Calendar: June 16-22, 2023
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!
6/18: Perry C. Morris (vice president, Champaign County History Museum, Champaign, IL)
FIELD REPORT DU HQ | From Wherever It May Be Said
Seems the theme for the next week on CUBlog is “old movie business,” so let’s get down to it. Late on Thursday, June 1, the day we ran our obituary feature, I was scrolling on my phone when I happened upon a post from Champaign Underground, the long-running archive of live performance video founded by the musician Kristen Johns, that piqued my interest. As part of our article, I paid tribute to the prairie educator and conservationist David Monk, making mention of his role in a 1995 video called MELVIN’S DISCONTENT. I remember seeing it once on a VHS cassette graciously lent to me by Mark Rubel of Pogo Studios. And suddenly … there is MELVIN, thanks to Johns’ efforts to have it restored from materials lent to her by Mark and Nancy Rubel, Matt and Debbie Stewart, and Lana Wildman, widow of its director, Hugh Moore.
Of course, I watched MELVIN right away. The 22-minute analog odyssey of a poor schlub named Melvin, played by the guitarist John “Catfish” Evans, to find both employment and meaning in the grand scheme is of a very dry humor and peculiar dialogue, yet it was nice to see it again. Familiar faces on screen include Paul Faber of Mabel’s nightclub and the late singer-songwriter R. M. “Popeye” Curtsinger. Johns also provides a credits crawl in the video description on YouTube for the armchair historians wanting to know who was involved in filming this lovely curiosity at various locations in the C-U as well as those who aided in the rescue effort. Good on Mark Johns, Shannon Swords, and others for helping out.
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I was scrolling yet again, late last night in MFHQ Deux, to skim the upcoming home video releases listed at Oldies.com. It’s an occasional habit and I’m always hoping to find at least one surprise. I can therefore confirm that an upgrade is on the way for Robert Bartel’s durable music history documentary, GEORGE HARRISON: A BEATLE IN BENTON, ILLINOIS, through MVD Visual. Issued previously in 2005 and 2016 by the same label, a revised version of the film with a platter of extras is set for DVD release on Tuesday, September 26, which falls on the 60th anniversary of the young George Harrison’s first trip to the United States with his brother Peter to visit their sister Louise, an expatriate living in Benton who did her best to promote The Beatles’ music in southern Illinois. Beatlemania would break loose in America a few months later.
As for BENTON – I saw it once many years ago like MELVIN, but as a rental – it’s about the localized lore that was born from Harrison’s holiday in 1963 as much as it is the efforts of Beatles super-fan Bartel to save Louise’s former house from the wrecking ball. And, not unlike another rock doc from and about our region, R. C. Raycraft’s INCIDENT AT KICKAPOO CREEK, this one has been revised and reissued like clockwork since the Nineties. (Presumably, the 2023 edition will replace older versions you can find on various VOD and AVOD sites.) The Springfield-based playwright and producer is regularly featured in the press to tell his story, like in this congenial interview with Mark McDonald of WSEC-TV from 2018 that often circles back to Bartel and his wife Janice’s shared love for each other and of The Beatles, and it inevitably points to the documentary.
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Finally, while scrolling Google results to try and pinpoint when exactly the anti-censorship critic and true crime writer Hart D. Fisher creeped out the UI Campustown with the filming of his underground horror feature, THE GARBAGE MAN, I made a nice find. The back issues of The Daily Illini student newspaper that are available for reading and research through the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections have been manna for Ye Ed, in particular to learn about film culture at the University of Illinois in the Sixties and Seventies, and the set has ranged from the earliest available copies dated 1874 to the end of 1975. For the last number of years, the run stopped there. It turns out I was able to identify the GARBAGE time frame – July 1993, which we’ll discuss in an upcoming Almanac – because they have finally added 20 more years’ worth of the DI, from 1992 to 2010, but where are 1976 to 1991? Keep scanning, please!
In December 2022, Fisher appeared on the “Night Terrors” podcast with Ash Hamilton of Horror-fix.com to talk about the unauthorized and altered use of his Jeffrey Dahmer indie comics in the hit Netflix miniseries, DAHMER, produced by Ryan Murphy of AMERICAN HORROR STORY fame. At the time, Fisher was running a campaign to fund a collected volume of those comics for his fans and to “set the record straight” about their very nature; one perk for pledging was a disc or download of THE GARBAGE MAN, which otherwise resides exclusively on Fisher’s free American Horrors streaming service. I’ll admit the ”most dangerous man in comics” is a very engaging speaker. Go listen to it if you have the interest.
NOW PLAYING | Champaign-Urbana Area
@ AMC Champaign 13, Champaign, IL
THE BLACKENING, ELEMENTAL (animation), THE FLASH, THE BOOGEYMAN, FAST X*, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3, THE LITTLE MERMAID, SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (animation), TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (6/16 on), PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (animation) (6/17, 6/21, 12 p.m.), ASTEROID CITY, NO HARD FEELINGS (6/22 on) *single shows daily
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
THE BLACKENING, ELEMENTAL (animation), THE FLASH, THE BOOGEYMAN, FAST X*, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3, THE LITTLE MERMAID, SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (animation), THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE (animation), TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (6/16 on), BACK TO THE FUTURE (6/18, 3 & 7 p.m.; 6/21, 7 p.m.), LYLE LYLE CROCODILE, SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (6/20-6/22, 10 a.m.), THE MACHINE (6/20, 6/21, 4 p.m.), BETWEEN MERCY AND ME (faith film) (6/20, 7 p.m.), MAD HEIDI (6/21, 7 p.m.), ASTEROID CITY, NO HARD FEELINGS (6/22 on)
@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad” feat. SCREAM VI (6/22, 9 p.m., free)
@ Redbox, Champaign-Urbana, IL
MAGGIE MOORE(S), SWEETWATER, more! (6/13 on) Online rentals
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL
The News-Gazette Film Series presents ENTER THE DRAGON (6/17, 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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NOW PLAYING | The Cities Beyond
@ The Avon Theater, Decatur, IL
ELEMENTAL (animation), THE FLASH, TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (6/15-6/18)
@ The Fischer Theatre, Danville, IL
AMERICAN GRAFFITI (6/16, 7 p.m.; 6/17, 2 & 7 p.m.), THE WIZ (6/19, 7 p.m.)
@ The Harvest Moon Twin Drive-in, Gibson City, IL
ELEMENTAL (animation) (Screen 1), THE FLASH (Screen 2) (6/15 on), Harvest Moon’s Kids Carnival to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (6/18, 5:30 p.m. to showtime)
@ The Little Lorraine, Hoopeston, IL
Private parties and “Family Movie Packs”
@ The Normal Theater, Normal, IL
BATMAN: THE MOVIE (6/16-6/18), STAND BY ME (6/17-6/18), Severin Films presents … “Different Documentaries” feat. A WANDERING PATH: THE STORY OF GILEAD MEDIA, BLOOD AND FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON (6/20, 6 p.m.), THE WICKER MAN (6/21-6/22)
@ The Onarga Theatre, Onarga, IL
ELEMENTAL (animation) (6/16-6/18)
@ The Princess Theatre, Leroy, IL
FAST X (6/16-6/18)
@ The Route 66 Drive-in Theater, Springfield, IL
THE FLASH, THE LITTLE MERMAID (Screen 1), ELEMENTAL (animation), SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (animation) (6/16-6/18, 6/21-6/22)
NOW PLAYING | Midwest
@ Gene Siskel Film Center/Facets Cinema, Chicago, IL
20th Chicago African Diaspora International Film Festival (6/15-6/18)
For detailed and curated listings of Chicago-area film presentations and related events, please visit the fine folks at Cine-File and subscribe to their definitive “Cine-List” weekly blast.
COMING SOON | Area-wide Events
8/19
DESPERATE SOULS* downstate premiere
@ The Princess Theater, LeRoy, IL, time TBD
9/13-9/17
30th Chicago Underground Film Festival, Chicago, IL
9/21-10/8
41st Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival, Chicago, IL
NEW! 9/23
Route 66 Film Festival presents “Get Your Flicks on Route 66” showcase
@ Hoogland Center for the Arts, Springfield, IL, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free
NEW! 9/26
DVD release: GEORGE HARRISON: A BEATLE IN BENTON, ILLINOIS* 60th anniversary edition
+ MVD Visual, Pottstown, PA
10/5-10/15
32nd Heartland International Film Festival, Indianapolis, IN
NEW! 10/2
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE Live in Concert
@ State Farm Center, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 7 p.m.
10/11-10/22
59th Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago, IL
11/3-11/3
22nd Route 66 Film Festival, Springfield, IL (virtual)
11/9-11/19
32nd Whitaker St Louis International Film Festival, St. Louis, MO
12/2
Krampusnacht Freeky Film Festival*
@ Phoenix Savoy 16 + IMAX, Savoy, IL
COMMUNITY & CAMPUS SERIES | Champaign-Urbana area
“The Arthouse Experience Film Series” curated by Sanford Hess and sponsored by Illinois Public Media
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL, 7 p.m.
6/30: MAMA BEARS; 7/12: MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Illini Radio Group presents “Rewind 92.5 Movie Series”/“Mix 94.5 Throwback Thursdays”*
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL, 7 p.m.
6/29: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK; 7/27: TOP GUN
Illini Union Board presents “Summer Films on the Quad”
@ Main Quad, Illini Union, UIUC, Urbana, IL, 9 p.m. Thursdays, free
6/29: PAINT; 7/6: RENFIELD; 7/13: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3; 7/20: THE SUPER MARIO BROTHERS MOVIE; 7/27: AIR; 8/3: FAST X; 8/10: THE LITTLE MERMAID
The News-Gazette Film Series
@ The Virginia Theatre, Champaign, IL, 1 & 7 p.m.
7/15: I LOVE LUCY: THE MOVIE
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Compiled by Jason Pankoke.
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