Calendar: July 22-28, 2022
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
I don’t really want to dwell on the topic of death and its lingering effects, despite last week’s Report and what I fear next week’s Report will entail, but I feel the need to plunk down this particular aside and get it out of my head while I can justify writing about it here.
When I take my half-hour drives to and from where Ma JaPan receives her skilled nursing care, I turn on the news more often than music. Both CNN and MSNBC pipe over-the-air audio through their respective SiriusXM channels and, when the networks take commercial breaks on cable television, radio spots are inserted by XM to fill the void and pay bills. Sometimes, I have patience for them. More often, I’ll flip through my preset channels or randomly futz around the dial and then go back. When they both are blaring adverts, I usually hit the channel stuck right in between them – Headline News, which seems to feature as much headline news in 2022 as MTV does music videos. Prime time and overnight hours on HLN are filled with true crime shows, usually reruns of the basic cable standard FORENSIC FILES, and a couple of weeks ago I happened to turn on an episode that caught my attention other than by the genre’s consistent dedication to spelling out and dramatizing the lurid details.
I missed the beginning of this File. It had to do with a disturbed man that felt spurned by his ex-wife, who decided to marry someone new, and her fiancé, who decided to adopt their child as his own. In a misplaced fit of anger and entitlement, the man constructed a pipe bomb that was placed in a gift bag and set to detonate when motion sensors were triggered, leaving it in the woman’s house for her to find. She perished, and the fiancé escaped injury by being elsewhere in the house. Authorities tied the man to the crime within a month based on clues and evidence. I won’t recount the sad story any further or speak their names, other than to share what else I heard: mentions of Bloomington and the murderer’s employment at a “nearby Caterpillar plant.” I wondered if this act had taken place in Illinois and, after I returned to Momkoke Manor and sat down at MFHQ Remote, I was able to look it up.
A fan site dwelling on FORENSIC FILES – Is there such a thing as fans of murder stories? Oh, right. – details the episode and confirms what I thought I’d heard. Embedded on the page is a YouTube video of the original episode, which aired in 2006, so I watched it all the way through to grasp context from the introduction that I did not hear the first time. The last paragraph on this page notes the killer died in prison in 2010, worded in a way as to imply that it may have been under suspicious circumstances. Okay, whatever. The most jarring bit in retrospect was the date of the crime.
The poor woman was murdered in her Bloomington, Illinois home on Saturday, May 23, 1993. That is the same day I graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, and I don’t remember news or headlines about this tragedy one bit. As a friend of mine likes to quip, “The mind is a terrible thing.”
I offer a much belated “rest in peace” to her. She was only a few years older than my IWU classmates and I, tossing our caps in the air across town like we didn’t care. We do.
CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History
15 Years Ago … Friday, July 20, 2007: Brandon Clayton, a recent graduate of the cinema and photography program at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, premieres his horror-comedy featurette ZOMBIE MOVIE at the Lincoln Square Theatre in downtown Decatur, IL, according to the Herald & Review. A crowd of several hundred takes in the black-and-white film, serving as both spoof and homage to vintage science fiction thrillers, which Clayton produced on a shoestring budget some 30 miles away in his hometown of Taylorville, IL. The show also samples the budding filmmaker’s previous shorts created during his high school and college years. Following a move to Los Angeles, Clayton has since established a career in reality television including a current position as manager of operations at Lighthearted Entertainment of Burbank, CA. His on-set credits include Lighthearted’s LONE STAR LEGEND, PLASTIC WIVES, and ARE YOU THE ONE? along with DEADLIEST CATCH, ICE ROAD TRUCKERS, and DANCING WITH THE STARS prior to them. [R]
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
NOPE, SHAMSHERA (in Hindi), THANK YOU (in Telugu), THE BLACK PHONE, ELVIS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS, VENGEANCE (7/28 on)
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON, NOPE, THE BLACK PHONE, ELVIS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on), ONE PIECE FILM: GOLD (animé, 7/24, 7 p.m., English dub; 7/26, 7 p.m., Japanese with English sub), GOODFELLAS (7/24, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/27, 7 p.m.), SING 2, CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG (7/26-7/28, 10 a.m., free), The Metropolitan Opera Summer Encore: Madama Butterfly (7/27, 1 & 6:30 p.m., recorded), FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH 40th anniversary (7/28, 6:30 & 9:30 p.m.), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (7/28 on)
@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT (7/28, 9 p.m., free)
@ Redbox, Champaign-Urbana, IL
BLACK SITE, THE CONTRACTOR, THE FORGIVEN, THERE ARE NO SAINTS, more! (7/19 on) Online rentals
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
Illini Radio Group presents “Mix 94.5 Animation Vacation Movie Series” feat. THE LION KING (7/26, 7/28, 6:30 p.m.), “The Arthouse Experience” w/Sanford Hess feat. THE WHITE TIGER (7/27, 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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NOW PLAYING | The Cities Beyond
@ AMC Classic Village Mall 6, Danville, IL
NOPE, ELVIS, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on)
@ AMC Peru Mall 8, Peru, IL
NOPE, ELVIS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on)
@ The Avon Theater, Decatur, IL
NOPE, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (7/21-7/24)
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
No movies this week!
@ The Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in, Gibson City, IL
THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (Screen 1), NOPE (Screen 2) (7/22 on)
@ The Little Lorraine, Hoopeston, IL
Private parties this week.
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935) (7/22-7/24), CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) (7/23-7/24), THE TERMINATOR (7/28)
@ The Onarga Theatre, Onarga, IL
PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK (7/22-7/24)
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
LIGHTYEAR (7/22-7/24)
@ Route 34 Drive-in, Earlville, IL
MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, THE BAD GUYS (7/15-7/17)
@ Route 66 Twin Drive-in, Springfield, IL
NOPE, THE BLACK PHONE (Screen 1), MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER (Screen 2) (7/22-7/24, 7/27-7/28)
@ Streator Eagle 6, Streator, IL
NOPE, THE BLACK PHONE, ELVIS, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on), HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (7/26-7/27, 10 a.m., free), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (7/28 on)
@ VIP Lincoln Grand 6, Lincoln, IL
NOPE, ELVIS, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on), SING 2 (7/27-7/28, 10 a.m.), DC LEAGUE OF SUPER-PETS (7/28 on)
@ VIP Roxy Cinemas, Ottawa, IL
NOPE, ELVIS, MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU, PAWS OF FURY: THE LEGEND OF HANK, THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, TOP GUN: MAVERICK, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (7/22 on), SING 2 (7/27-7/28, 10 a.m.)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
@ The Logan Theatre, Chicago, IL
29th Chicago Underground Film Festival (7/27-7/31)
For detailed and curated listings of Chicago-area film presentations and related events, as well as cancellations and postponements due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, please visit the fine folks at Cine-File and subscribe to their definitive “Cine-List” weekly blast.
COMING SOON | Area-wide Events
8/13
Popcorn Frights Film Festival presents FINAL SUMMER* world premiere
@ Savor Cinema, St. Lauderdale, FL, 11 p.m.
8/19-8/20
Dark History and Horror Convention feat. Screaming Mad Film Festival
@ I Hotel and Conference Center, UIUC, Champaign, IL
NEW! 9/10
WHERE ARE YOU, JAY BENNETT?* screening and tribute concert
@ The Venue, Aurora, IL, 7:30 p.m.
9/22-10/2
40th Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, Chicago, IL
NEW! 11/4-11/14
21st Route 66 Film Festival, Springfield, IL
4/19-4/22, 2023
23nd Roger Ebert’s Film Festival
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
Illini Radio Group presents “Mix 94.5 Animation Vacation Movie Series”
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL, 7 p.m.
8/13: “Saturday Morning Cartoons” (9:30 a.m. & 2:30 p.m.); 8/20: SLEEPING BEAUTY (2 & 6:30 p.m.)
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad”
@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 9 p.m. Thursdays, free
8/4: FATHER STU; 8/11: MORBIUS; 8/18: DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
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Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
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