- Cold in July
I miss the short reel they used to run before coming attractions at the Cineplex Odeon theaters, which gave the impression you were about to watch a movie in a Greek amphitheater in outer space. Julian Antos projected that reel at a Northwest Chicago Film Society event sometime in the past year. I was happy to see it, though I didn’t think about it again until this past weekend, when I saw Cold in July for a second time at the Landmark Century. Jim Mickle’s dark comic thriller is designed to resemble a second-tier Hollywood genre picture from the mid-1980s, and I’ve got to tip my hat to the filmmakers for their specificity. The movie takes place in 1989, but it looks like a 35-millimeter print of a 1986 movie that’s spent three years on the second-run circuit. Some of the bright colors seem unusually saturated, and some of the night scenes look a little too dim.
Ben Sachs writes about moviegoing every Monday.
