Doc Film’s new fall calendar—yeah, that’s the ticket. (Photography by Jason Smith)

File under cinephile

Doc’s new calendar brings Singapore and cyberpunks, ’70s disaffection, and Gordon Parks.

Do you remember your first Doc film? A noir classic, perhaps, or maybe something more European—Antonioni, Kieslowski—or subcontinental: Satyajit Ray? A selection from the Monty Python catalog or the 1984–86 British Film Renaissance? Speaking of 1986, are you one of those who experienced both the seat-numbing seats and linoleum acoustics of Quantrell Auditorium in Cobb and the relative plushness (and ever-improving sound) of Ida’s Max Palevsky Cinema? 

The new Doc calendar is definitely quarterly pass–worthy. There are series dedicated to Eric Rohmer, Ingmar Bergman, and Bette Davis (eyes and all). Tuesdays, it’s the latest from Singapore, and Fridays are that ’70s show: Five Easy Pieces, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter—all your feel-good favorites—and a Halloween Eve visit from The Exorcist.

The Award for “Best Thesis Title Posing as a Film Series” goes to the second show on Thursdays: “Hackers, Phreaks, and Cyborgs: Sociotechnics in the Late 20th Century US Imaginary.” It’s a two-decade journey through cyberpunkish territory, from Blade Runner and Tron in 1982 to The Matrix and its Reloaded sequel, with a lighthearted layover in 1985 for Weird Science (a John Hughes fever dream that, despite some classic moments, never quite ascends to the level of guilty pleasure) and Real Genius (how some of us like to romanticize our UChicago experience, how all of us like to remember Val Kilmer).

Also on Thursdays, Doc pays tribute to the namesake of the Laboratory Schools’ new Gordon Parks Arts Hall, the latest addition to UChicago’s growing arts landscape. Two of Parks’s most iconic films, Shaft and Shaft’s Big Score, come out of the gate early, on October 15 and 22, so get your wah-wah pedal in working order now. “Can you dig it? … We can dig it!” 

Video

Trailer for Shaft (1971).

WATCH THE VIDEO AT YOUTUBE