Films for $5ive Continues At Madison Street Theatre

Ducking into a warm theatre and catching a great film on the cheap sounds like a great way to beat the winter blues, doesn't it?

We're in luck. The Films for $5ive Series returns this weekend at the 1010 Madison St. in Oak Park with a pair of Chicago-centric movies. This week's theme? Happiness.

Earlier:

First up is Inquiring Nuns, Gordon Quinn's cinema verite documentary that follows two nuns as they traverse 1968 Chicago, asking the same question: Are you happy? From Kartemquin Films:

The humor and sadness of these honest encounters lift the film beyond its interview format to a serious and moving inquiry into the concerns of contemporary man, and also into the circumstances in which men will actually express their concerns.

Also screening this weekend in Oak Parker Ron Lazzaretti's Something Better Somewhere Else, which Lazzaretti described to Patch last year as : "yearning for some elusive thing outside our experience."

The film, which features some scenes shot in and around Oak Park, has earned rave reviews, including this accolade from Roger Ebert, who wrote in his review "What I kept noticing was the excellence in details: the acting, the casting, the dialogue, editing, music and meticulous camera placement. The feeling that not a shot was careless."

Accompanying Something Better will be Lazzaretti's contribution to a series of shorts, Graveyard, in which "Pete the Custodian and Damon the Security Guard share late-night revelations, epiphanies, confessions, lies and whatever else they can think of to keep from dying of boredom before the sun comes up."

Inquiring Nuns (80 minutes) screens at 7 p.m. Friday and 2 p.m. Saturday. Graveyard (10 minutes) and Something Better Somewhere Else (76 minutes) screen at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call the Madison Street Theatre at (708) 524-1892 or email info@mstoakpark.com