You can't go to the fair every day. Check out a movie or two in your off hours.
Special Screenings
Thursday, August 22
The Smurfs (2011)
Emagine Willow Creek
Go Smurf yourself. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Christine (1983)
Grandview 1&2
The urbanists are right—cars do kill people. Also Sunday. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Imitation of Life (1934)
The Heights
Didja know the Sirk movie was a remake? Well, it was! $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Yojimbo (1961)
Main Cinema
You might recognize the plot from its remake, A Fistful of Dollars. $10. 1 p.m. More info here.
Rashomon (1950)
Main Cinema
This is just like that Happy Days episode where Fonzie got shot in the ass while the gang was on a hunting trip and everybody had a different story about how it happened. $10. 4 p.m. More info here.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Parkway Theater
Before I saw this when I was 17 I didn’t realize movies were allowed to be this funny. $9/$12. Music from Cole Diamond at 7 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
Powderhorn Park
What would Puss in Boots do? Free. 8:05 p.m. More info here.
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)
Riverview Theater
Oh hey, that rhymes. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Friday, August 23
Eugénie Grandet (2021)
Alliance Française
An adaptation of the Balzac classic. Free. 6 p.m. More info here.
The Smurfs (2011)
Emagine Willow Creek
Smurf off. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
Edgcumbe Recreation Center
Tim Curry and Miss Piggy famously had an on-set affair during the filming of this one. Free. 8 p.m. More info here.
Back to the Future (1985)
McRae Park
A white kid travels back in time to invent rock 'n' roll and cockblock his dad. Free. 8:05 p.m. More info here.
Alien Rubicon (2024)
Trylon
Not to be confused with Alien: Romulus. The folks at Asylum who made this movie would hate for you to do that. $8. Friday, Sunday 1 p.m. Saturday 2 p.m. Monday 3 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday 5 p.m. More info here.
Pretty Poison (1968)
Trylon
Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins go on a crime spree. $8. Friday 7 p.m. Saturday 9 p.m. Sunday 3 p.m. More info here.
Play It As It Lays (1972)
Trylon
Weld & Perkins again, this time in an adaptation of the Didion novel. $8. Friday 9 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, August 24
Wall-E (2008)
Parkway Theater
Love watching that lil guy scoot around in the trash. $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (2023)
Pershing Recreation Center
Yeah, I don't need to know anything about what's going on here. Free. 8 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, August 25
Rear Window (1954)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Ladies, your fella ever get so preoccupied with spying on his neighbors he won't give you any lovin'? $16.26. 1 & 7 p.m. Wednesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Whisper of the Heart (1995)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
A girl falls in love with a boy who checks out the same library books. $16.26. 3 & 7 p.m. Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Emagine Willow Creek
Back in the good old days, movies treated cops as objects of ridicule. Also Wednesday. $9. 12:30 & 6 p.m. More info here.
Goodfellas (1990)
Trylon
Yeah, it's as good as you remember it. Through Tuesday. $8. 7 p.m. More info here.
Monday, August 26
The Cat Returns (1991)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
What teen girl doesn't dream of becoming a cat princess? Also Wednesday. $16.26. 7 p.m. More info here.
42 (2013)
Elliot Park
Chadwick Boseman is Jackie Robinson. Free. 7:55 p.m. More info here.
Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Emagine Willow Creek
A spacecraft's crew is trapped on a planet where their fears become reality! $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Imitation of Life (1959)
The Heights
Sirk's far-reaching melodrama. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, August 27
Elemental (2023)
Kenny Park
Fire and water do mix? Free. 7:55 p.m. More info here.
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Riverview Theater
Sounds spooky. I wouldn't stay there! Also Wednesday. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Anytime (2024)
Riverview Theater
Fifteen expert mountain bikers face incredible challenges. $10. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, August 28
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
The Commons
A Minnesota classic. Free. 7:55 p.m. More info here.
Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979)
Emagine Willow Creek
Well, who does want to be taught to be a fool? $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Days of Thunder (1990)
Grandview 1&2
His name is Cole Trickle lol. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting (1982)
Trylon
Assia Djebar challenges myths about colonialism in the Maghgreb. Shown with the 1969 short Monangambee. Presented by Mizna. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Between the Temples
A doubt-riddled cantor's old music teacher wants to convert to Judaism.
Blink Twice
Zoë Kravitz is a director now.
The Crow
Nah.
Decoded
A Chinese movie starring John Cusack.
The Forge
New Jesus movie just dropped.
Strange Darling
A surreal serial killer movie. A surreal killer?
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Cuckoo
You can only go so wrong with Hunter Schafer as a moody teen (who plays bass in a band that sounds like the Raveonettes?) and Dan Stevens in his latest weird manifestation as a creepy German toodling on a little wooden recorder. (Every time Stevens says “Gretchen” you’ll be glad you showed up.) Throw in a red-eyed, time-loop-inducing baddie that the credits accurately call “The Hooded Lady” and an creepily atmospheric Bavarian lodge and you’ve got the makings of... well, of something a little more haunting than what writer/director Tilman Singer concocts here. As with so much post-Dobbs horror, there’s a struggle for the womb here, but for all its inspired nastiness, Cuckoo is a little scattershot, and not in a “hold on to your seats” way—Singer doesn’t seem to have a firm grip on the reins, and the more info that’s divulged, the more questions you’ll have about what’s going on. Sometimes in horror, as in politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. B
Dìdi
The semi-nostalgic coming-of-age comedies aren’t creeping closer to the present, you’re just getting older. Sean Wang’s directorial debut is calibrated to trigger feelings of sheepish relatability in any late millennial who ever had second thoughts about the instant message they almost sent or creeped on a crush’s Facebook page so they could lie about their favorite movie. But Dìdi stands apart in one significant way: its teen hero Chris (Izaac Wang) is a first generation Taiwanese-American, his adolescent awkwardness compounded by the culture gap with his well-meaning mom (Joan Chen). As Chris navigates the limbo that is the summer between middle and high school, he splits away from his old pals and starts shooting video for some older skaters while flirting with a girl who finds him “cute for an Asian.” A justifiable crowd-pleaser, with moments of secondhand embarrassment and uncomfortable laughter—you’ve seen a lot of this before. But you’ve never seen it quite like this. Generic it ain’t. B+
Inside Out 2
Inside Out’s model of the human psyche was something only Pixar could have dreamt up (derogatory): Your brain is an office staffed with project managers jockeying for control of your emotional responses. Despite the corporatized determinism at its core, the 2015 movie worked dramatically because its story of a Minnesota girl named Riley played off adult sympathies for distressed children in the sort of pitiless, heart-wrenching way that only Pixar can (complimentary, I think?). In this noisy, chaotic follow up, Riley enters adolescence and a new emotion, Anxiety, shows up to the job. The upstart feeling stages a coup, literally bottles up Joy and other inconvenient emotions, and constructs Riley’s sense of self based wholly on the perception of others. There’s so much focus on the internal conflict here that Riley becomes a puppet yanked too and fro, and the emotional dynamics make no sense even on their own terms. C+
Longlegs
There’s good dread (the kind you feel about what might happen next during an effective atmospheric build up) and then there’s bad dread (the kind that makes you feel that things are just going to keep getting sillier after someone mentions Satan for the first time). The two duke it out to a draw in writer/director Osgood Perkins’s debut, which—hype and box office and Nicolas Cage aside—cries out not for hyperbole but for weak critical fudge words like “ambitious” and “uneven.” Performances are solid all around, from Elevated Scream Queen Meika Monroe as an intuitive and emotionally reserved FBI agent to Blair Underwood making a welcome return as her boss to Alicia Witt doing what she can as a harbinger of the silliness to come. As for Cage, he’s (for the most part) genuinely creepy rather than merely Cagey. But echoes of thrillers past (notably The Silence of the Lambs) do not prove flattering. Me, I left deflated rather than spooked. B-
Sing Sing
From trailers (I know!) I mistook this worthy project for pure Colman Domingo Oscar-bait (which wouldn’t exactly make it unworthy). In fact, Domingo’s production company centers this film on the Sing Sing Correctional Facility’s real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts theater program, and most of the cast are formerly incarcerated RTA alums. Domingo is Divine G, a stalwart of the RTA’s productions who’s certain he’ll be sprung after his next parole board hearing. His clashes with a tough newcomer to the program (an incredibly charismatic Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin) to form the dramatic backbone here. Even if you’re a bit leery of art as therapy, watching these men learn to communicate emotionally with one another is moving, and their faces are made for the screen. (Will we ever have enough decent film dramas for all the great unsung Black actors out there?) But Domingo hits some off notes. He remains too commanding a presence (the bass notes in his voice make me want to watch his films in Dolby) to blend in with the ensemble, and while I wouldn’t say he turns in a bad performance, his moments do feel the least authentic. Almost like he’s angling for an Oscar. B
Thelma
A nonegenarian (June Squibb) gets scammed online and then tracks down the evildoers to get her money back—it’s kinda like The Beekeeper if Phylicia Rashad hadn’t needed Statham to avenge her. Squibb is generally wonderful as the plucky old gal, but despite some cute moments the whole shebang still felt a little too “hooray for the aged” overall. For me, that is. Everyone seems to love this movie. Maybe my experience was flavored by an excessively enthusiastic MSPIFF crowd? Or maybe I really do expect too much from movies? B-
Twisters
Twister may not be quite the summer classic that anyone who wasn’t old enough to vote in 1996 thinks it is, but it knew what it was and what it was supposed to do. This not-really-a-sequel (unless every movie about a shark is a Jaws sequel) is a bigger mess than a small Oklahoma town after an EF5. It can't really be about climate change because blockbusters have to be carefully nonpartisan, but it can’t not be about climate change because why else (as everyone in this movie is constantly saying) are there more tornadoes than ever. The goofiest part is that the chasers keep abandoning storms to instead rush into threatened towns to "help," i.e. telling everyone to get away from windows and get into the basement, which, sorry, but if you live in tornado alley and don't already know that you deserve to get swooped up into the sky. As Normal People and Hit Man showed, both Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell are better actors than they are movie stars. He needs to find another auteur to cast him against type instead of passing off his permasquint and smackably handsome grin as charisma; she needs to star in a Jane Austen adaptation or a Paddington sequel or something because I don’t believe she could find Oklahoma on a map. This will make enough money that neither of those things will ever happen, and I bet director Lee Isaac Chung never makes another Minari either. Meanwhile we’ll probably lose the National Weather Service. C+
