JEFF GARLIN, TIPPI HEDREN & ALEX WINTER Part of MUSIC BOX THEATRE SUMMER SPECIAL EVENTS

Chicago’s Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport, hosts a variety of special screenings and appearances throughout the summer, including Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Jeff Garlin in person for opening weekend of his new IFC Films comedy Dealing With Idiots, Hitchcock muse Tippi Hedren (The Birds) in attendance for a special matinee of Marnie and Alex Winter, aka Bill in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, presenting his new documentary feature Downloaded as part of the fifth annual Summer Music Film Festival.

The Music Box shows off the full power of its newly remodeled, state-of-the-art second screening room (“The Mini-Music Box”) withMusicEmotion, a pair live symphonies captured and broadcast from Milan’s renowned La Scala opera house for an Old World musical experience in high definition. And National Theatre Live, brainchild of Northwestern University alum David Sabel, returns with two new plays including the highly anticipated The Audience, starring Helen Mirren.

In addition to the monthly Second Saturday Silent Cinema series, presented with live musical accompaniment by Dennis Scott on the organ, Music Box presents the Hitchcock 9, a program of Alfred Hitchcock silent films shown with newly composed scores performed live by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra on opening weekend.

A rundown of Summer 2013 Special Events at Music Box Theatre follows.  The entire Music Box Summer Calendar is accessible at www.musicboxtheatre.com.

SECOND SATURDAY SILENT CINEMA PRESENTS: BEYOND THE ROCKS

Saturday, June 8, noon

This silent romance starring film legends Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino was long considered one of the great “lost” films from the Hollywood golden age; only a one-minute fragment was known to exist. Lost for more than 80 years, film cataloguers recently found nitrate reels of Beyond the Rocks and lovingly restored this stunning tale of romance.

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THIS HOUSE

Saturday, June 15, noon and Tuesday, June 25, 7:30pm

National Theatre Live is an exciting initiative to broadcast live performances of the best of British theater to cinemas around the world. In this funny and moving political epic set in 1974, the corridors of Westminster ring with the sound of infighting and backbiting as Britain’s political parties battle to change the future of the nation, whatever it takes. Charlie Buckland and Phil Daniels star.

MUSICEMOTION: SYMPHONY IN CINEMA

Sunday, June 23 and Sunday, August 11

See and hear two different amazing musical events in the newly remodeled and intimate Music Box Screening Room. The film footage in HD, captured by the video director Pietro Tagliaferri, will be broadcast live from La Scala opera house only to cinemas with 2K resolution in order to guarantee state-of-the-art sound and video resolution. La Filarmonica della Scala al Cinemapremiered in Italy in January and will be offered to 1,400 cinemas in 40 countries around the world. The filmmakers go behind the scenes, interviewing the artists, and introducing each concert from places associated with the lives of the composers.

 

SUMMER MUSIC FILM FESTIVAL 3

Friday, June 28 – Tuesday, July 2

Music Box Theatre and Chicago Public Radio’s “Sound Opinions” present the third annual Music Box Summer Music Film Festival with the best new documentary and concert films available about bands and music, both contemporary and classic. More than a dozen features include the documentary Downloaded, about the rise and fall of Napster, with director Alex Winter (co-star of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) scheduled to appear. Opening night screening of the Levon Helm doc Ain’t In it For My Health is presented by “Sound Opinions” hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot.

 

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THE AUDIENCE

Sunday, June 30, 1:30pm; Wednesday, July 3, 7:30pm

Helen Mirren reprises her Academy Award-winning role as Queen Elizabeth II in the highly anticipated

West End production of The Audience. For 60 years Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace – a meeting like no other in British public life. Both parties have an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said. The Audience imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Prime Minister and their Queen. From Churchill to Cameron, each Prime Minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional – sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive.

 

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

Thursday, July 4, 2pm

Music Box celebrates Independence Day with a classic. This biopic about renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan, memorably played by James Cagney, is perhaps the most patriotic movie around. The tale of Cohan, the Broadway great born on the 4th of July who inspired a nation during the Great War with such songs as “It’s a Grand Old Flag” and “Over There,” was exactly what a WWII nation needed upon its summer of 1942 release. The film earned Cagney, an actor known primarily for his tough-guy roles, his only Oscar statuette.

GREASE SING-A-LONG

Thursday, July 4

Back by popular demand, the original high school musical returns to the Music Box Theatre this Independence Day. Wear your best poodle skirt and saddle shoes, biker jacket and shades, and bring your heartiest vocals for a rollicking ’50s sing-along. Belt it out with the T-Birds and Pink Ladies to “Greased Lightning,” “You’re the One that I Want,” “We Go Together,” “Summer Nights” and many more at this special summer event. This fun-filled sing-along features a pre-show costume parade and screening of the beloved Olivia Newton-John/John Travolta classic. Admission includes pre-show entertainment by Dennis Scott on the Music Box organ plus a prop bag, costume contest and interactive fun.

 

DEALING WITH IDIOTS (*writer-director-star Jeff Garlin in person opening weekend)

Exclusive Chicago engagement begins Friday, July 12

Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Jeff Garlin, takes the director’s chair with his youth baseball comedy Dealing With Idiots from IFC Films. Garlin stars with Christopher Guest, Fred Willard, Bob Odenkirk, J.B. Smoove, Gina Gershon, Kerri Kenney, Jami Gertz, Timothy Olyphant, Richard Kind, Steve Agee, Jim Sheridan and Nia Vardalos in this improvised comedy about the parents of a little league baseball team. Garlin will be in attendance for an opening weekend showing to introduce the movie and conduct an audience Q&A.

SECOND SATURDAY SILENT CINEMA PRESENTS: THE UNHOLY THREE

Saturday, July 13, noon

A sideshow ventriloquist, midget and strongman leave the circus and form a conspiracy known as “The Unholy Three” with plans to commit a series of robberies. Disguised as a little old lady, Echo the ventriloquist (Lon Chaney) and his two carnival cohorts perform a series of Park Avenue robberies. Echo’s sweetheart Rosie (Mae Busch) plays along with The Unholy Three but later changes her mind when their latest burglary ends in murder—and threatens to send an innocent man to the electric chair. Shown with live musical accompaniment by Dennis Scott on the Music Box organ.

CHICAGO FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

Friday, July 26 – Thursday, August 1

Now in its third year, the Music Box expands to an entire week of the very best in contemporary French cinema, featuring special guests and film presentations. Among this year’s selections are The Dandelions, a bittersweet family drama directed by Carine Tardieu, and 11.6, a heist film based on a true story, directed by Philippe Godeau and starring François Cluzet (Intouchables, Tell No One). In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty, the Chicago French Film Festival teams with the Goethe Institut for a special screening of Wim Wenders’ 1987 classic Wings of Desire, starring French actress Solveig Dommartin.

 

THE HITCHCOCK 9

August 9 – 15

Music Box Theatre announces a week of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films, jointly presented by the BFI, Park Circus/ITV and Rialto Pictures. The restoration of Hitchcock’s nine surviving silent films has been the biggest and most complex restoration project undertaken by the BFI National Archive to date: decades of damage and wear have been removed; the sharpness of the image improved; new shots discovered and intertitles and tinting restored.  On opening weekend, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestrapresents newly composed scores for select titles.

 

BLUE EXORCIST: THE MOVIE

Saturday, August 17

One night only: See the feature film that continues the storyline of the popular anime series Blue Exorcist.

 

TIPPI HEDREN IN MARNIE (*Tippi Hedron in person)

Sunday, August 18, 2pm

Film lovers are invited to hear the stories from behind the scenes in this unique opportunity to visit with Tippi Hedren and see Alfred Hitchcock’s controversial 1964 classic. Marnie revolves around a pathological liar and compulsive thief (Hedren) who is befriended by her latest victim (Sean Connery). Hedren will introduce the film before and answer audience questions after. There will be a very special preshow VIP event including photos, autographs and discussion with Ms. Hedren for a select 100 ticket purchasers.

 

NOIR CITY: CHICAGO 5

Friday, August 23 – Thursday August 29

The fifth sensational edition of Noir City: Chicago combines rarely seen gems with revivals of recognized noir classics and newly rediscovered and restored prints — all presented on the big screen in glorious 35mm. This year includes three incredibly rare films, not available on DVD, in brand-new 35mm prints: Try and Get Me! (1950), metaphysical noir Repeat Performance (1947) and Monogram studio’s lost B gem High Tide (1948). The 16 films noirs are presented by the Film Noir Foundation.

 

TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET SING-A-LONG

Friday-Saturday, August 23-24, midnight

Alternately ridiculed as the “Plan 9 From Outer Space of music videos” and hailed as the masterpiece from our generation’s greatest living R&B legend, R. Kelly’s multi-chapter concept video “Trapped in the Closet” is polarizing. Whichever camp music fans fall into, there will be no better cinematic event this summer than singing and dancing and playing with props in a theater full of other R. Kelly fans at the fully interactive R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet Sing-A-Long.

 

Chronological Schedule

June 8: SECOND SATURDAY SILENT CINEMA PRESENTS: BEYOND THE ROCKS

June 15: NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THIS HOUSE

June 23: MUSIC EMOTION: SYMPHONY IN CINEMA

June 25: NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THIS HOUSE

June 28-July 2: MUSIC BOX SUMMER MUSIC FILM FESTIVAL 3

June 30: NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THE AUDIENCE

July 3: NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE PRESENTS: THE AUDIENCE

July 4: YANKEE DOODLE DANDY

July 4: GREASE SING-A-LONG

July 12: JEFF GARLIN IN PERSON FOR DEALING WITH IDIOTS

July 13: SECOND SATURDAY SILENT CINEMA PRESENTS: THE UNHOLY THREE

July 26 – August 1: CHICAGO FRENCH FILM FESTIVAL

August 9 – 15: HITCHCOCK SILENT FILMS

August 11: MUSIC EMOTION: SYMPHONY IN CINEMA

August 17: BLUE EXORCIST: THE MOVIE

August 18: TIPPI HEDREN IN MARNIE

August 23 – 29: NOIR CITY: CHICAGO 5

August 23-24: SING-A-LONG TRAPPED IN THE CLOSET

About the Music Box Theatre: For nearly 30 years the Music Box Theatre has been the premier venue in Chicago for independent and foreign films, festivals and some of the greatest cinematic events in Chicago. It currently has the largest cinema space operated full time in the city. The Music Box Theatre is independently owned and operated by the Southport Music Box Corporation. SMBC, through its Music Box Films division, also distributes foreign and independent films in the theatrical, DVD and television markets throughout the United States. For additional information please visitwww.musicboxtheatre.com .