Calendar: July 16-22, 2021
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!
7/16: Bobbie O’Steen (moderator, “Inside the Cutting Room with Bobbie O’Steen” series, Manhattan Edit Workshop, New York, NY)
7/21: Shawnee E. Tefteller (owner, Shawnee Studios: Model & Talent Management/Casting, Mt. Olive, IL)
7/22: Wanda Kanagy (account executive, Premier Print Group, Champaign, IL)
FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said
Two weeks ago, the Field Report fawned over temporary residents of downstate Illinois who are now famous. Today’s filing offers a sort of corrective that instead highlights artists with roots in our area whose distinct talents blossomed once they lived elsewhere. We’ll start with our friend Tristan Duke, once a young barista, budding photographer, and intricate illustrator here in the C-U who has settled in Los Angeles and become an in-demand gallery artist with science-based optical illusions. His newest creation, “Aperture Lucida,” was developed over a two-year period while an artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium of San Francisco and received its belated public unveiling at the same on Thursday, July 1, in the Osher Gallery.
Then, we’ll continue with our friend Megan Johns, also a young barista, student, and singer-songwriter in her previous life du C-U, who alighted on Eugene, Oregon, where she continues to perform, acts, and teaches painting. She and husband Shannon Swords have also partnered with a local collective on a viral “Scene in Eugene” short film series; the seventh episode FEATHERS, a female-fronted drama with fantastic overtones that was written, directed, and partly scored by Johns, premiered New Year’s Day on YouTube and has won awards and citations at festivals in Phoenix and San Francisco.
Finally, we’ll conclude with a friend of several friends that we first talked about many moons ago, Cody Renée Cameron, who flirted with Playboy-branded fame while still a University of Illinois undergraduate and waitress in the C-U and has gone full tilt as a model, actress, and stunt woman in the 10 years she has called L.A. home. Her screen appearances come in numerous shapes and sizes, from bit parts in BALLERS, THE NEON DEMON, and EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD STORY to featured roles in indies like VEROTIKA and GIRLS GUNS AND BLOOD; she and B-film star Robin Sydney even trended in genre circles all last year due to their trio of BARBIE & KENDRA quarantine comedies for Full Moon Features. What will all three of our engaging West Coast transplants come up with next?
CONFIDENTIAL ALMANAC | Dates in Film Culture History
45 Years Ago … Thursday, July 15, 1976: Beverly Hills, CA-based distributor Crown International Pictures opens the film DEATH RIDERS on 100 screens in the Kansas City-Omaha region of the Midwest, according to the exhibition trade magazine Boxoffice. One of the only non-fiction titles in the company’s catalog and the rare documentary to play the drive-in circuit, DEATH RIDERS is directed by James Wilson of Hallmark Entertainment and provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Death Riders Motorcycle Thrill Show, a traveling stunt team founded in the early Seventies by Floyd Reed, Sr., and featuring his teenage son Danny as “Mr. T.N.T.” Two weeks prior to this roll out, the film’s world premiere took place at the North Drive-In of Terre Haute, IN, on Friday, July 2, a live Death Riders exhibition providing additional impact at the start of the show. Booking agent T.N.T. Productions is based in the Reed family’s hometown of Danville, IL, while the crew’s practice stadium is 25 miles away in Cayuga, IN; a memorable scene in DEATH RIDERS finds Danny’s grandmother Clara fainting in the Cayuga grandstand after watching him crash in front of the hometown crowd. Additional thrills performed for camera by the Death Riders would appear a year later in the fictional action-comedy DEATH DRIVER, produced and self-distributed by prolific North Carolina independent filmmaker Earl Owensby. [R]
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, BLACK WIDOW, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT, CRUELLA, F9: THE FAST SAGA, THE FOREVER PURGE, THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD, PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY, A QUIET PLACE PART II, ZOLA (7/16 on), OLD, SNAKE EYES (7/22 on)
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, BLACK WIDOW, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, CRUELLA, F9: THE FAST SAGA, THE FOREVER PURGE, A QUIET PLACE PART II (7/16 on), Turner Classic Movies presents THE AFRICAN QUEEN 70th anniversary (7/18, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/21, 7 p.m.), PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (7/18, 3 & 7 p.m.; 7/21, 7 p.m.), FATE/STAY NIGHT [HEAVEN’S FEEL] III. SPRING SONG (animé; 7/18, 3 p.m.; 7/20, 7 p.m.), SING, KUNG FU PANDA (7/20-7/22, 10 a.m.), BO BURNHAM: INSIDE (comedy special; 7/22, 7 p.m.), OLD, SNAKE EYES (7/22 on)
@ Redbox, Champaign-Urbana, IL
MORTAL KOMBAT, SEPARATION, THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SPONGE OUT OF WATER, WRATH OF MAN, more! (7/13 on) Online rentals
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
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, BLACK WIDOW, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, F9: THE FAST SAGA (7/16 on)
@ AMC Peru Mall 8, Peru, IL
Closed for remodeling.
@ The Avon Theater, Decatur, IL
SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, 12 MIGHTY ORPHANS, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS (7/16-7/18)
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
No movies this week!
@ The Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in, Gibson City, IL
SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (Screen 1), BLACK WIDOW (Screen 2) (7/16 on)
@ The Little Lorraine, Hoopeston, IL
Private rentals for the week.
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
SUMMER OF 85 (7/16-7/18)
@ The Onarga Theatre, Onarga, IL
Closed for the week.
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS (7/16-7/18)
@ Route 34 Drive-in, Earlville, IL
SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, GODZILLA VS. KONG (7/16-7/18)
@ Route 66 Twin Drive-in, Springfield, IL
BLACK WIDOW, CRUELLA (Screen 1), GREASE, FOOTLOOSE (1984) (Screen 2) (7/16-7/18, 7/21-7/22)
@ Roxy Cinemas, Ottawa, IL
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, BLACK WIDOW, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, F9: THE FAST SAGA, THE FOREVER PURGE (7/16 on)
@ Streator Eagle 6, Streator, IL
ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, BLACK WIDOW, THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS, F9: THE FAST SAGA, THE FOREVER PURGE (7/16 on), “Big Celebration” event and preview screenings (7/17, 12 p.m.), THE LEGO MOVIE (7/20, 10 a.m.), OLD, SNAKE EYES (7/22 on)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
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
9/8-9/11
22nd Roger Ebert’s Film Festival
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
10/22-10/23
Dark History and Horror Convention’s Screaming Mad Film Festival 2.1
@ I Hotel and Conference Center, UIUC, Champaign, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
Illini Union Board Presents “Summer Quad Film Series”
@ Anniversary Plaza, Main Quad, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 9 p.m., free
8/5: GODZILLA VS. KONG
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Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
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