Jeez, remind me not to say anything mildly negative about a CGI dog ever again. My Superman review last week, in which I posited that a little less Krypto would have helped the movie, had mutt-smitten Bluesky randos questioning my virility, suggesting additions to my diet (shit), and accusing me of being a cat.
Had any of them read the review? Friends, most of them had not yet even seen the movie.
Special Screenings
Thursday, July 17
AJ Goes to the Dog Park (2025)
Alamo Drafthouse
An ordinary-to-a-fault Fargo man fights back when the city threatens to take away his favorite dog park. $13.99. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)
East Phillips Park
Hate to point it out, but the start times for Movies in the Parks are getting earlier. That means the days are getting shorter. And that means… Free. 8:55 p.m. More info here.
A History of Violence (2005)
Emagine Willow Creek
Don’t make Viggo Mortensen angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Angry Birds Movie (2016)
Emagine Willow Creek
“It’s a game mommy used to play on her phone, sweetie.” $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
Grandview 1&2
One of the blondest movies ever made. $14.44. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Birdcage (1996)
The Heights
Have I mentioned that the Heights is doing a series of drag-related movies? $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Three Colors: Blue (1993)
Main Cinema
Juliette Binoche is a widow grappling with her late composer’s husband’s unfinished score, and with her relationship to him. Part of Lumières Françaises. $14. 12:30 p.m. More info here.
Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
Marcus West End
Not 4 me it ain’t. 12 p.m. Prices and more info here.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Orchestra Hall
With live orchestral accompaniment. Through Sunday. $60-$140. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Goonies (1985)
Riverview Theater
‘R’ you really willing to settle for good enough? $5. 9:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday 10:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. More info here.
The Wild Robot (2024)
Riverview Theater
You’ll believe a robot can teach a goose to fly. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Naked Acts (1996)
Trylon
The first feature written, produced, directed, and self-distributed theatrically by an African-American woman. Presented by Archives on Screen. $8. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, July 18
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Alamo Drafthouse
Is this on the soundtrack? Also Monday-Wednesday. $7. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)
Emagine Willow Creek
The saga continues. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Wild Robot (2024)
Lynnhurst Park
AI propaganda, but cute. Free. 8:55 p.m. More info here.
Shark Terror (2025)
Trylon
Sorry, they’re not even trying with this one. $8. Friday-Saturday, Monday-Tuesday 5 p.m. Sunday 1 p.m. Wednesday 10 p.m. More info here.
Donnie Darko (2001)
Trylon
I’m sure some guy will be happy to explain it to you. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:30 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
The Neverending Story (1984)
Walker Art Center
It's still going... Also Saturday. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, July 19
UFC 318: Holloway vs. Poirier 3
Emagine Willow Creek
Hey, this isn’t a movie. $26.60. 9 p.m. More info here.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Granada
Share a meal with the dinosaurs. Part of Taste the Movies. $169. 10 a.m. More info here.
IF (2024)
Kenny Park
From the imagination of John Krasinski (derogatory). Free. 8:55 p.m. More info here.
Soul (2020)
Lake Harriet Bandshell
Tina Fey inhabits the body of a Black man. Free. 8:55 p.m. More info here.
Clueless (1995)
Nine Lives Thrift
Would Cher buy secondhand? As if. $15 suggested donation. 9:10 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, July 20
Together (2025)
Alamo Drafthouse
An advance screening of the new Alison Brie/Dave Franco horror flick. $13.99. 5 p.m. More info here.
Batman Forever (1995)
Alamo Drafthouse
Well, we all know where Taco Mike will be on Sunday. $10.60. 1:50 & 5:15 p.m. Wednesday 4:30 & 7:30. More info here.
Adventureland (2009)
Grandview 1&2
I worked at an amusement park in the ’80s, but I did not hook up with any girls who looked like Kristen Stewart. $14.44. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Twin Peaks (1990)
Grandview 1&2
They’re up to episodes 4 & 5 of season one. $14.44. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Sound of Music (1965)
The Heights
Sorry, it’s sold out. $15. 1 p.m. More info here.
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse (2023)
Marcus West End
*John Lennon voice* Across the Spider-Veeeerse. 12 p.m. Prices and more info here.
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
Trylon
Anti-Nazi movies don’t come much funnier than this. $8. Sunday 6 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Monday, July 21
I Drink Your Blood (1971)
Emagine Willow Creek
There will be milkshake. $7.60. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
WTF: Watch Terrible Films
56 Brewing
I don’t know what the film will be, but I know it will be terrible. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Northwest Athletic Field Park
Where is that fish?!?!?! Free. 8:55 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, July 22
Pitch Black (2000)
Alamo Drafthouse
Vin Diesel and Keith David crash on a dangerous planet! $17.49. 8 p.m. More info here.
Elemental (2023)
Kenwood Park
And even earlier! Free. 8:50 p.m. More info here.
Trolls Band Together (2023)
Riverview Theater
No one believes me, but this movie is about poptimism. Also Wednesday. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Wednesday, July 23
The Birds (1963)
Alamo Drafthouse
I always knew they hated us. $13.99. 7 p.m. More info here.
La Traviata
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Italian for “the traviata.” $16.65. 1 & 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Basketball State: The Land of 10,000 Hoops (2024)
Capri Theater
A documentary look at MN basketball, with the director in attendance. Free. 6 p.m. More info here.
Crass: The Sound of Free Speech (2023)
Cloudland
The story of the punkest band what ever punked. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wicked (2024)
The Commons
A singalong. Maybe Alpha News is right about downtown Minneapolis being dangerous. Free. 8:50 p.m. More info here.
Together (2025)
Emagine Willow Creek/Main Cinema
Yet more advance screenings of the new Alison Brie/Dave Franco horror flick. $11. 7 p.m. More info here and here.
Up in Smoke (1978)
Parkway Theater
Cheech and Chong were ahead of their time. (In that they were always stoned.) $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Gilaneh (2005)
Trylon
An Iranian mother’s life is shattered by two wars. Part of the Mizna film series. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
A (white) girl’s life in Rhodesia.
Eddington
I did not like the last time Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix did something together but I have an open mind.
Guns & Moses
This sounds like the title of a sitcom episode.
I Know What You Did Last Summer
Look, it’s 2025 and if you haven’t learned not to cover up vehicular manslaughter by now, that’s on you.
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Happy birthday, Wong Kar-wai.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Hidden Inventory/Premature Death
Sorcerers protect a student from a sacrificial rite.
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Take your kid to see this in a theater and no one will be disappointed.
Smurfs
This must be a mistake. I could have sworn this came out months ago.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story—ends Thursday
F1
Well of course this is Top Gun for race cars—you thought Joseph Kosinski was gonna go back to directing Tron movies and Halo ads? What matters is that F1’s on-track action is as gripping as Top Gun: Maverick’s mid-air feats, and there are moments that had me, a non-gasper, gasping. The acting bits are not entirely as bad as those TG:M’s Oscar-nominated screenplay made us endure. And if your attention may wander in these off-track moments, at least F1 (I am not calling it F1: The Movie—I got my own Google problems to worry about) leaves us at leisure to compare and contrast Tom Cruise’s smugness with Brad Pitt’s: eternal youth vs. staved-off decline, skill vs. savvy, unnerving intensity vs indolent swagger. Yes, ideally, Pitt’s Sonny Hayes would learn as much from his younger colleagues as he teaches them, but instead it’s the wily old driver who touches the lives of everyone he encounters—he’s kind of a Magical Caucasian. Chastened hotshot Damson Idris learns not to showboat for the press. Kerry Condon overcomes his mistrust of Sonny’s arrogance long enough to bed him. And team owner Javier Bardem, who took a chance on Sonny, sees his long shot pay off, defeating the machinations of evil-as-ever Tobias Menzies. And they say Hollywood doesn’t make movies for aging white guys who feel like their talents have gone unacknowledged anymore. B-
40 Acres—ends Thursday
I know we’re all too smart to think genre films need to be “elevated,” but sometimes a special performance does spark a decent thriller with an unexpected resonance, and that’s what Danielle Deadwyler provides here. The matriarch of a family that’s survived plague and civil war, Deadwyler’s Hailey Freeman instills military discipline in her children with martinet chill, as though she realizes that for her kids to survive she has to be as scary as the cannibalistic militia goons who lurk beyond her farm’s fence. Her teen son Manny (Kataem O'Connor) suspects that there’s more to life than drills and patrols and living with your mom, and when he spies Milcania Diaz-Rojas’s Dawn diving in his favorite river he thinks he knows what that is. (O'Connor really captures how it must feel when you see the first fine ass that you’re not related to.) Manny hides a wounded Dawn on the farm, leading to a clash between Hailey and her boy that in turn leads to a showdown with the occupants of the world beyond the farm. When the action subsides, we’re left with a more nuanced portrait of Black motherhood than you’re likely to find in any “serious” movie this year. A-
Jurassic World Rebirth
Well, at least now we know why the dinosaurs went extinct—they couldn’t hunt for shit. I mean, one predator here not only fails to gobble up a child hiding under a life raft, but the loser can’t even pop the raft. Godzilla director Gareth Edwards and original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp (who I’ll just note is also responsible for the Indiana Jones duds The Dial of Destiny and The Crystal Skill) were called upon to right this series seven installments in, but the best they can dream up is an island of mutant dinosaurs like the Distortus Rex and the Mutadon. Plotwise, a team of mercenaries organized by Scarlett Johansson (who must have serious gambling debts or something) is dispatched to collect blood samples from the three largest breeds of dinosaurs, a key ingredient in a cure for heart disease. En route, the adventurers rescue a family that’s crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat, because the pictures needs children to imperil. The pro-forma backstory these characters are given is worse than none at all—a friend of Johansson’s Zora Bennett was blown up by a Yemen car bomb so she’s ready to retire, Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid lost his son so he wants to protect children (he’d let them die otherwise?). But it’s hard to care what happens to these people unless you’re just opposed in principle to the idea of make-believe humans being eaten by make-believe dinosaurs. C
Kill the Jockey—ends Thursday
The Life of Chuck
Tom Hiddleston is one of many talented actors who profitably allowed the MCU to Thanos-snap away the prime of his career, and from the looks of The Life of Chuck he doesn’t seem like he’ll be back to doing quietly intense Joanna Hogg films anytime soon. In this razzle-dazzle puzzle of a heart-tugger he’s Chuck Krantz, a mysterious accountant who turns out not to be so mysterious after all. Once the film pulls the metaphysical rug out from under a resonantly apocalyptic first act, The Life of Chuck stacks the deck in the interests of life-affirming profundity so gratuitously you can tell it’s lying to itself. There’s a good reason I don’t turn to Stephen King for the profound or Mike Flanagan for the life-affirming (or vice versa). Though seeing both Mia Sara and Heather Langenkamp as old ladies certainly does confront the middle-aged among us with intimations of mortality, the inexorable passage of time, and all that jazz. C+
Materialists
Well now, someone finally figured out what to do with Dakota Johnson. As Lucy, a get-’em-girl NYC matchmaker, the self-possessed daze that Johnson inescapably floats around in makes an eerie sense—she’s a true believer in her product, convinced that data points can substitute for intangibles. Hell, I’d hand her my business card too. Her sales instinct attracts a wealthy suitor (Pedro Pascal) but she can’t shake an unprofitable attraction to her ex (an unglammed Chris Evans), an actor who does catering or vice versa. The first third bubbles along winningly, though things get predictably wobbly once Johnson has to impersonate a human. But as a Celine Song skeptic who considered the characterizations in Past Lives too vague, I’m surprised by how much speechifying the writer/director allows her love triangulators here: People haul off with monologues about who they truly are so often its like being trapped in a city solely populated by Crash Davises. I wish I could say you’ll be surprised who Lucy ends up with, but though Song eventually knocks the matchmaker’s rickety ideology out from under her, the film settles for romantic mystification rather than working toward some compromised realism. Am I saying Materialists is insufficiently dialectical? Not just that, comrades—it’s insufficiently materialist. B
M3GAN 2.0
Complaints that there’s no horror here and not enough action are valid, but there are plenty of laughs to compensate. While the trailer did have me fearing that writer/director Gerard Johnstone would take this too over the top, even the painfully convoluted plot is part of the fun. With the murderous M3GAN (voiced more bitchily than ever by Jenna Davis) safely dispatched (OR IS SHE?), her creator, Gemma (a still pitch-perfect Allison Williams), pivots to warning about the dangers of tech, while M3GAN’s BFF (emphasis on the second “F”) Cady (who’s looking like a young Shannen Doherty here) takes up taekwondo and starts idolizing Steven Seagal. But when a sexy, militarized lady droid (Ivanna Sakhno) goes rogue, it takes a fembot to catch a fembot, and in true T2 fashion M3GAN allies with the good gals (OR DOES SHE?) Along the way we get Jemaine Clement (with a prosthetic chest?) as a loathsome tech oligarch clumsily attempting a seduction to the exotic sounds of Les Baxter, a M3GAN musical number that at least equals “Titanium” and “Toy Soldiers,” and Timm Sharp doing a great turn as a dim, smug fed. “Don't go looking for an incisive commentary on AI,” warns a critic at Total Film—seriously, what is wrong with some people? Sorry if it’s not The Godfather Part II of killer doll sequels, you absolute nerds. B+
Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning
How is it that the only prominent person in this dumb country suspicious of AI seems to be Tom Fuckin’ Cruise? The most consistent action franchise this side of John Wick wraps up (or does it?—you really think that peppy lil guy is about to retire?) with Cruise’s agent Ethan Hunt fighting to prevent an all-powerful artificial intelligence called The Entity from starting a nuclear war. But The Final Reckoning is no more immune to bloat than any other blockbuster—you could lop a full half-hour of talking from this nearly three-hour adventure and no one would be the wiser. The script hunts for loose ends from previous installments just to tie them up, and the supporting cast is uneven—if Pom Klementieff has a truly fierce shooting-people face, Esai Morales remains a nonentity of a villain. By next month, you’ll remember The Final Reckoning as the MI where Tom hunts through a nuclear sub at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and climbs around on a biplane as the wind resistance does weirder things to his face than Vanilla Sky. Both incredible set pieces, worth the price of admission even. But you’ll probably forget most of the rest. I already have. B
The Phoenician Scheme—ends Thursday
As a lukewarm Wes Anderson apologist, I take no joy in reporting that this chuckle-eliciting puzzle box is essentially the movie the dandy director’s haters accuse him of constantly remaking. Benicio del Toro is Zsa Zsa Korda, an apparently assassin-proof international power broker with a knack for wrangling slave labor and inciting famine. Following his latest near death encounter, Korda embarks on facilitating his final, most ambitious project, accompanied by his daughter and potential heir, a moonfaced and expressionless would-be novitiate named Liesl (Mia Threapleton). Thing is, all his backers want out, and he’s got to wrangle and manipulate a collection of terrific bit players (hearing Jeffery Wright recite Anderson/Coppola dialogue is always a pleasure) into ponying up the dough. Threapleton is a perfect match for Anderson’s schtick, and the zany final showdown between del Toro and a bewhiskered Benedict Cumberbatch should cap a much funnier movie. But a handful of pleasing moments don’t add up to much, and we get far more of Michael Cera’s dazed turtle expressions than anyone needs in 2025. B-
Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s Jim Crow vampire flick is a truly rare thing: a wholly self-assured mess. Technically and narratively, Coogler knows exactly what he wants to do, whether or not you can keep up, and each of the performers are just as committed. You get Michael B. Jordan distinguishing the murderous twins Smoke and Stack without resorting to caricature, Delroy Lindo as an aged bluesman. Hailee Steinfeld as a seductive quadroon, Jack O'Connell as an undead banjoist, Wunmi Mosaku as a wise hoodoo woman, Saul Williams as a preacher with a new wave hairdo, and I could just keep going. They all populate a vividly simulated Clarksdale, Mississippi to which Jordan’s gangsters have returned to open a juke joint soon targeted by bloodsuckers—you could call this August Wilson’s From Dusk to Dawn. There are visual moments that split the diff between cornball and visionary (I truly did not know Autumn Durald Arkapaw had this in her) and more ideas—about Black spirituality and its vexed relationship to Christianity, about the social role of music, about integration as a deal with the devil—than your average multiplex sees in a whole summer. And if Coogler never slows down to develop those ideas, they still pack a conceptual wallop that complements the film's lived-in texture. This world is so engrossing that by the time the vamps come calling, I almost wished Coogler would just let his people have their one night undisturbed. But America’s not really like that, is it? A-
Skillhouse—ends Thursday
Superman (read the full review here)
James Gunn’s flagship reboot of the DC film universe has its moments. In its best scene, a smug Clark Kent insists on a candid interview—as Superman—with co-worker/girlfriend Lois Lane, and the ace journalist he’s dating pulls no punches, getting in as many good hits as any of Lex Luthor’s henchfolk. David Corenswet’s Clark/Kal/Supes is all-too-human, with a real temper and self-regard bubbling up from beneath his Midwestern aw-shuckistude. He’s well-matched by Rachel Brosnahan, a purely 21st century Lois Lane who avoids Rosalind Russell throwback vibes as she fields modern problems like work-life balance and how to fly Mr. Terrific’s spacecraft. Yet the rest of Superman never matches the energy of that interview; in fact, Gunn foolishly splits Clark and Lois up on separate adventures. As we enter a world of intra-dimensional pocket universes and Metropolis-(Cleveland- actually) gobbling black holes, Superman gets loud and ugly and digital and, well, MCUish. And sorry, there’s just too much Krypto. B-
28 Years Later
Maybe I was just in a shitty mood (though I don’t remember being in one when I walked into the theater) but this Danny Boyle/Alex Garland reunion irritated the hell out of me. Could be Boyle’s affected jitter-glitch montage style, the aesthetic equivalent of a cheap jump scare, haphazardly splicing in newsreels, Olivier’s Henry V, and the music of Young Fathers, whose gritty beatcraft I generally appreciate on its own. Or could be that I resent films where characters plunge nonsensically into danger for reasons I’m supposed to consider noble. Along the way, you get Ralph Fiennes as a cuddlier Col. Kurtz, “alpha” zombies who pluck spinal cords out by the head (pretty cool), Jodie Comer adding another accent to her CV, and a newborn baby to symbolize how life overcomes death or whatever. “Pretentious” is generally a lazy insult for dummies, but what else do you call it when a film makes such a show of insisting it has achieved technical feats and reached emotional truths that remain far beyond its grasp? C+
