CIMM city: The fest's best local film offerings
In its sophomore season, the Chicago International Movies And Music Festival has assembled music-themed movies, cinematic live performances, and intriguing combinations of the two. The impressive concerts shouldn’t be downplayed, including rare appearances by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Robyn Hitchcock, and DJ Spooky, but perhaps what’s most notable about CIMM is how the films reflect the breadth of Chicago music. While a majority of the screenings look beyond the city’s borders, several locally minded films are worth checking out. The A.V. Club winnowed down a list from the fest, which runs from today until Sunday at various venues.
Complaints Choir (Friday, Chicago Cultural Center)
This documentary follows an international tour of a Helsinki-based musical performance-art project: People around the world submit complaints that a local musician crafts into a composition, which is then performed by a well-rehearsed choir of the actual complainers. At the heart of the film is the Chicago event, where a 50-member chorus (led by Jeremy Jacobsen, a.k.a. The Lonesome Organist) relates the worst of Chicago’s CTA service, weather, squirrels, and more. They demonstrate the best of Chicago’s creativity, heart, and fortitude as they serenade Millennium Park, the MCA, and the Whole Foods parking lot on Roosevelt Road.
Polkaholics (Friday, Chicago Cultural Center)
In the early '80s, Algebra Suicide solidified Chicago’s reputation for creating challenging, literate punk. Fifteen years later AS’s Don Hedeker decided to go the other way, playing accordion lines on his guitar in an attempt to revitalize the Windy City’s most historically populist music: polka. The world premiere of Wes Hranchek’s long-gestating documentary showcases a 1999 week-long visit by expatriate Li’l Wally Jagiello, the king of Chicago polka. The 69-year-old legend returns to the former heart of polka, Division Street, to play a grand gig with Hedeker’s band, The Polkaholics, and then meets fans, chases tail, and closes bars, as he negotiates the city in various states of intoxication.
Died Young, Stayed Pretty (Saturday, Chicago Cultural Center)
Although Eileen Yaghoobian’s documentary about the contemporary screen-print rock-poster scene travels to numerous locations across North America, it’s fair to say that the most artistic moments of the film come from her lengthy stay in Chicago. This is true both visually (Keith Herzig’s manic masterpieces, the exquisite whimsy of Jay Ryan's creatures) and musically (Mark Greenberg’s expressive score). Yaghoobian, who was born in Iran but lives in Canada, employs striking cinematography that seems partially inspired by the graphics of the posters, but there is also a palpable influence of Chicago’s decaying El tracks, our architecture’s sturdy masonry, and the strangeness of Lincoln Park Zoo. Plus, who doesn’t want to see Jay Ryan duke it out for attention with a gorilla?
Paul Stanley: One Live Kiss (Saturday, Lincoln Hall)
This slick concert film, shot at Chicago’s House Of Blues in 2006 and released on home video in 2008, hardly belongs beside CIMM’s mostly indie-rock art-house fare. Yet hearing an impassioned Louis Antonelli tell of his 12-year-old self meeting Stanley at a '74 in-store at Hotter Than Mothers Records in Mt. Prospect, where he promised the guitarist that someday he’d make a great film about him, might convince you otherwise. Antonelli swears this is an uncompromised, personal film, with a brilliant narrative flow. No matter what you think about that, just enjoy the show, as Stanley, liberated from his greasepaint and lizard-tongued co-frontman, looks loose and inspired howling through hits and rarities.
"At Last, Okemah!" (Saturday, Schubas)
This mockumentary may not be the funniest film in the festival, but it’s probably the most Chicago-ish: A fictional local indie-rocker is born anew after discovering traditional folk and blues music, and goes on a quest to immerse himself. While taking shots at fat targets like smug hipsters and authenticity-obsessed insurgent-country crooners, director Michael Smith manages to visit the Hideout, the Hungry Brain, the Old Town School Of Folk Music, Hard Boiled Records, and Laurie’s Planet of Sounds—all in 17 minutes. Supplementing a cast of familiar Chicago theater and improv faces are local rock personalities Suzy Brack, Mia Park, and Mr. Mekon himself, Jon Langford (who will play a live set after the screening). Whether you find this 21st-century DIY spin on Don Quixote a hoot or a groan depends on your comic sensibilities, but the film (and its many familiar faces) should put viewers in the mood to see a good show. And thanks to CIMM, you already will be.
