would print Roger Ebert’s ecstatic vote of confidence in the documentary HOOP DREAMS, a Chicago-based production about two inner-city high school students banking on college basketball careers as a step towards the proverbial “way out.” His persistent support of this film famously hit a crescendo when the movie critic cried foul over the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences overlooking it in both the “best picture” and “best documentary” Oscar categories. HOOP DREAMS director Steve James would ultimately return the favor with his work on the Ebert documentary LIFE ITSELF. [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Esquire Lounge, Champaign, IL
Champaign Movie Makers* meeting (10/21, 7 p.m.)

@ Lincoln Hall, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Film & Video* meeting (10/21, 7 p.m., Room 1002)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS, GRACIE & PEDRO: PETS TO THE RESCUE!* (animation), KENSUKE’S KINGDOM* (animation), RUMORS, SMILE 2, STAND BY ME* (in Mandarin with English sub), THE APPRENTICE*, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, IT ENDS WITH US, JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT* (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS* (animation) (re-release), PIECE BY PIECE (documentary/animation), SATURDAY NIGHT, SPEAK NO EVIL*, TERRIFIER 3, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/18 on), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE* (10/18-10/22), AX Cinema Nights presents “Gundam Fest” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM II: SOLDIERS OF SORROW (animé) (10/20, 4:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (10/21, 7 p.m.), LONGLEGS w/THE MONKEY sneak preview (10/23, 7:15 p.m.; 10/24, 7:45 p.m.), AX Cinema Nights presents “Gundam Fest” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM III: ENCOUNTERS IN SPACE (animé) (10/23, 7:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), CONCLAVE, VENOM: THE LAST DANCE (10/24 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
EXHIBITING FORGIVENESS, GOODRICH, GRACIE & PEDRO: PETS TO THE RESCUE!* (animation), HOCUS POCUS (re-release), RUMORS, SMILE 2, THE APPRENTICE, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE*, JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (animation) (re-release), PIECE BY PIECE (documentary/animation), SATURDAY NIGHT, THE SUBSTANCE, TERRIFIER 3, THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/18 on), MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT* (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub) (10/18-10/19, 10/21-10/22), The Metropolitan Opera: Grounded (10/19, 12 p.m., simulcast; 10/23, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II 35th anniversary (10/19, 10/21, 7 p.m.), SAW 20th anniversary (10/20, 4 & 7 p.m., 10/23, 7 p.m.; unrated), THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2 (10/20, 3 & 7 p.m.; 10/23, 7 p.m.), VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, WE LIVE IN TIME (10/24 on) *single screenings daily

@ Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Center for World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies* presents “Documentaries on the Frontline of Democracy: How Kartemquin’s Storytelling Works for Stronger Publics” lecture (10/18, 2 p.m.)

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation) (10/18-10/19, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents REAR WINDOW (10/19, 1 & 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

No surprise at all, there has been even more movement on locally-photographed and produced movies that we wish to Report, dearest readers! To start with the seasonally creepy one, Into the Night Motion Pictures of Normal shared a week ago that HUNTING FOR THE HAG, their outdoors thriller mentioned in our previous Report, is now available to watch on the ad-supported sites Tubi and Plex as well as through Fandango at Home and Amazon Prime. Since completing HAG and securing their distribution deal, the studio has embarked on investigations anew for their GHOST GIRLS paranormal reality series and filmed a pair of new episodes in the fall of 2023 that should finally be arriving in the coming months; the pilot has been haunting Tubi since 2021 at this very spot, cold with alleged activity and hot with hot tub action.

Joining GIRLS and HAG in the catalog of the popular service as of last week is HOLIDAY HOLD-UP, the comedic heist romp we told you about earlier in the summer. We know nothing else about the distribution plans for the project, which is the latest collaboration between The Line Film Co. of Chicago and Shatterglass Films of Champaign to see commercial release, but their hands are otherwise full. Shatterglass’ Luke Boyce is overseeing production with Aaron B. Koontz in the New Brunswick province of Canada on the first season of the Syfy program REVIVAL, which was ordered to series a few months back and has been in the works for some time, while the rest of their team shores up the Flyover Film Studios location in Rantoul as they seek outside investments to the tune of $3.5 million total on top of the $1.1 million “soundstage grant” awarded to them by the state of Illinois back in February.

Finally, we learned the other indie production apart from HOLIDAY that made its presence known in and around Champaign County in the late winter and spring of 2023 with an assist from Shatterglass/Line Co., ALBANY ROAD, is set to receive a limited theatrical release through the AMC Theaters and Malco Theatres chains beginning on Friday, November 15. According to this article by The Hollywood Reporter, an agreement was made directly with filmmaker Christine Swanson and her company, Faith Filmworks. It is unclear if ALBANY will appear at all AMC locations including the ones near us, although the C-U populace had their opportunity to watch the movie at Roger Ebert’s Film Festival in April, and home video prospects for practically everything we’ve title-dropped today is anybody’s guess. No surprise, there.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

The Ghost Girls and the Hag-Hunting Ladies wanted to say “hi” and remind you to savor the spooky season! (Note: MFHQ Deux is a spoopy-free zone, kthanxbai.) The paranormal investigators are, from left, Sarah Nicklin, Sierra Renfro, Ashley Troub, and Karaleigh Antoinette; the urban legend debunkers are, from left, Alexa Maris, Jasmine Williams, and Renfro pulling double duty. We still don’t know who or what the Hag actually is. (One might ask Nathan Brandon Gaik if one feels brave enough to discover the truth.) All will be revealed to a degree when you watch their respective adventures and, as hinted during Brooks and Renfro’s appearance on the Horror Pop After Midnight podcast in May, more strangeness is afoot once the new GHOST GIRLS episodes drop. What could it possibly be? Stay tuned, as they say!

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

110 Years Ago … Monday, October 19, 1914: Owners of the brand-new New Orpheum Theatre in downtown Champaign open for business according to the Urbana Courier-Herald; entertainment scheduled for 7:30 and 9 p.m. shows includes “five high-class vaudeville acts,” an “enlarged orchestra,” and “special exclusive photo plays” per a news item and advertisement in that day’s edition. Designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Rapp & Rapp after the Royal Opera theater within the Palace of Versailles in Versailles, France, the building now houses the “destination venue” Orpheum Champaign. [R] [Rev. 10/11/24]

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
THE APPRENTICE, MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (animation) (re-release), PIECE BY PIECE, SATURDAY NIGHT, SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (documentary), TERRIFIER 3, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, MY OLD ASS*, SPEAK NO EVIL, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/4 on), COCO* (animation) (10/11-10/15), JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL (concert documentary “party edition”) (10/11-10/13, 1 p.m.; in Korean with English sub), AVERAGE JOE (faith film) (10/13-10/14), AX Cinema Nights presents “Gundam Fest” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM II: SOLDIERS OF SORROW (animé) (10/16, 7:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), SMILE 2 (10/17 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
THE APPRENTICE, AVERAGE JOE* (faith film), MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (animation) (re-release), PIECE BY PIECE, SATURDAY NIGHT, SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (documentary), TERRIFIER 3, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), WHITE BIRD, THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/4 on), MONSTER SUMMER* (10/11-10/12, 10/14-10/17), THE LOST BOYS (10/13, 3 & 7 p.m.; 10/16, 7 p.m.), SMILE 2 (10/17 on) *single screenings daily

@ Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Center for World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies* presents “Kartemquin’s Labor Films: Stories of Working in America” screening (10/17, 7 p.m.) and “Documentaries on the Frontline of Democracy: How Kartemquin’s Storytelling Works for Stronger Publics” lecture (10/18, 2 p.m.)

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents LONGLEGS (10/11-10/12, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illini Radio Group presents “Rewind 92.5 Movie Series” feat. FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980) (10/17, 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

10/4: Jason Christ (actor/executive producer, ANXIETY, Wicked Pixel Cinema, St. Louis, MO)
10/6: Niccole Powers (art department, BLACK MOLD, Raven Banner Entertainment, Toronto, ON/Tubi Originals, San Francisco, CA)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

“F” is for fall as well as filmmaking, so let’s begin our Field Report dedicated to out-of-town friends and creators who elected for quick shoots over the last few weeks to carve out some creepy stories.

First, Jason Huls of Ten Wing Media in Chicagoland has followed up THAT DAMNED YELLOW RAINCOAT with THE FAWN, which he describes as “a blend of folk horror and cosmic horror.” Facebook photographs show the team of Huls, Paul G. Lyzun, and Paul A. Brooks working away in late September on the private property in Pontiac where Brooks filmed his full-length debut, HUNTING FOR THE HAG, and young Windy City actress and Illinois State University alumna Nora McKirdie, who played the briefly seen “fourth friend” in HAG, is the lead. And then, Shea Kelly of Thousand Yard Stare Productions in Decatur traveled long distance to small-town Rushville on the weekend of September 13-15 to produce the dramatic short, A MAN OF CHARACTER; cast and crew who collaborated with Kelly, a videographer for WAND-TV and host of the “movie game show podcast” Filmwar!, included Christopher Ryan Trone, George O’Brien, Jordan and Jessica Baker, Lee Larkin, Nathan Scott, Shelby Rozanski, and Greg M. Trumbold, who makes a return to acting in a downstate Illinois-made indie for the first time in years.

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Remaining at the home front in the Soy Capital, Ben Harl of Silver Compass Studios filmed the “short psychological thriller” MARA during the same weekend with a cast and crew featuring Dayton Emery, Heather Harlow, Justin Taylor, Katherine Bokenkamp, Laura Richter, Lesley Harl-Black, Mindy Smith, Rick Jensen, Seth Boyer, and Thomas Nicol. Silver Compass is prepping to shoot another short later this month and is still seeking talent, so skim their latest Facebook posts for details. And in the wilds of Carroll County in northern Illinois, Jarod Hussey of Refinery Films directed the horror tale GRINNERS from his script, which pits a cooking show host and retired detective against a pair of serial killers in animal masks during the Halloween season; starring Magdalena Conway, Tanna Jacobs, Andrew Byard, and the great John Bloom (a.k.a. Joe Bob Briggs) and photographed by Derek Huey in primary CREEPSHOW colors, GRINNERS was filmed on a tight schedule in the Mt. Carroll area last week. Got all that? We’re not even sure that we do. Updates and the downlow shall be had in future Reports, dearest grinners.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

Courtesy of writer/director S. J. Hermann and producer Ann Myrna of Acrostar Productions, we share with you an exclusive sneak peek at the recently-wrapped sequel, RETURN OF THE CORN ZOMBIES, which was filmed early September in the northernmost reaches of Champaign County. A large number of performers and behind-the-scenes staff traveled from far and wide to stage for the screen this low-budget adventure, in which survivors of the plague unleashed in ATTACK OF THE CORN ZOMBIES seek refuge at a farming community that is not as welcoming as they had hoped. “Hurrah” to everyone from Myrna and Hermann to co-director Mia Katz, cinematographer Ashley Hefner, make-up effects artist Beth Metcalf, and the rest for their horror film hustle and reminding their set visitor, our very own Mr. JaPan, what it’s like to witness the action. We hope to talk with a handful of Acrostar acolytes about their movie ambitions and fan-fueled success for an article on CUBlog before the end of the year. Chomp, chomp!

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We normally tuck our figure captions in those tidy pop-up blocks you can trigger when hovering an arrow or fingertip over an image but, since we dropped some names that are related to the other groups mentioned in the Report, we’ll also do it for our fine Acro-folks. From top to bottom, talent appearing in the upcoming RETURN OF THE CORN ZOMBIES includes (photo one) Delilah Hefner, Hunter Redfern, Chloe Lutz, Angel Nichole Bradford, Christopher Kahler, Chanda Rawlings, (two) David J. Paul, Mel Heflin, Bradford, Kelsey Ann Baker, (three) Gwyneviere Ray, and (four) zombie players who may be extras or leads turned into zombies or crew drafted to be zombies – we just don’t know who lives, dies, or rises up again! Keep watch on their very active Facebook group for chances to participate in future films and consider visiting this Indiegogo campaign to assist in the finishing funds for putting the final polish on the flick.

CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

30 Years Ago … Friday, October 7, 1994: SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN, the 1952 classic from MGM starring Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor as talent caught in the Hollywood transition from silent to sound pictures, is the main attraction during the grand reopening of the Normal Theater in downtown Normal, Illinois. Previewed in euphoric terms by Dan Craft of the Bloomington Pantagraph earlier today, the sold-out show marks the end of a long journey by the Town of Normal to restore this venue to the Art Moderne veneer of its earliest years – essentially, harking to the past to ensure its future as did the makers of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN with the movie musical genre. In its previous era, the Normal had operated circumspectly on West North Street as a second-run house owned and “twinned” by the GKC Theaters chain, closing in May 1991 due to paltry attendance. The Town of Normal purchased the property a few months later and raised the necessary capital through donations, gifts, and taxes for a complete restoration; the Normal of today closely resembles the one designed by Bloomington architect Arthur F. Moratz and opened in 1937 by real estate broker Sylvan Kupfer and his wife Ruth. [R]

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, FURIOUS 7 (re-release), MONSTER SUMMER, THE OUTRUN, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DEVARA: PART 1 (in Telugu with English sub), MEGALOPOLIS, MY OLD ASS, SPEAK NO EVIL, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/4 on), AX Cinema Nights presents “Gundam Fest” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM (animé) (10/6, 4:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (10/7, 7 p.m.), TERRIFIER 2/TERRIFIER 3 double feature (10/10, 5:30 p.m.), THE APPRENTICE, MY HERO ACADEMIA: YOU’RE NEXT (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), PIECE BY PIECE, SATURDAY NIGHT, TERRIFIER 3 (10/10 on)

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, MONSTER SUMMER, WHITE BIRD, AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), BAGMAN*, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE*, DEVARA: PART 1* (in Telugu with English sub), LEE, MEGALOPOLIS, SPEAK NO EVIL, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (10/4 on), The Metropolitan Opera: Les Contes d’Hoffmann (10/5, 12 p.m., simulcast; 10/9, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), UFC 307: Alex Pereira vs. Khalil Rountree, Jr., more (mixed martial arts) (10/5, 9 p.m., simulcast), MEAN GIRLS 20th anniversary (10/6, 4 & 7 p.m.), HEART OF A SERVANT: THE FATHER FLANAGAN STORY (religious documentary) (10/8, 7 p.m.), THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 1 (10/9, 7 p.m.), TERRIFIER 3 (10/10 on) *single screenings daily

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents BORDERLANDS (10/4-10/5, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illinois Public Media presents “The Arthouse Experience Film Series” feat. MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON (animation) (10/4, 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

10/1: Jason Croft (editor/publisher, Bachelor Pad Magazine, Champaign, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

We’re going to play hooky from the Report this week. Researching and writing extra doesn’t get the yard work and grocery shopping done, never mind Momkoke Manor in better shape than it’s been. Plenty for you to do as listed in the Calendar below, so hit the Google and socials for further details you might want to know. October at CUBlog feels like it’s going to be more loaded than the sweetest pumpkin spice specialty drink that you could order from anywhere. Feel free to visit us on the regular for all of the treats and none of the tricks (or calories).

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing a Weird Scene on the Screen

Lately, every time your humble editor visits Box Office Mojo to help him crunch numbers in his overloaded noggin, he sees the following promotional banner atop the home page and it just feels like a weird M3GAN/HAL 9000 moment despite being a mere JPEG graphic and not generative AI that inserts the device user’s name into the art:

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JSON is apparently a “data interchange format” derived from JavaScript. Internet Movie Database, also the owners of Box Office Mojo and IMDb Pro, pitches other companies on using the method to integrate movie and user data onto other websites from their own. This is why you might see an IMDb-branded rating placed on the physical media product pages of certain online merchants, for instance. Click our links to learn more about it.

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Hoogland Center for the Arts, Springfield, IL
Route 66 Film Festival presents “Get Your Flicks at Route 66” screening and activities (9/28, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., free, all ages)

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Festival* presents A TIME APART (9/29, 4 p.m.)

@ Lincoln Hall, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Film & Video* meeting (9/30, 7 p.m., Room 1002)

@ Golden Corral, Springfield, IL
Central Illinois Film Commission* meeting (10/4, 7 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
AZRAEL, DEVARA: PART 1 (in Telugu with English sub), MEGALOPOLIS, MY OLD ASS, PACIFIC RIM (re-release), Studio Ghibli Fest: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE 20th anniversary (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), THE WILD ROBOT (animation), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, IT ENDS WITH US, NEVER LET GO*, SPEAK NO EVIL, THE SUBSTANCE*, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), WHIPLASH (re-release) (9/27 on), JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL (concert documentary) (9/27-9/28, 7:30 p.m.; 9/29, 4:30 p.m.; in Korean with English sub), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (9/30, 7 p.m.), AX Cinema Nights presents “Gundam Fest” feat. MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM (animé) (10/2, 7:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), JOKER: FOILE À DEUX (10/3 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
BAGMAN, DEVARA: PART 1 (in Telugu with English sub), LEE, MEGALOPOLIS, Studio Ghibli Fest: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE* 20th anniversary (animé) (in Japanese with English sub or English dub), THE WILD ROBOT (animation), AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), NEVER LET GO, REAGAN, SPEAK NO EVIL, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation) (9/27 on), IT ENDS WITH US (9/27-9/28, 10/3), THE SHINING (1980) (9/29, 3 & 7 p.m.; 10/2, 7 p.m.) JOKER: FOILE À DEUX preview (9/30, 7 p.m., IMAX), MEAN GIRLS 20th anniversary (10/3, 7 p.m.), JOKER: FOILE À DEUX, WHITE BIRD (10/3 on) *single screenings daily

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents TWISTERS (9/27-9/28, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
No movies this week.

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

9/21: Lisa Cerezo (co-owner, Neon Moth, Champaign, IL)
9/22: Sue Trippiedi (actress, DOGS IN QUICKSAND, Shut Up and Do It Productions, Champaign, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

Some weeks, you’d think the filmmakers in Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond only like to make horror and horror-adjacent movies, and this week’s Report can’t help but feed into the theory as we have movement on several projects the public will soon be able to see and see again. The RETURN OF THE CORN ZOMBIES crew finished planting their seeds of terror in Dewey and Farmer City on Wednesday, September 11, after a week’s worth of location filming; writer/co-director S.j. Herman and friends are doing post-production on it now and a few color-corrected frames can be seen in the video displayed at this Indiegogo finishing funds campaign, while a casting call has already been issued for the next Acrostar Productions genre flick, PERFECT SOUL. Decatur-area creator Jessie Seitz has teased on Facebook that her documentary MONSTER GIRLS will be screened twice in Los Angeles on October 7 and 13 at private functions with official dates to follow; the first-ever comprehensive look at women working in the make-up effects world will be hosted by Diana Prince of THE LAST DRIVE-IN fame with several featured artists yet to be revealed. F’D: TALES FROM THE END TIMES will receive a red-carpet premiere during the sixth annual American Horrors Film Festival in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, on Saturday, October 5; the apocalyptic anthology from Ash Hamilton’s Horror-Fix Films is also set to play at the Phobia Film Festival in central Missouri and the Cinema Scares Film Festival of Shelbyville, Indiana, with distribution plans a big unknown for the mostly-made-in-downstate-Illinois indie. And the Canadian label Darkside Releasing went stealth and surprised everyone last week on Friday, September 13, by dropping the belated Blu-ray release of John Isberg’s FINAL SUMMER with little warning; we’d like to think that drawing the overt FRIDAY THE 13TH parallel is yet another complement to the Champaign County-produced film, which has been available on streaming and video-on-demand services for the last year and a topic on numerous horror culture podcasts. Whew! Some weeks…

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

Special features on the FINAL SUMMER Blu-ray include: director’s audio commentary, making-of featurette including several behind-the-scenes videos, FINAL SUMMER II: PROWLER test footage, Night Dreamer “The Taste” official music video, official trailer, and Trinity Releasing trailer reel. If nothing else, Isberg and his counselors escaped the curse of bare-bones physical media releases that have struck the vast majority of C-U et cetera movies, and they’ve implicitly gained a lot of mileage out of that striking publicity art designed by Creepy Duck Designs. May the long afterlife of the legend of Warren Copper continue.

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NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
NEVER LET GO, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), WHIPLASH (re-release), ALIEN: ROMULUS*, AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, IT ENDS WITH US, THE KILLER’S GAME, SPEAK NO EVIL (9/20 on), JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL (concert documentary) (9/20-9/21, 7:30 p.m.; 9/22, 4:30 p.m.; in Korean with English sub), DC Comics movies: BATMAN* (9/20-9/22, 9/25-9/26), BATMAN FOREVER* (9/20-9/21, 9/23), BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM* (animation) (9/20-9/21, 9/24), and BLUE BEETLE (9/20-9/25), SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (documentary) (9/21, 9/25, 4 & 7 p.m.), DEVARA: PART 1 (in Telugu with English sub), MEGALOPOLIS, MY OLD ASS, Studio Ghibli Fest: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE 20th anniversary (animé) (in Japanese with English sub), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (9/26 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
NEVER LET GO, THE SHADE, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), ALIEN: ROMULUS, AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), GOD’S NOT DEAD: IN GOD WE TRUST* (faith film), IT ENDS WITH US, THE KILLER’S GAME, REAGAN, SPEAK NO EVIL (9/20 on), SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY (documentary) (9/21, 9/25, 4 & 7 p.m.), THE MATRIX 25th anniversary (9/22, 3 & 7 p.m.), PSYCHO (1960) (9/22, 3 & 7 p.m.; 9/25, 7 p.m.), Studio Ghibli Fest: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE 20th anniversary (animé) (in Japanese with English sub), THE WILD ROBOT (animation) (9/26 on)

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents MEAN GIRLS (2004) (9/20-9/21, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents THE LONG GOODBYE (9/21, 1 & 7 p.m.), Illini Radio Group presents “Mix 94.5 Throwback Thursdays” feat. OFFICE SPACE (9/26, 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

9/14: Kimberly Conner (filmmaker, LIPSTICK, Predestined Arts & Entertainment, Springfield, IL/Los Angeles, CA)
9/14: Jason Huls (filmmaker, THAT DAMNED YELLOW RAINCOAT, Ten Wing Media, Chicago, IL)
9/14: Tim Cain (entertainment reporter, Decatur Herald & Review/Lee Enterprises, Decatur, IL)
9/16: Jay Rosenstein (producer, Jay Rosenstein Productions, Champaign-Urbana, IL/New York, NY)
9/19: Paul A. Brooks (director, HUNTING FOR THE HAG, Into the Night Motion Pictures, Normal, IL)
9/19: Eric Pankoke (webmaster, C-U Blogfidential, Champaign/Mendota, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

This was a week for breaking news in the C-U, as you probably have seen by now, so we’ll just herald the obvious in today’s Report. The not-obvious will be reserved for next week, Ye Ed guesses.

BREAKING! The Save the Lorraine Foundation, a non-profit group that has been working for a long time to restore the Lorraine Theatre in Hoopeston to its previous grandeur, has announced they may be in a position to book theatrical movies again by early next year, according to the News-Gazette. A hefty sum of a little more than $40,000, awarded to them in August by the T-Mobile Hometown Grant, will complete the group’s $120,000 fundraising goal and allow for the purchase and installation of a complete DCP projection and Dolby Atmos sound system. The constant stream of live and community events at the Lorraine and the black-box Little Lorraine, which sadly will be closed and converted into office space in light of this development, has helped towards reaching the foundation’s goal over the last dozen years. The Lorraine would then become the only operational first-run house in Vermilion County. Good on them.

BREAKING!! Faculty in the Theatre Arts program at Parkland College in Champaign are collaborating with the operating group at Flyover Film Studios in Rantoul to design classes that will teach students craft, construction, and performance skills and how to apply them in real working productions on site, as reported by Smile Politely. The “pipeline” is intended to fill below-the-line positions with interns, providing valuable experience for those individuals and Flyover with a growing and local work force that can meet the needs of visiting film productions. Located in one of the former hangars of the long-closed Octave Chanute Air Force Base, Flyover is the brainchild of the filmmakers behind Shatterglass Films and The Line Film Co. along with other business leaders; they received a $1.1 million grant in February from Governor J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity through the Illinois Soundstage Program to establish and equip their location with the dedicated space, personnel, materials, and gear that could be as attractive to out-of-the-area producers and distributors as the Illinois film tax credit. Fly by, please!

BREAKING!!! Variety shared today the reveal of a new partnership between the popular boutique label Severin Films and the trust of the late film director Russ Meyer, which holds the rights to all of the work he distributed independently under the RM Film International and “Bosomania” banners. It will result in the long-delayed restoration and re-release of a catalog that has been out of circulation for years. The first titles, which will go on sale in December via the Severin website and in UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD formats, are Meyer’s so-called “vixen trilogy”: VIXEN, the 1968 hit that led to Meyer’s studio deal with 20th Century Fox and the incredible BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (available elsewhere in the Criterion Collection) co-written by Roger Ebert, SUPERVIXENS, a 1975 opus in which Farmer City native and Illinois Wesleyan University alumna Shari Eubank played dual roles, and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS, his last completed feature from 1979 that starred the club entertainer and former University of Illinois student, Ann Marie, and was co-written by Ebert behind a pseudonym, “R. Hyde.” Naughty!

These are all great and/or fun, and these all still have their caveats. From the bottom up, the Meyer revival will not be widely shared in other C-U media, despite our lede and the unlikely and long-lasting friendship between him and Urbana native Ebert, as the reasons fall under the “arguably outdated mores” blanket. Craft talents on a film set are vital and necessary roles that can earn you money to live, but those choosing to enter the “Parkland pipeline” should not mistake it as an automatic in-route to “directing/producing/writing some day” at Flyover. And the Lorraine may bill itself as “The Best Place for Movies,” but they have a long road to build up a new repertoire and consistent (and visiting-from-a-distance) clientele as they are not in “the best placement for movie-going” in terms of geography and a still-recovering theatrical climate. There have to be realistic and financially-sound components to make the film fantasy work. We also cross our fingers for them all.

Keep filming, et cetera, the purveyors of the movies of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond! May the spirit of Matt Damon-as-Mark Whitacre smile upon everyone’s efforts and dreams.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

No. Really.

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Designed by Kellerhouse, Inc., as was last week’s SEVEN SAMURAI promotional piece for Janus Films/Criterion, coincidentally. Also coincidental is our Almanac entry for today, which is a nagging reminder that it has been more than 15 years since a Hollywood production has visited the immediate region with a substantial presence. Maybe the Flyover Fates will deliver an end to this peculiar drought if all goes well.

CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

15 Years Ago … Friday, September 18, 2009: Warner Bros. releases the corporate intrigue drama THE INFORMANT! in more than 2,500 theaters across the United States a year and a half after much of it was filmed in the Decatur, IL, area. Unfortunately, the studio has attempted to market the picture as a snappy comedy along the lines of director Steven Soderbergh and star Matt Damon’s OCEAN’S ELEVEN franchise, blowing out of proportion the sly touch applied to the stranger-than-fiction story of real-life whistleblower Mark Whitacre and his double-crossing of both the agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland and the Central Intelligence Agency. THE INFORMANT! would finish in second place for the weekend, well below the animated hit CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, and concluded its run with a modest $33 million earned. As reported on 9/18/09, 9/26/09, 10/9/09 at CUBlog. Box Office Mojo [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Festival* and the IRL Movie Club present JOIN OR DIE! (9/15, 4 p.m.)

@ Esquire Lounge, Champaign, IL
Champaign Movie Makers* meeting (9/16, 7 p.m.)

@ English Building, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Film & Video* introductory meeting (9/16, 7 p.m., Room 108)

@ Spurlock Museum of World Cultures, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies* presents PAN’S LABYRINTH (9/19, 7 p.m., Knight Auditorium, free)

@ Gallery Art Bar, Urbana, IL
Half House Studios presents 217 Film Festival* (9/19, 9-11 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
AJAYANTE RANDAM MOSHANAM (in Malayam with English sub), AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), THE CRITIC*, THE KILLER’S GAME, SPEAK NO EVIL, UNTOUCHABLE (in Mandarin with English sub), ALIEN: ROMULUS, BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), ENCANTO* (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), THE FRONT ROOM*, THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME (in Tamil with English sub), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US (9/13 on), USHER: RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS (concert film) (9/13-9/15, 12 & 7 p.m.), GOD’S NOT DEAD: IN GOD WE TRUST (faith film) (9/13, 5 p.m.), DAN DA DAN: FIRST ENCOUNTER Episodes 1-3 (animé) (9/13, 7 p.m.; 9/14-9/15, 4 & 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), JUNG KOOK: I AM STILL (concert documentary) (9/18-9/19, 7:30 p.m., in Korean with English sub), NEVER LET GO, THE SUBSTANCE, TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation), WHIPLASH (re-release) (9/19 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), GOD’S NOT DEAD: IN GOD WE TRUST* (faith film), THE KILLER’S GAME, SPEAK NO EVIL, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BEETLEJUICE, BLINK TWICE*, CORALINE (animation) (re-release), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), INSIDE OUT 2* (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, REAGAN (9/13 on), THE FRONT ROOM* (9/13, 9:30 p.m.; 9/14, 9:45 p.m.), PBC “Fight Night”: Canelo Alvarez vs. Edgar Berlanga, more (boxing) (9/14, 7 p.m., simulcast), UFC 306: Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili, more (mixed martial arts) (9/14, 7 p.m., simulcast), THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (9/14-9/15, 9/18, 3 & 7 p.m.), BLAZING SADDLES 50th anniversary (9/15, 4 & 7 p.m.; 9/18, 7 p.m.), THE MATRIX 25th anniversary (9/19, 7 p.m.), TRANSFORMERS ONE (animation) (9/19 on) *single screenings daily

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE (9/13-9/14, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
No movies this week!

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The word for today is “gallery,” dearest readers, and if the Report hasn’t perfected the art of tying together the movies (and more) of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond, who else has? First up is this weekend’s iteration of the Immersion Festival at the recently opened Gallery Art Bar in downtown Urbana on Saturday, September 7, and Sunday, September 8; co-founder Jake Metz discussed with Jessica Hammie of Smile Politely what’s in store for the show, which showcases the collaborations of audio, video, and musical artists from across the country in what becomes a multidisciplinary playground, and his hopes for future expansion of the project. One can experience Immersion Fest with a blank slate of expectations or read about all the performers online.

Also coming to Gallery Art Bar is a new event called the 217 Film Festival, which is set for Thursday, September 19, 9 p.m., and still accepting submissions of shorts running no longer than 15 minutes through the end of the day on Monday, September 9; Half House Studios, a music label and concert promoter based in the C-U, is branching out with 217 and a QR code posted to their Facebook account will take filmmakers to a submission form they can fill out.

And still feeling so close yet situated so far away, C-U native Tristan Duke continues his investigation of creating large-scale photographic images through unconventional means from his home base of southern California to the wilds of the Arctic Circle; an e-mail blast received this week at MFHQ Deux goes through his upcoming doings such as a solo exhibit, “Glacial Optics,” opening on Friday, September 27, at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico, and works appearing in group shows at both the Los Angeles Central Library and Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the fall. Duke’s process involves the design and construction of self-made cameras utilizing atypical elements to capture images – in the instance of “Glacial Optics,” fashioning his lenses from glacier ice in Alaska to photograph the environment his resource came from.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

What, you thought it would be yet another reference to that other world-renowned 1954 black-and-white Toho Company production? The 4K restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI, distributed by Janus Films, storms the Normal Theater on September 6, 7, and 13, all at 7 p.m., and September 15 at 1 p.m. Go see it on the big screen where it and so many other indisputable world classics belong. If you have to drive long-distance for the pleasure, plan ahead; we know the Virginia Theatre/News-Gazette line-up of Hollywood chestnuts gets vanilla at times – we’ll tip our hat to them for booking Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE on September 21, a nice surprise there – and the overall lack of an Art Theater for art cinema in the C-U has already gotten old. In November, the Criterion Collection will issue SEVEN SAMURAI on UHD, which carries over extras including a commentary that features the former University of Illinois film professor David Desser, as well as GODZILLA (gotcha!), FUNNY FACE, PAPER MOON, THE SHAPE OF WATER, the 1932 version of SCARFACE, and the Japanese folk horror DEMON POND. Since poster and package design for movies is rarely the province of an art gallery, we’d like to showcase below the striking SAMURAI work done by illustrator Sean Phillips and title designer Neil Kellerhouse.

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LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Savoy Recreation Center, Savoy, IL
5th annual Tabletop Central gaming convention (9/7-9/8) Information

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, THE FRONT ROOM, THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME (in Tamil with English sub), LAND OF BROKEN HEARTS (in Mandarin with English sub), AFRAID, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BLINK TWICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), IT ENDS WITH US, TWISTERS (9/6 on), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (9/9, 7 p.m.), AX Cinema Nights presents NINJA SCROLL: THE MOVIE (9/11, 7:30 p.m., in Japanese with English sub; 9/12, 7:30 p.m., English sub), AJAYANTE RANDAM MOSHANAM (9/12, 5 p.m., in Malayam with English sub, 3-D), USHER: RENDEZVOUS IN PARIS (concert film) (9/12, 7 p.m.), AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), THE KILLER’S GAME, SPEAK NO EVIL (9/12 on)

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, THE FRONT ROOM, 1992, AFRAID, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BLINK TWICE, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, REAGAN, TRAP, TWISTERS (9/6 on), THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (9/7-9/8, 9/11, 3 & 7 p.m.), GOD’S NOT DEAD: IN GOD WE TRUST (faith film) (9/12, 7 p.m.), AM I RACIST? (op-ed/documentary), SPEAK NO EVIL (9/12 on)

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents INSIDE OUT 2 (animation) (9/6-9/7, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illinois Public Media presents “The Arthouse Experience Film Series” feat. HOOP DREAMS* (documentary) (9/6, 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/28: Skip Huston (owner/operator, The Avon Theatre, Decatur, IL)
8/30: John Oak Dalton (director, SMART HOUSE, ITN Distribution, Beverly Hills, CA)
9/1: Matt Wiley (designer/cartoonist, Matt Wiley Art, Champaign-Urbana, IL)
9/2: Matt Harsh (videographer/multimedia artist, HarshPro, Champaign-Urbana, IL)
9/5: Anthony E. Cabral (first assistant director, ALBANY ROAD, Faith Filmworks, Los Angeles, CA)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

Cultural pursuits require labor as much as anything else to be successful, and we at MFHQ Deux salute those who are on their feet and working hard this long weekend for the cause. That extends into next weekend when Acrostar Productions will be back in central Illinois for RETURN OF THE CORN ZOMBIES, and they could still use your help to make it all work on the set of their sequel. Zombie and pedestrian extras as well as stationary classic cars are in demand between Thursday, September 5, and Wednesday, September 11, according to producer Ann Myrna and a recent update published by the News-Gazette, so the way to confirm your participation in Farmer City and/or Dewey is to fill out this Google form ASAP. Also in the news, reported this week by WAND-TV, the Eagle Theater chain including the Clinton location we include in our weekly Calendar is asking patrons to fill out a survey and help them gauge support for continuing to operate in their respective communities; management is being frank about the need for refinancing to stay afloat post-COVID-19, but it will also require a steady uptick in business at all three Eagle locations to maintain a sense of continuity in their customer service. Finally, the Orpheum Theater in downtown Champaign hosts the 10th anniversary Dark History & Horror Convention from Mental Ward Productions this weekend on Saturday, August 31, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., and Sunday, September 1, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; nestled amidst the true crime, tattoo, and Gothic arts attractions are media personalities, panel discussions, a Hall of Fame induction, and the companion Screaming Mad Film Festival that is included free with admission.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

We’ll give Screaming Mad bloody props (such as a severed foam rubber head or two) for primarily sampling upper Midwest genre filmmaking with their feature selections and providing a de facto early Halloween movie marathon for fans of the season. The run begins with John Isberg’s FINAL SUMMER, the retro slasher filmed in our area as was its screening buddy, THE EXORCISM OF CHASE & SHEP (8/31, 11:30 a.m.), to be followed by Rebecca Rinehart and Rob Mello’s Indiana indie TIN ROOF (8/31, 2:30 p.m.) and the anthology coordinated by Springfield’s HorrorFix Films, F’D: TALES FROM THE END TIMES (8/31, 4:15 p.m.). Picking up on Sunday, the Missouri-lensed drama RED NIGHT AT SKYE’S is paired with a short subject, INHERITED SHAME (9/1, 11:45 a.m.), and a block of additional shorts closes the event (9/1, 2:10 p.m.). Apparently, the Orpheum will be hounded on Saturday by the animal-masked heathens from GRINNERS, an upcoming micro-budget flick to be made in northern Illinois later this fall, and Acrostar actors Delilah Hefner (ATTACK OF THE CORN ZOMBIES) and Bill D. Russell (IT CAME FROM SOMEWHERE) will be among the talent appearing on the main floor for both days. Go meet some creators, C-U! Our Image of the week is the teaser artwork released in the spring to hype F’D.

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LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Orpheum Champaign (The Orpheum Theater), Champaign, IL
10th anniversary Dark History & Horror Con* (8/31-9/1)

@ Golden Corral, Springfield, IL
Central Illinois Film Commission* meeting (9/5, 7 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
AFRAID, CITY OF DREAMS, REAGAN, SLINGSHOT, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BLINK TWICE, CORALINE (animation; re-release), THE CROW, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, STRANGE DARLING*, TWISTERS (8/30 on), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, THE FRONT ROOM, THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME (in Tamil with English sub) (9/5 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
1992, AFRAID, CITY OF DREAMS, REAGAN, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BLINK TWICE, THE CROW, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FORGE (faith film), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, LONGLEGS, STRANGE DARLING, TRAP, TWISTERS (8/30 on), Sight & Sound presents Daniel (faith musical) (8/30, 6 p.m., 8/31-9/1, 2 & 7 p.m.; simulcast), THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS (8/31-9/2, 9/4, 3 & 7 p.m.), BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE (9/5 on)

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents THE GARFIELD MOVIE (animation) (8/30-8/31, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
No movies this week!

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/23: Luke Boyce (editor, HAPPILY NEVER AFTER, The Line Film Co., Chicago, IL/MarVista Entertainment, Los Angeles, CA)
8/23: Shannon Beranek (copy editor, Bachelor Pad Magazine, Champaign, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

We suppose it’s time to report back to work at MFHQ Deux and resume walking our (virtual) beat on the streets of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond, although we’ll need to keep things brief for a few weeks as we sharpen all our No. 2s and straighten up every last news desk. Pens to Lens 2024 had its homecoming at the Virginia Theatre of Champaign a week ago and their newest six-pack of film shorts has been added to YouTube for your enjoyment; on a side note, writer Amy Penne of Smile Politely is emerging as a friend of cinema at the C-U culture site, so our scene would do good by keeping her in the know. Also on YouTube, our local friend Colin Price has resumed his genre film vlog reviews at the Priceless B Movies channel after a several-year hiatus; his first analysis back is of 2001 MANIACS with Robert Englund and Lin Shaye, and we’re certain he has a big off-screen list of what he’d like to pontificate over next. To conclude, those in the job market for something higher-profile and metropolitan might take a good look at the just-opened position of Executive Director at the Midwest Film Festival based in Chicago; naturally, the application deadline is at the end of the month, so if you seriously want to consider a gig like this – part-time, decent pay, film culture concentrated – your moment is nigh.

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

In March 1999, we fired off our original ‘zine, MICRO-FILM: The Warning Shot. In August 1999, we went “Extra, extra!” with the first issue of our local film culture ‘zine in newsletter form, MICRO-Scope, the front of which is pictured below and the history of which Ye Ed wrote up here. 25 years ago, we were also in the throes of concocting what would become the debut issue of MICRO-FILM, which we unleashed upon the world in October 1999. And now, with MF effectively dormant for more than a decade, there’s not much else for us to say or do about it on its impending anniversary. We think. We’ll see. A timely and creative rebirth for your humble editor and friends would not be unwelcome, within reason. Caw, caw!

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

25 Years Ago … Friday, August 6, 1999: MICRO-Scope #1, our first original print publication after MICRO-FILM: The Warning Shot, is placed in Champaign-Urbana businesses for free not unlike our current C-U Confidential digest. Each two-sided newsletter featured as many locally-oriented news items as we could cram onto that color paper stock in our pre-Internet era! [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Festival* presents THE WINGWALKER (8/25, 4 p.m.)

@ Champaign Public Library, Champaign, IL
Champaign County Film Office and Shatterglass Films present “So You Want to be a Film Artist?” informational meeting (8/29, 5:30 p.m., free)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
BETWEEN THE TEMPLES, BLINK TWICE, THE CROW, DECODED (in Mandarin with English sub), THE FORGE (faith film), STRANGE DARLING, ALIEN: ROMULUS, BORDERLANDS*, CORALINE (animation; re-release), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, TWISTERS (8/23 on), Studio Ghibli Fest: WHISPER OF THE HEART (animé) (8/25, 3 & 7 p.m., English dub; 8/27, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub) and THE CAT RETURNS (animé) (8/26, 7 p.m., English dub; 8/28, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (8/26, 7 p.m.), AFRAID, REAGAN (8/29 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
BLINK TWICE, THE CROW, THE FORGE (faith film), STRANGE DARLING, ALIEN: ROMULUS, CORALINE (animation; re-release), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, MY PENGUIN FRIEND, RYAN’S WORLD THE MOVIE* (live action/animation), TWISTERS (8/23 on), CLOSE TO YOU* (8/23-8/27, 8/29), LONGLEGS (8/23-8/24, 8/26-8/27, 8/29), TRAP (8/23-8/24, 8/26-8/29), BORDERLANDS (8/23-8/24, 8/29), REAR WINDOW (8/25, 8/28, 1 & 7 p.m.), Studio Ghibli Fest: WHISPER OF THE HEART (animé) (8/25, 3 & 7 p.m., English dub; 8/26, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub) and THE CAT RETURNS (animé) (8/28, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (8/25, 3 & 7 p.m.; 8/28, 7 p.m.) *single screenings daily

@ Pine Lounge, 1st floor, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (8/24, 7 p.m., free w/i-card)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (8/24, 1 & 7 p.m.), Illini Radio Group presents “Rewind 92.5 Movie Series” feat. BACK TO THE FUTURE (8/29, 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

~~~~~

Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/15: Chuck Koplinski (movie journalist, The Illinois Times, Springfield, IL)
8/18: Jeff Brandt (owner, Exile on Main Street, Champaign, IL)
8/19: Ken Lee (vice president, Michael Wiese Productions, Studio City, CA)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

An archetypal CUBlog posting for today, if we may. Back to school in Champaign-Urbana means back-in-the-saddle for the organizers behind our annual and perennial homegrown events, and we couldn’t be more grateful for normal movement on that front after the last few years. For example, this Saturday, August 17, marks the public return of Pens to Lens at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign after the last half-decade of scaled-down activity; child-written, adult-produced short films from the minds and hands of creative CUvians will debut on the big screen in a showcase, now overseen by 40 North 88 West along with Champaign Movie Makers, that begins at 3 p.m. and is hosted by the veteran Pens composer and actress Cara Maurizi. Later tonight, Friday, August 18, the “Arthouse Experience” series that is sponsored by Illinois Public Media and hosted by the Virginia will present Yorgos Lanthimos’ award-winning period dramedy THE FAVOURITE, starring the great Olivia Colman, at a showing set for 7 p.m. You can also plan ahead for the next Chambana Film Festival screening on Sunday, August 25, 4 p.m., at the Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX in Savoy, which will be the border-crisis drama THE WINGWALKER from director Alonso Alvarez-Barreda. And finally, as if sensing the upswell of movie karma du C-U, the folks behind a new local favorite, the CU International Film Festival, announced yesterday the date for their third extravaganza will be on Saturday, February 15, 2025, taking place once again at Knight Auditorium in the UI Spurlock Museum of World Cultures on campus. Do your part and be aware, be there, and be annually and perennially supportive of our film friends and neighbors.

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

100 Years Ago … Saturday, August 16, 1924: Following its first eight years in business when it had been fraught with ownership changes, unfulfilled plans, and an influenza outbreak, the Avon Theater of Decatur reopens today under new management and with a brighter outlook. Assuming control over the Avon from the Balaban and Katz Theater Corporation, which decided to not invest further in the ornate Water Street movie house and temporarily closed in in June, are local businessmen Christian and Gust Constanopoulos and their cousin George Stevens of Chicago. The Constans had previously been managers of another Balaban and Katz property up the block from the Avon, the Empress Theatre, as well as several downtown confectionaries. They and brothers Angelo and Theodore would bring stability to the Avon, retiring the vaudeville offerings to concentrate on quality film presentation and modernizing the facilities, and successfully operate it for more than 40 years along with several other venues in central Illinois. Some believe Gust, the Constan most synonymous with the Avon during this time, appears in the upper balcony and hallways to this day even though he passed away in 1965. [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
40 North 88 West, Champaign Movie Makers, CUDO, and the Champaign Park District present the 2024 Pens to Lens Gala* (8/17, 2 p.m. doors, 3 p.m. show)

@ Esquire Lounge, Champaign, IL
Champaign Movie Makers* meeting (8/19, 7 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
ALIEN: ROMULUS, CORALINE (re-release), MY PENGUIN FRIEND, RYAN’S WORLD THE MOVIE (live action/animation), SKINCARE, STREE 2 (in Hindi with English sub), VEDAA (in Hindi with English sub), BORDERLANDS, CUCKOO, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, TRAP, TWISTERS (8/16 on), BETWEEN THE TEMPLES, BLINK TWICE, THE CROW, THE FORGE (faith film), STRANGE DARLING (8/22 on)

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
ALIEN: ROMULUS, CLOSE TO YOU, CORALINE (re-release), MY PENGUIN FRIEND, RYAN’S WORLD THE MOVIE (live action/animation), BORDERLANDS, CUCKOO, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON*, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), IT ENDS WITH US, LONGLEGS, TRAP, TWISTERS (8/16 on), UFC 305: Dricus du Plessis vs. Israel Adesanya, more (mixed martial arts) (8/17, 9 p.m., simulcast), BRING IT ON (8/18, 3 & 7 p.m.; 8/21, 7 p.m.), BLINK TWICE, THE CROW, THE FORGE (faith film) (8/22 on) *single screenings daily

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illinois Public Media presents “The Arthouse Experience Film Series” feat. THE FAVOURITE (8/16, 7 p.m.), Pens to Lens* 2024 Gala (8/17, 3 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

~~~~~

Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/12: Ann Myrna (producer, DISREMEMBERED, Acrostar Productions, Chicago, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Screens in the Scene

This week, we have just cause to break out one more vintage Daily Illini theater advertisement in honor of the late actress and producer, Shelley Duvall, who passed on July 11 at age 75 after a post-career life spent far, far away from the spotlight and excesses of Hollywood and on her own modest terms. One of your humble editor’s all-time favorite experiences at Roger Ebert’s Film Festival was a late-night screening of the hard-to-describe Robert Altman feature 3 WOMEN, which paired up Duvall with Sissy Spacek and Janice Rule to bizarre and mesmerizing effect. Despite Ye Ed’s absence from “Ebertfest” for the last decade due to personal and financial (and, now, long-distance) reasons, he feels it has been good choice-making and overall presentation at the annual event that has made it a Virginia Theatre staple. Nothing of its prominence but plenty of cinema in variety and breadth could be had in the C-U community and on the UIUC campus on Friday, August 26, 1977, when 3 WOMEN began a first-run engagement at the massive Thunderbird Theatre across town in Urbana; the promotion for this and Gregory Peck in MACARTHUR at the Rialto Theatre took up two-fifths of an entire page in that day’s DI. You will hardly see dominating movie ads like this anymore except maybe in the weekend sections of big city print papers like the New York Times. By sheer coincidence, the boutique label Vinegar Syndrome launched pre-orders just before her death for a UHD issue of a previous Altman and Duvall collaboration, THIEVES LIKE US, a Southern tale of robbery and romance set during the Depression that also stars Keith Carradine, John Schuck, and Bert Remsen. One of the many enduring mysteries of film, of course, is in the myriad ways it preserves the expressive powers of storytelling talent, including that of the singular Duvall. Rest in peace, Olive Oyl.

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

20 Years Ago … August 2004: Corn crops of the American prairie become murder row in STALKED, a proof-of-concept short that is being filmed in the outskirts of tiny Homer, IL. Producers Nick Bird and Amy Heppe are helping to utilize the extensive farmlands around the childhood home of writer/director Ryan E. Heppe to stage a scene wherein Eighties teenagers Glen (Brian M. Jones) and Lucy (Tatiana Javorsky) have a late-night tryst that is cut short by a living scarecrow (Lucas Heppe). Moonlighting technicians from WILL-TV, where Heppe worked briefly before moving to California, make up the crew along with craftspeople from the Chicago area. After a handful of festival appearances, STALKED vanished and a feature film version never materialized for Heppe’s company Knighttime Pictures. Archive.org [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Festival* presents OUT THERE: A NATIONAL PARKS STORY (documentary) (8/11, 4 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
BORDERLANDS, CUCKOO, IT ENDS WITH US, TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN (in Cantonese with English sub), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, SUCCESSOR* (in Mandarin with English sub), INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, TRAP, TWISTERS (8/9 on), LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (8/11, 1 & 7 p.m.; 8/12, 7 p.m.), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (8/12, 7 p.m.), STRANGE DARLING screening and livestream event (8/14, 8 p.m.), ALIEN: ROMULUS, CORALINE (re-release), STREE 2 (in Hindi with English sub), VEDAA (in Hindi with English sub) (8/15 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
BORDERLANDS, CUCKOO, IT ENDS WITH US, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FABULOUS FOUR, HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, TRAP, TWISTERS (8/9 on), THE IRON GIANT (animation) (8/9, 3 p.m.; 8/14, 7 p.m.), LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (8/11, 1 & 7 p.m.; 8/12, 7 p.m.), ‘RiffTrax Live!’ feat. POINT BREAK (1991) (8/13, 7 p.m., simulcast), The Metropolitan Opera “summer encore”: Porgy and Bess (8/14, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), ALIEN: ROMULUS, CORALINE (re-release) (8/15 on)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illini Radio Group presents “Mix 94.5 Animation Vacation Film Series” feat. CHICKEN RUN (8/12, 1 & 6:30 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

~~~~~

Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/2: Jeff Kacmarynski (writer/director, ESSENCE, Refractive Error Media, Champaign, IL)
8/3: Laura Richter (production manager, FIELDS OF GOLD, Spencer Films, Springfield, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

So, Ye Ed got lost in the rabbit hole that is the UIUC Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections in the last week and spent too much time uncovering little “oohs” and “aahs” from a local movie climate that preceded his time living in Champaign. One of his self-inflicted challenges was to figure out where and when the Pontiac-filmed GRANDVIEW U.S.A. played after it opened nationwide 40 years ago on August 3, 1984, and as far as he could find, it was never shown first run in the C-U. Granted, using the Daily Illini as his guide, the caveat is the traditional gaps in printing schedule during the summer months for a student-assembled newspaper, which took place during the first and last weeks of that August. Still, GRANDVIEW could or should have been lingering in places like Market Place Cinemas once the student body returned for school and, of course, the other wide releases, THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT and THE JOY OF SEX, did open in town on that date. The mind then boggles as to the shift in screening amenities here; more venues operated in 1984 than today, but today we have more total screens between the multiplexes and the Virginia Theatre than in 1984. Frustratingly, why does it feel like we have less and less choice, then? Today’s Image is a product shot of the GRANDVIEW Blu-ray released earlier in the spring by Via Vision Entertainment of Australia and, in part, the film is about one young man’s choices as to whether leaving his small town or making due with what is there is his best bet. Hm. Hrm.

~~~~~

CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

40 Years Ago … Friday, August 3, 1984: The colorful comedy-drama GRANDVIEW, U.S.A., set in a fantasy composite of an American small town but filmed last year in the real-life small town of Pontiac, IL, opens on more than 1,000 screens in North America through Warner Bros. It and the two other wide-release pictures new to theaters, JOY OF SEX and THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT, would be clumped together in the eighth, ninth, and tenth spots on the box office charts come Monday, August 6, proving to be no match as alternatives to the season’s heavyweights like GHOSTBUSTERS, GREMLINS, and PURPLE RAIN. Not really fitting into the mold of the decade’s teen comedies and failing to capitalize on the success of FOOTLOOSE in the spring or director Randal Kleiser’s previous smash hit, GREASE, GRANDVIEW, U.S.A. collapsed into obscurity with less than $5 million in earnings. Box Office Mojo [R]

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
THE FIRING SQUAD* (faith film), HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, KNEECAP, A PLACE CALLED SILENCE (in Mandarin with English sub), SUCCESSOR (in Mandarin with English sub), TRAP, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FABULOUS FOUR*, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, TWISTERS (8/2 on), BORN PINK (Blackpink concert film) (8/3-8/4, 12 p.m., in Korean & English with English sub), Studio Ghibli Fest: PONYO (animé) (8/3, 3 p.m., 8/5, 8/7, 3 & 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub; 8/4, 8/6, 3 & 7 p.m., English dub), BORDERLANDS, CUCKOO, IT ENDS WITH US (8/8 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, TRAP, DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), THE FABULOUS FOUR, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, TWISTERS (8/8 on), Studio Ghibli Fest: PONYO (animé) (8/3, 3 p.m., 8/5, 8/7, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub; 8/4, 8/6, 7 p.m., English dub), HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 2 (8/4, 3 & 7 p.m.; 8/7, 7 p.m.), The Metropolitan Opera “summer encore”: Turnadot (8/7, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), ‘RiffTrax Live!’ feat. POINT BREAK (1991) (8/7, 7 p.m., simulcast), BORDERLANDS, IT ENDS WITH US (8/8 on)

@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. IF (8/8, 9 p.m., free)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
No movies this week!

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

~~~~~

Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

8/1: Jed Brian (actor, GRIM REAPER 3, Moonlight Films, Linton, IN)
8/1: Cara Maurizi (actress, SWEET DREAMING, Consumer Grade Film Co., Chicago, IL)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Screens in the Scene

On the occasion of the Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in’s remarkable twin milestones – July 9, they marked 70 years in business, and June 16, they reached 35 years since reopening under the watch of Michael Harroun and John Talbert – we’re going theater crazy in this week’s Calendar. Given the Harroun family’s durability through the thick and the thin facing the drive-in circuit in modern times, as well as the understandable and perennial pleas for their customer base to support local businesses, we decided to look around using Google to see if there were any additional venues in MICRO-FILM Country that made sense to add to our weekly listings. Now, we are four stronger for it! Brand-new are the Clintonia Eagle Theater in Clinton, one of three small-town locations in the Illinois-based chain, and the Crescent Cinemas in Pontiac, a century-old independent house in a downtown city block. Returning is the VIP Lincoln Grand 6 in Lincoln, which we had previously included as it weathered ownership changes and money issues, and arriving on the scene despite our previous conviction that all multiplexes booked alike – to a degree, that is still accurate but not absolute – is the Bloomington branch of Marcus Theatres.

Never returning, sadly, are the Harvest Moon’s fellow hardtops in the area that are faintly remembered after many years. This includes Champaign-Urbana’s two members of the field: the Twin City Drive-in on Market Street north of Champaign, closed in 1981, and the Family/Widescreen Drive-in on Route 45 north of Urbana, closed in 1985. We honor them today with a handful of vintage ad mats from the local papers that had been plucked from obscurity by Ye Ed while researching this and that for C-U Blogfidential. Enjoy, remember when, and be sure to visit the Harvest Moon in Gibson City before the season ends.

~~~~~

~~~~~

p.s. Central Illinois native, actress, model, and stunt driver Cody Renee Cameron is apparently having a good time in her working relationship with Charles Band and Full Moon Features. She and Full Moon veteran Robin Sydney star in their fourth go-round as “Barbie and Kendra,” fun-and-sun ladies who have misadventures involving vintage genre films that have been overdubbed to comedic effect, in the brand-new BARBIE & KENDRA CRASH JOE BOB’S DRIVE-IN JAMBOREE. Debuting on Tubi and DVD this month, the flick will appeal to those who love good-natured and retro/grade silliness and jokes in their viewing diet as well as the presence of B-movie champions Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince.

p.s.2 The older film repurposed in BARBIE & KENDRA for giggles is RUBY, released hot on the heels of the derided EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC with their shared elements of supernatural possession. Starring Piper Laurie, just a year after her horrifying turn in CARRIE, and directed by Curtis Harrington, an old Hollywood stylist, this offering from Dimension Pictures set partly at a 1950s drive-in owned by the title character isn’t well remembered today. If it sounds like it might belong in a double- or triple-bill on a comfortable night at the local ozoner, your hunch is earned; RUBY received a one-week run in town when it opened at the Twin City on Thursday, September 15, 1977. Its co-feature, as you’ll see from the first Daily Illini ad pictured below, was the more obscure MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH; both have been revived in high definition in recent times by VCI Entertainment and Synapse Films, respectively.

p.s.3 The invaluable Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections, managed by the University Library at UIUC, seemed perpetually halted at the end of 1975 with their searchable Daily Illini editions. The holdings have expanded in the last few years, thank goodness, and DI issues now extend into the 2000s. More historical manna and late-night blurriness for Ye Ed’s eyeballs, we reckon. Keep up the fine service, IDNC!

p.s.4 Whoops. Guess this is kind of like a Report. Don’t tell anyone. Well, feh, go ahead…

~~~~~

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
Chambana Film Festival* presents OUT THERE: A NATIONAL PARKS STORY (documentary) (7/28, 4 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, THE FABULOUS FOUR, RAAYAN (in Tamil with English sub), DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), FLY ME TO THE MOON*, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, TWISTERS (7/26 on), BORN PINK (Blackpink concert film) (7/31, 5 p.m., in Korean & English with English sub), HAROLD AND THE PURPLE CRAYON, KNEECAP, TRAP (8/1 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, THE FABULOUS FOUR, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), FLY ME TO THE MOON*, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), LONGLEGS, ODDITY, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, TWISTERS (7/26 on), UFC 304: Leon Edwards vs. Bilal Muhammad, more (mixed martial arts) (7/27, 9 p.m., simulcast), DIRTY DANCING (7/28, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/31, 7 p.m.), MAN AND WITCH: DANCE OF A THOUSAND STEPS (7/28, 7/30, 4 & 7 p.m.), summer family films: MIGRATION (animation), PETER PAN (2003) (7/30-8/1, 10 a.m.), The Metropolitan Opera “summer encore”: La Cenerentola (7/31, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), TRAP (8/1 on)

@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE (8/1, 9 p.m., free)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
No movies this week!

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

~~~~~

Read the rest of this entry »

Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on C-U Blogfidential and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

~~~~~

MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

7/21: Shawnee E. Tefteller (owner, Shawnee Studios: Model & Talent Management/Casting, Mt. Olive, IL)

PASSINGS | You Will Be Missed

7/12: Bill Viola, 73 (media and installation artist, Bill Viola Studio, Long Beach, CA)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

Our Almanac repeat for the week reminds us the movies of Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond are only as viable as they are available. You can easily imagine that Ye Ed has cobbled together a collection of C-U movie ephemera over the last 30 years that includes a set of videos, including official releases that have already been out of print for some time. In the near future, given how far away MFHQ Deux is from our fair Twin Cities, we’ll figure out how to make it all available for the historians du C-U to access once we’re done with this grand Confidential project. In the meantime, we can offer snippets that will most likely be new to you. We recently retrieved all our old MICRO-FILM files from the MFHQ Caché that is still hidden within Champaign County and, on topic to share for today, we have from the stash a cover design that was created for VHS copies of Mike Trippiedi’s dark comedy, DOGS IN QUICKSAND, which made its public debut a quarter-century ago in 1999 at the former New Art Theater in downtown Champaign as part of the Freaky Film Festival. We had a color printout of the art, most likely given to us by Trippiedi himself, but the tape and the movie themselves are rare commodities. Good luck in finding it, folks.

~~~~~

CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

15 Years Ago … Tuesday, June 30, 2009: Los Angeles-based distributor Indie-Pictures releases the Midwest horror drama THE GARBAGE MAN on DVD, rescuing it from the well of lost motion pictures that were produced in the wake of the American “independent boom” of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally filmed during the summer of 1993 in various local haunts and the dense student housing area to the west of the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana, this micro-budget endeavor relies on 16-millimeter grain, nonlinear cuts, tonal soundscapes, and the façade of everyday normality to describe the life of a trash collector by day and serial killer by night as played by James Meredith. Director Hart D. Fisher amassed the tools and skills to shape THE GARBAGE MAN into releasable form while he gravitated from self-publishing under his Boneyard Press imprint in Illinois to learning commercial video production in California, telling the horror culture website Bloody-Disgusting in 2014 that a sneak preview of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT reignited his fire to finish it. Indie-Pictures did not provide many favors to Fisher or THE GARBAGE MAN apart from producing the disc itself; never listing or promoting the product on its website, weblog, or YouTube account, the company apparently went defunct a short while after the street date. Fisher soon began offering it as video-on-demand through American Horrors, a boutique “extreme horror” brand developed with his wife Wakako Kawagoshi-Fisher and others that eventually spawned a free 24/7 streaming channel of movies, music videos, and original programs via Roku and an annual film festival in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. As reported on 11/21/07, 2/12/09 at CUBlog. [R]

LOCAL FILMS & EVENTS | Support Your Media Storytellers

@ Shawnee Studios: Model & Talent Management/Casting, Mt. Olive, IL
Open house (7/21, 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.)

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
BAD NEWZ (in Hindi with English sub), NATIONAL ANTHEM, ODDITY, TWISTERS, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), FLY ME TO THE MOON, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), THE LION KING (animation) (re-release), LONGLEGS, MAXXXINE, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (7/5 on), SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT (faith film) (7/19 on), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (7/22, 7 p.m.), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE, THE FABULOUS FOUR (7/25 on)

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
DISCIPLES IN THE MOONLIGHT (faith film), ODDITY, TWISTERS, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), FLY ME TO THE MOON, HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), THE LION KING (animation) (re-release), LONGLEGS, MAXXXINE, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (7/5 on), SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT (faith film) (7/19 on), THE NEVERENDING STORY 40th anniversary (7/21, 4 & 7 p.m.; 7/22, 7 p.m.), HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 1 (7/21, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/24, 7 p.m.), THE GOOD HALF feat. virtual discussion w/Nick Jonas and director Robert Schwartzman (7/23, 7/25, 7 p.m.), The Metropolitan Opera “summer encore”: La Bohème (7/24, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (7/25 on)

@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. THE FALL GUY (7/25, 9 p.m., free)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illini Radio Group presents “Rewind 92.5 Animation Vacation Movie Series” feat. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (7/22, 1 & 6:30 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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Our movie and media Calendar appears every Friday/Saturday on and caters to the downstate region anchored by Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, USA.

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MILESTONES | Happy Birthday to You!

7/9: Ben Harroun (co-owner, Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in, Gibson City, IL)
7/15: Jill Van Voorst (owner, LIX, Savoy, IL)
7/17: Derek Huey (cinematographer, TIN ROOF, Subfolders Studios, Indianapolis, IN)

FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said

The Report is on hiatus until August or September. Thank you for your readership, CUvians and Agents!

IMAGERY DU C-U | Picturing Our Scene on the Screen

A kick of your humble editor’s is to find television episodes or movies that set scenes in Champaign, Urbana, and the cities beyond even if they are filmed far away from central Illinois; we talked about a few examples of this in a Report we filed last summer. Recently, Ye Ed happened to find a streaming channel that was marathoning the humorous SyFy action series Z NATION overnight and, tra la, the first episode to begin during his watch started out with the show’s heroes battling a caucus of undead Abraham Lincoln impersonators in our alive-and-well state capital of Springfield. Looking far older than four score and seven years when we meet them due to the virus plague at the crux of the show’s storyline, the Abes’ campaign falls short at the hands of the well-armed survivors played by Kellita Smith, Keith Allan, Anastasia Baranova, Russell Hodgkinson, Pisay Pao, Nat Zang, and Matt Cedeño. This second-season episode, “Zombie Baby Daddy,” first aired on October 16, 2015 and was directed by Abram Cox and written by Z NATION co-creator Craig Engler. The pop-culture skewing of historical figures is not news to our film scene, being from the Land of Lincoln and Lukemans, but we’re amused to share this one anyway.

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CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History

15 Years Ago … Weekend of Friday, June 5, 2009: Hairy monsters and human combatants tear up the neighborhood at both Meadowbrook Park and Caffe Paradiso in Urbana during the final round of location shooting for WEREWOLF CEMETERY Episode 4. Since relocating to Portland, Oregon, with his life partner Ann Fitzgerald, co-creator Jason Butler has flied back periodically to the area in order to film the remaining scenes for the sprawling comedy-horror series with familiar locations and friendly faces at his disposal. This included an informal residence at the former Orpheum Theatre in downtown Champaign last fall to stage a giant battle in the partly gutted auditorium, redressed to stand in for the werewolves’ lair, during off hours when the adjacent Orpheum Children’s Science Museum was closed. Returning regulars such as Steve Ucherek, Bob Henne, Bill Turner, Lacie Ucherek, Barney Joyce, Aaron Davidson, Owen Anderson, Mark Peaslee, Devin Atkins, Frank Peters, Jodi Hahn, Fitzgerald, and Butler could be seen filing in and out of the Orpheum’s rear entrance throughout September and October, while several of them are involved in the current activity. C-U Blogfidential editor Jason Pankoke has served as a set photographer and extra during this penultimate stretch. Other than random effects shots and an explanatory scene involving Butler’s character “Dixon,” the producer will turn his attentions to editing together the finale in what promises to upstage Episode 3 by far. A debut is planned for next year at Mike ‘n Molly’s as well as a homemade DVD release to be entrusted to close friends of the cause. As reported on 5/26/09, 6/5/09 at CUBlog. [R]

NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area

@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
FLY ME TO THE MOON, INDIAN 2 (in Tamil, Hindi, or Telegu with English sub), THE LION KING (animation) (re-release), LONGLEGS, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES*, MAXXXINE, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (7/5 on), SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT (faith film) (7/12 on), ROBOT DREAMS (animation) (7/14, 2 p.m.; 7/17, 7 p.m.), Studio Ghibli Fest: PRINCESS MONONOKE (7/14, 7/16, 3 & 7 p.m., English sub; 7/15, 7/17, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), AMC “Screen Unseen” (mystery movie) (7/15, 7 p.m.), DISCIPLES IN THE MOONLIGHT (faith film) (7/17 on), NATIONAL ANTHEM, TWISTERS (7/18 on) *single screenings daily

@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
FLY ME TO THE MOON, THE LION KING (animation) (re-release), LONGLEGS, BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, DESPICABLE ME 4 (animation), HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1, INSIDE OUT 2 (animation), KINDS OF KINDNESS, MAXXXINE, A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE (7/5 on), SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT (faith film) (7/12 on), THE BIKERIDERS (7/12-7/17, 12:15 p.m.), Studio Ghibli Fest: PRINCESS MONONOKE (animé) (7/14, 3 & 7 p.m., English sub; 7/15-7/17, 7 p.m., in Japanese with English sub), THE GOONIES (7/14, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/17, 7 p.m.), DISCIPLES IN THE MOONLIGHT (faith film) (7/17 on), TWISTERS (7/18 on)

@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. CIVIL WAR (7/18, 9 p.m., free)

@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (7/13, 1 & 7 p.m.)

Events featuring locally produced movies are marked with an asterisk (*). Additional “Now Playing” and “Coming Soon” listings appear after the jump!

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