Do the listings look shorter this week? That's because the Alamo Drafthouse in Woodbury closed permanently this morning with no notice after its franchise owner, Two is One, One is None, LLC, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. (Five North Texas theaters were also shut down.) I didn't make it out there much (kind of a haul from Minneapolis) but I appreciated their range of event screenings, most of which seemed to do well. And as someone who likes leaving his house to watch movies, I can't say this bodes well for the industry in general.
UPDATE: Per a spokesman for Alamo Drafthouse: "We are heartbroken for the franchisee’s teammates and the local film communities, however, we are working as quickly as possible to get Alamo Drafthouse Cinema back up and running in these cities." Anybody wanna buy a movie theater?
Special Screenings
Thursday, June 6
Paw Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Brackett Field Park
What part of ACAB don't you understand? Free. 8:56 p.m. More info here.
The Blackening (2024)
Capri Theater
A comic twist on horror films with an all-Black cast. $5 or free for north Minneapolis residents. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of Desert (1994)
Grandview 1&2
George Miller's next Mad Max should have drag queens. $12. 9:15 p.m. Saturday 11:59 p.m. More info here.
The Getaway (1972)
Heights Theater
Steve McQueen week continues at The Heights with Sam Peckinpah's take on the Jim Thompson novel. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Hundreds of Beavers (2024)
The Main Cinema
That's too many beavers! Sold out. 7 p.m. More info here.
9.8 (1982)
Trylon
This movie about a preacher who turns against TV was shot on 8mm film and funded with $15K from Film in the Cities. $8. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, June 7
Scream It Off Screen
Parkway Theater
The loudest film competition in town is back home from the Fitz. $13/$19. 8 p.m. More info here.
Sahara (1943)
Trylon
Bogie and the boys flee from Nazis in the desert. $8. 7 p.m. Saturday 9 p.m. Sunday 3 p.m. More info here.
Five Graves to Cairo (1943)
Trylon
That's too many graves! $8. 9 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. More info here.
Ratatouille (2007)
Van Cleve Recreation Center
Actually, critics are good, IMO. Free. 8:57 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, June 8
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Extended Edition (2001)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington 13/Emagine Willow Creek
A full 208 minutes and still no Tom Bombadil. $15.68. Showtimes and more info here.
The Motive and the Cue
The Main Cinema
Live from the National Theatre. $20. 11 a.m. More info here.
Westworld (1973)
Parkway Theater
In the immortal words of Stephen Malkmus, "Perhaps you saw me in Westworld/
I acted like a robotic cowboy/It was my best role/I can not deny, I/Felt right home deep inside/That electronic carcass." $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)
Summer Field Park
Where do we stand on Letitia Wright these days? Free. 8:30 p.m. More info here.
Reservation Dogs, Episodes 1–5
Walker Art Center
To prep for series creator Sterlin Harjo's lecture at the Walker next week, revisit the show's first five eps. (You have already watched it, right?) Free. 1 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, June 9
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: Extended Edition (2002)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington 13/Emagine Willow Creek
I hear in the "Extended Edition" they add a third tower. $15.68. Showtimes and more info here.
The Secret World of Arietty (2010)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Studio Ghibli's take on The Borrowers. $16.26. 3 & 7 p.m. Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Emagine Willow Creek
“The greatest movie of all time”—George F. Will, Washington Post, 1986. Also Wednesday. $9. 12 p.m. & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
The Watermelon Woman (1997)
Emagine Willow Creek
Cheryl Dunye's sharp, funny movie about video store clerk who wants to make a film about a forgotten Black actress of the 1930s. $10. 4 p.m. More info here.
'Round Midnight (1986)
Parkway Theater
Preceded by a tribute to Dexter Gordon and Herbie Hancock from the Larry McDonough Quartet. $10/$15. Music at 7. Movie at 8. More info here.
The Player (1992)
Trylon
Altman goes Hollywood. $8. 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Monday, June 10
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Extended Edition (2003)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington 13/Emagine Willow Creek
You're saying it could have been even longer? $15.68. Showtimes and more info here.
When Marnie Was There (2015)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek
Two girls strike up a summer friendship in this Studio Ghibli drama. Also Wednesday. $16.26. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Hunger (1983)
Emagine Willow Creek
Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon vamp it up. $6. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Artie Shaw: Time Is All You've Got (1985)
Heights Theater
The director of this acclaimed doc about the clarinet great will attend. $15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Hairspray (1988)
Washburn Fair Oaks
The good version. Free. 9 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, June 12
The Outsiders (1983)
The Commons
All your '80s crushes in one movie. Free. 9 p.m. More info here.
Secret Movie Night
Emagine Willow Creek
No, I can't tell you what it is—it's a secret! $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)
Grandview 1&2
Natasha Lyonne invents cheerleaders being gay. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Pride: Break the Game (2023)
The Main Cinema
The story of record-holding gamer Narcissa Wright, who lost her fanbase after coming out as trans. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Chuck Chuck Baby (2023)
Trylon
Two women fall in love in a Welsh chicken factory. Presented by Sound Unseen. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
No really, what we gonna do about this? Rebooted in 2020 with Moroccan-Belgian directing duo Adil & BilallIn honoring the bludgeoning legacy of Michael Bay, this franchise sticks to the basics: Two Miami cops banter and shoot people until it’s time to blow up something big. But the fourth installment in the series adds (ugh) heart, as Will Smith’s Mike and Martin Lawrence’s Marcus have to clear the name of their dead captain (Joe Pantoliano) after a cartel-adjacent thug (Eric Dane, aiming for sociopathic and hitting somnolent) posthumously frames him as dirty. In between wisecracks and explosions, I couldn’t help but wonder why these movies bum me out so much. Is it the abrupt shifts from comedy to sentimentality to brutality? The way they accentuate Smith’s most unattractive qualities as an actor (especially a smug self-righteousness)? The dreary sense that this is all people are really looking for from movies? I can’t deny that Bad Boys: Ride or Die does give the people what they want—the ladies behind me were practically giddy when an alligator ate the character they’d hoped he would. But if I had to pick, I’ll go with die. C
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara
A Jewish boy in 19th century Italy is stolen from his family by the Catholic Church and baptized.
Longing
Savi Gabizon remakes his 2017 Israeli film.
The Watchers
Just when I'd made my peace with nepo babies, M. Night Shyamalan's daughter makes a movie that sounds a whole lot like an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Challengers (read the full review here)
Mildly pervy Euro auteur Luca Guadagnino has concocted a sort of Jules et Jim for les enfants de TikTok et PRIME sports drinks, with Zendaya as the apex of a love triangle who reveals that the other two points—scurfy Josh O’Connor and submissive Mike Faist—also have the hots for each other. What Guadagnino gets about Zendaya is that she excels as an observer, a judgmental force that doubles as a relatable audience surrogate. If there’s something of the fashion model’s posture to her confidence, and a flatness to her characterization—she’s all impulse and response—Challengers allows us to postpone any hard questions about development as an actor because its pleasures are all so wonderfully superficial. You kids don’t know how good you’ve got it. Why in my day, we had to go to grad school, study Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and learn to read homosocial desire into seemingly “straight” fictions. What once was subtext is now reflected vividly in Zendaya’s shades. B+
Civil War
Alex Garland’s alt-history war flick is a very easy movie to pretend to think about, and the crosscurrent of opinions has proven once again that people are very bad at watching movies—are maybe not even sure why they watch movies to begin with. I’m sure you know the set up: The U.S. has splintered into four warring factions, and we’re not told why. (The absolute lack of world-building is an overdue slap in the face to loremongers and Vox explainer culture.) Kirsten Dunst is Lee Smith, a legendary photojournalist undergoing a crisis of conscience; Cailee Spaeny (so fresh-faced she looks like she cut chem lab to be there) is the young wannabe who latches onto her. Together they trek to D.C., hoping to arrive before it falls to insurgents, and they experience a string of Apocalypse Now-style episodic grotesqueries along the way. Like most modern war movies, Civil War thinks it’ll disabuse us of our romantic notions of battle; like most successful war movies, it works as entertainment rather than ethical treatise. We don’t want rocket launchers actually fired into the Lincoln Memorial any more than we actually want Tokyo to be flattened by giant lizards or teenage girls to be butchered by psychopaths. We want images of our anxieties and desires displayed in a context where we’re free of the moral obligation to decide which are the anxieties and which are the desires, because what’s happening is “just a movie.” Civil War is a film rightly distrustful of the power of images that nonetheless relies on the considerable power of its own images to work. Fortunately, nobody has ever said horror movies had to be ideologically coherent. 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 (Duned?) for Part 3. B+
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+
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Prequels, to use a technical cinematic term, suck. But if Origins of Furiosa is the movie George Miller has to make in order to shred more dudes underneath the wheels of a giant truck in a desert, who's gonna complain? Anya Taylor-Joy is winningly stoic as the title character, Alyla Browne even better as her even younger self, and Tom Burke (the posh junkie from Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir) is gallant as somebody named Praetorian Jack. As for Chris Hemsworth, still making good use of his freakishly enhanced Asgardian physique, he gets a few too many bits of scenery caught in his teeth as he chomps his way through the wasteland, but that's part of the fun. Worth it alone for the War Rig battle, the kind of sequence literally no other director would even think to film even if they knew how. A-
Haikyuu!! THE MOVIE: Decisive Battle at the Garbage Dump
In a Violent Nature
Director Chris Nash and his admirers aren’t doing themselves any favors by namedropping Malick and Tarr. Not just because this “ambient slasher” lacks the poetry of the former and the patience of the latter (as well as their respective flaws), but because for every pseud like me lured into the theater by that hype, there are a dozen horror fans who think that makes In a Violent Nature sound boring. Which it’s not. The film’s most distinctive moments—its long shots of Johnny, the film’s unstoppable force of vengeance, shown from the back, walking slowly and purposefully through the woods—are haunting and true to the genre. And Nash stages some truly remarkable kills here. But too often this feels like a formal exercise. Obviously no one goes to slashers for realism. But for them to really work, some part of your reptile brain does have to convince you to kind of not believe that you don’t believe what you’re seeing is real. B
I Saw the TV Glow (read the full review here)
Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun once again reconfigures the trans coming-out narrative as a horror story, as open to peril as to promise. Two teens growing up in the ’90s bond over a Buffy-style show; as the edges of supposed fiction and supposed reality blur, the knowledge they gain about their potential selves brings suffering, whether they accept or retreat from that insight. A jarring remix of ’90s kid culture, recollected in something less than tranquility, I Saw the TV Glow reinstates the TV as the box of ominous mystery it once was, solid enough not just to represent other worlds, but to contain them. The weird is familiarized, the familiar is enweirdened. And in Brigette Lundy-Paine and Justice Smith, Schoenbrun has two leads who know how to communicate within Lynchian blend of heightened mood and flattened affect. A-
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Thanks in part to Andy Serkis’s unparalleled gift for portraying a motion-captured being with nuance and sympathy, screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver somehow created a non-laughably epic saga out of an intelligent simian’s rise to power with their rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy. At least that’s how I remember it—this fourth installment (with frequent Jaffa/Silver collaborator Josh Friedman taking over the script) is so ape-by-numbers I’m kinda afraid to rewatch its predecessors. The plot concerns a struggle over the legacy of Serkis’s honorable Caesar (along with some nasty human weaponry), and as ever, the chimps are curious, the gorillas brutal, the orangutans wise, the humans deceptive. Despite a few fine action scenes, Kingdom is as humorless as the trilogy but without its grand sweep, as misanthropic but without its capacity to imagine looming disaster. I’ve always been leery of how these films toy with the eco-nihilist claim that Earth is better off without humans, but this sort of IP busywork does make me think twice. Will ape and human someday learn to live together in peace? Who gives a fuck? C+
