Happy August, everyone. Let me put in a special word this week for the truly madcap Midnight at The Heights. I'm also curious about Sound Unseen's Juggalo-embedded Off Ramp at the Trylon. And any chance to see Lawrence of Arabia on a big screen shouldn't be passed up. Same goes for Seven Samurai. Pretty good week!
Special Screenings
Thursday, August 8
RiffTrax Live: Point Break (1991)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Yuk it up with the RiffTrax crew. Recorded live at the State Theatre in July. Also Tuesday. $16.28. 7 p.m. More info here.
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Emagine Willow Creek
Meatballs falling from the sky? Preposterous. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Bullitt (1968)
Grandview 1&2
It really is a great car chase. Also Sunday. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Midnight (1939)
The Heights
Mitchell Leisen’s undersung screwball comedy is built from synopsis-defying twists and turns and also features Don Ameche as a Hungarian. An absolute must-see. $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Parkway Theater
Starring Frankie Cosmos's dad. $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Migration (2023)
Riverview Theater
A family of ducks accidentally visit NYC—and learn a little something about themselves. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Attack of the Meth Gator (2024)
Trylon
Suck it, cocaine bear. $8. 5 p.m. More info here.
Friday, August 9
Jaws (1976)
Lake Harriet
Remember when the outdoor movies didn't start till 9? Free. 8:30 p.m. More info here.
Seven Samurai (1954)
Main Cinema
That's too many samurai! All week. $10. 2 & 7 p.m. More info here.
An American in Paris (1951)
Orchestra Hall
Great Gershwin tunes performed by the Minnesota Orchestra. Also Saturday. $45-$95. 7 p.m. More info here.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Riverview Theater
Sorry, but some people just don't belong together. Also Saturday. $5. 10:30 p.m. More info here.
The Watermelon Woman (1996)
Trylon
The first feature film directed by a Black lesbian, and more than that. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, August 10
The Iron Giant (1999)
Emagine Willow Creek
This one made my niece cry so hard when she was little. $9. 12:30 & 6 p.m. Sunday 12 & 5 p.m. Wednesday 11:50 & 5:20 p.m. More info here.
Vanya
Main Cinema
A reworking of Chekov's Uncle Vanya, filmed live at the National Theatre. $20. 11 a.m. More info here.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Parkway Theater
Mel Brooks made this and Blazing Saddles in the same year. $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Trust in Love (2024)
Trylon
A record producer's life is falling apart. $8. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, August 11
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
If you haven't seen David Lean's swishy, sandy epic on the big screen, you haven't seen it. $16.26. 1 & 7 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. More info here.
Saturday Night at the Baths (1975)
Emagine Willow Creek
The tagline is "You might forgive him if he were with another woman. Could you go one step further?" $10. 4 p.m. More info here.
Wish (2023)
Folwell Recreation Center
A young girl saves her kingdom with the help of a star. Free. 8:25 p.m. More info here.
Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds (2024)
Main Cinema
A wild French animated fantasy. $10. 4 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. More info here.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Parkway Theater
Where can he be???? $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
Breaking News (2004)
Trylon
A Johnnie To action drama about the media and the police working together. $8. 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Monday, August 12
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
Emagine Willow Creek
One of Roger Corman's classic Vincent Price-starring Poe adaptations. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
American Graffiti (1973)
The Heights
The movie that invented Boomer nostalgia. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
Jackson Square Park
Optimus Prime remains such a colossal fucking buzzkill. Free. 8:20 p.m. More info here.
Don't Turn Your Back on Friday Night (2024)
Parkway Theater
Premiere of a doc about MN-adored rocker Ike Reilly, followed by a Q&A and performance. $25/$30. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, August 13
Grown Ups (2010)
Father Hennepin Bluff Park
Men! They just never grow up, do they? Free. 8:20 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys (2022)
Riverview Theater
Animal villains try to go straight. Also Wednesday. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Wednesday, August 14
Porgy & Bess
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
The Met's 2020 staging of the Gershwin opera. $16.35. 1 & 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Wonka (2023)
The Commons
More like "Wanka," amirite? Free. 8:20 p.m. More info here.
Secret Movie Night
Emagine Willow Creek
No, I don't know what it is—it's a secret! $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Grandview 1&2
In this economy? $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
North Loop Green
A Minnesota classic. Free. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Off Ramp (2023)
Trylon
A Juggalo crime-drama. Presented by Sound Unseen. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Borderlands
Cate Blanchett stars in a movie adapted from a video game, directed by Eli Roth. What a strange sentence.
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
Dance First
Gabriel Byrne is Samuel Beckett, for some reason.
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+
It Ends With Us
There's a character in this movie named "Atlas Corrigan."
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
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-
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+
