This weekend the Trylon begins its Charlotte Rampling series (no Under the Sand or 45 Years but I'll let that pass) and the Parkway kicks off a month of Star Warses. Meanwhile the Walker "considers queer cultural legacies and transmission" with its "Vibrations for a New People" series.
Oh, and tomorrow if all goes well I will have a big omnibus review of The Beast, Challengers, and Civil War.
Special Screenings
Thursday, May 2
MSPIFF43 Shorts Highlights
Capri Theater
The final roundup of MSPIFF shorts. Part of the Minnesota-St. Paul International Film Festival. $5, or free for North Side residents. 7 p.m. More info here.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
Grandview 1&2
In the '80s, teens could have abortions in movies. THE EIGHTIES! $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Frenzy (1972)
The Heights
Hitchcock goes '70s. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Macbeth (2024)
Lagoon Theater
Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma are everyone's favorite power couple in this live filming of a new stage production. $15. 7 p.m. Sunday 1:30 p.m. More info here.
Claire Facing North (2024)
The Main
A woman travels to Iceland and bonds with a hitchhiker. Part of the Minnesota-St. Paul International Film Festival. $10/$15. 12:45 p.m. Wednesday 1:45 p.m. More info here.
The Last Daughter (2023)
The Main
The story of a woman taken away from her Aboriginal parents to be raised by a white family, and then sent back to original family five years later. Part of the Minnesota-St. Paul International Film Festival. $10/$15. 4 p.m. More info here.
La Bohème (1926)
Trylon
Lillian Gish stars in this silent adaptation of the story behind the Puccini opera. With live accompaniment from the MN Opera's Joseph Li. $15. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Friday, May 3
Scream It Off Screen
The Parkway
Vote for your favorite local short films by screaming. You will not believe how fun this is. $13-$19. 8 p.m. More info here.
Fantasia (1940)
Trylon
The framing may be very "junior high music appreciation class," but the visuals remain too incredible to argue with. (Except the racist ones, that is.) $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:30 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
Born in Flames (1983)
Walker Art Center
Lizzie Borden's landmark queer dystopian docudrama. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, May 4
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)
Alamo Drafthouse
Can Bella's merely human womb handle it when she gets knocked up, vamp-style? $14. 7:25 p.m. More info here.
Road House (1989)
The Main
The original is still the greatest. $10. 10 p.m. More info here.
Rogue One (2016)
The Parkway
The most fan-servicey Star Wars is also the grittiest action drama of the lot. $10/$15. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Brenda and Glennda Show/Glennda and Friends (1991-1994)
Walker Art Center
Three episodes of the groundbreaking early '90s "post-queer" public access talk show hosted by Brenda Sexual and Glennda Orgasm. CW: Camille Paglia. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, May 5
Sabrina (1951)
Alamo Drafthouse
A love triangle, just like Challengers! Was Audrey Hepburn the original Zendaya? $10. 11 a.m. More info here.
Steel Magnolias (1989)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Sally Field says director Herbert Ross was really mean to Julia Roberts but all the other ladies defended her. $16.35. 4 & 7 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. More info here.
Dial M for Murder (1954)
Emagine Willow Creek
Nooo Ray Milland don't kill Grace Kelly she's so sexy ahh. Also Wednesday. $9. 1 & 7 p.m. More info here.
The Night Porter (1974)
Trylon
I've never been too comfortable with this Nazi S&M melodrama, which admirers would I guess say is the point. $8. 8 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Monday, May 6
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse
These two young men certainly grew up well, didn't they? $10. 7:25 p.m. More info here.
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
The Heights
This is why you shouldn't move to New York. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Happy Birthday to Me (1981)
Emagine Willow Creek
Who's killing these preppie girls? $6. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, May 7
Miracle Mile (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse
Starring Anthony Edwards. No, not that one. $7. 7:25 p.m. More info here.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM (2024)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington 13/Emagine Willow Creek
It's Coordinators vs. Naturals in this new anime, and if that means anything to you, maybe you'll love this. $16.35. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, May 8
Secret Movie Night
Emagine Willow Creek
No, we can't tell you what movie it is—it's a secret! $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
American Pie (1999)
Grandview 1&2
Your friends are around, so be quiet. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The People's Joker (2022)
Trylon
This brilliant, unauthorized comic trans twist on the DC Universe has somehow been permitted to exist by the IP cartel. Unfortunately it's sold out. Presented by Sound Unseen. $13. 7 & 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
The Fall Guy
David Leitch’s latest collection of bad quips and big booms isn’t quite the headache that Bullet Train was. But it is the kind of movie where we’re told that a dog will bite a guy in the nuts on command, and then two minutes later the dog bites a guy in the nuts on command, and then the audience claps with glee. And it’s also one of those behind-the-scenes “love letters to the movies” that makes you wish everyone involved loved movies just a little less. There are some fine over-the-top stunts and action sequences, but Leitch often undercuts them with rampant too-muchness—why set Ryan Gosling’s fight with goons on a flatbed truck to Emily Blunt singing “Against All Odds” at karaoke, and then cut back and forth between the two? Gosling and Blunt do have some chemistry, as two attractive people with acting skills will, but He’s Just Ken was clearly over-rewarded with praise last year. If he coasts on his tics (that smirk ‘n’ gaze, those quick, clipped replies) for the rest of his career, Barbie will have a lot to answer for. C+
Jeanne du Barry
Johnny Depp as Louis XV? No one asked for this.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Meesa mighty excited to see dis again.
Tarot
When will you kids learn to stop messing with the supernatural???
Your Fat Friend
A documentary about popular podcaster Aubrey Gordon.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
La Chimera
Alice Rohrwacher's latest follows the exploits of some Italian grave robbers who specialize in plundering Etruscan tombs, as guided by the mystical gifts of a rumpled British ex-con named Arthur (Challengers' Josh O’Connor, who does rumpled better than anyone this side of Clive Owen). Arthur's real search, however, is for his beloved Beniamina, the details of whose existence remain a mystery. His quest does give us an excuse to spend time in the presence of her wonderfully dotty mother (Isabella Rossellini, who does wonderfully dotty better than anyone, full stop). Rohrwacher's absurdism is loose and light, more fairy tale than Fellini, with a flair for rural naturalism that finds a striking vividness in the everyday and imagines utopian regroupings beyond the grasping politics of wealth. A-
Dune: Part 2 (read the full review here)
The first part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation was a well-crafted slog, occasionally spectacular but often merely studently, as the director seemed intent to prove that he deserved the assignment. But with all the power players set in place, Part Two does an awful lot right. Villeneuve distills the essence of the novel’s currents of deception and misdirection into a legible screenplay while generating some truly uncanny moments. And as Paul Atreides, Timothée Chalamet shows us a man who makes a pragmatic decision to exploit the dogmatism of his followers because he believes that every other choice will cause more death and destruction, or who at least rationalizes his motives that way. With IP-recycling now the culture industry’s standard cannibalistic practice, Villeneuve, like Paul, imagines himself the good guy in this scenario, respectful of the traditions placed in his care rather than merely exploitative. But also like Paul there are forces at play beyond his control. So what happens when Villeneuve’s hero threatens to become a butcher? Stay tuned for Part 3. B+
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
Love Lives Bleeding
If you head in to Love Lies Bleeding to watch Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian fuck each other and murder dudes—and why else would you be there?—you will not be disappointed. In true noir fashion, Jackie (O'Brian) is a drifter, en route from an Oklahoma childhood to a bodybuilding competition in Vegas, stopping off in New Mexico because that’s the sort of place these stories happen. Here she meets Stewart's Lou and the bodies start to hit the floor. As the knot tightens around the lovers, generating a titillating claustrophobia à la Jim Thompson, the question becomes whether Lou’s brains will save Jackie or Jackie’s brawn will save Lou, or whether theirs is the sort of love that dooms them both. Not till the final scene are the roles they’ve chosen to play in this relationship finally clear. (Love, Glass seems to say, means never complaining about disposing of your sweetheart’s murder victims.) I’ll admit, for a half-hour or so I worried that director Rose Glass’s euphorically nihilist lesbian death trip was too nutty to be a good movie and yet not nutty enough to be a great one. After [SPOILER REDACTED], that concern just felt silly. A-
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Monkey Man
Dev Patel's directorial debut is a brutal action-revenge flick with some confusing but admirable politics, targeting Hindu nationalism and featuring an army of trans warriors rising up from the streets. Patel stars as an unnamed, sullen man (after The Green Knight and this, I suspect dude may never smile in a movie ever again) caught up in a nasty underground fighting circuit; he infiltrates ritzy Indian society to deliver the big payback to the crooked police chief who razed his village and killed his mother. He isn't exactly a natural behind the camera: The movie crawls to a halt midway before a Rocky training montage set to tablas carries it into the home stretch. And he doesn't always shoot the bloody, imaginative fights to their advantage, with a little too much camera action and close ups a little too tight on the combatants. But if you like your action unrelentingly grim, he's your man. And your monkey. B
Wicked Little Letters
This sort of naughty British comedy for grandmas always has a much higher caliber cast than it deserves—poor old Timothy Spall certainly deserves better, as does poor young Anjana Vasan. As for Olivia Coleman and Jessie Buckley (wow, a The Lost Daughter reunion of sorts), they're just slumming; here the former is an uptight, upright Christian prude who accuses the latter, a foul-mouthed Irish gal, of sending her obscene letters. You'll guess the culprit before the big reveal and figure out where the courtroom scenes are headed as well. But if plucky middle-aged women banding together to hatch a plan and bouts of clumsy cussing are your cup of tea, the kettle's on. C
