My weekend plans do not include the latest superhero team-up. Instead, I'm hitting Didi at the Trylon tonight, How to Survive a Plague (which I've never seen) at the Walker, and maybe I Am Cuba early next week. (The "maybe" is only because I've seen it on a big screen recently—if you haven't, you gotta check it out.) Also, I've added a review (in "Ongoing") of Oddity, which I liked better than some higher profile scary movies that I'll leave unnamed here.
Special Screenings
Thursday, July 25
Peter Rabbit (2018)
Emagine Willow Creek
This is no Spider-Man Spider-Verse movie. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Melancholia (2011)
Grandview 1&2
One of the all-time great movies about a depressed person. $12. 9:15 p.m. Sunday 11:59. More info here.
Secret Ceremony (1968)
The Heights
Elizabeth Taylor, Mia Farrow, and Robert Mitchum in a creepy film from undersung director Joseph Losey. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Flipside (2023)
Main Cinema
A filmmaker’s attempt to revive his childhood record store leads him to revisit several old documentary projects. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Riverview Theater
Hell yeah, it's a Spider-Verse summer. $1. 10:30 a.m. More info here.
Wonka (2023)
Target Field Station
Beware: Includes songs and singing. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Didi (2024)
Trylon
A Taiwanese-American boy learns about life from his friends in this Sundance audience fave. Presented by Sound Unseen. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, July 26
Youssef Salem a du succès (2022)
Alliance Française Mpls/St Paul
An author's best-selling book about his family causes personal complications. $10 donation requested. 6 p.m. More info here.
Best in Show (2000)
Loring Park
Woof! Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
Trolls Band Together (2023)
Lynhurst Park
Featuring the voice of beloved popular entertainer Justin Timberlake. Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
The Matrix (1999)
Riverview Theater
Never heard of it. Also Saturday. $5. 10:30 p.m. More info here.
Shark Warning (2024
Trylon
A movie about a killer shark—finally! $8. Friday, Sunday-Wednesday 1 p.m. Saturday 12 p.m. More info here.
Clearcut (1991)
Trylon
Graham Greene kidnaps a logger to stop the clear-cutting of First Nations land. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5 p.m. More info here.
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
Walker Art Center
David France's critically acclaimed documentary about ACT UP's response to the AIDS crisis. Also Saturday. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, July 27
Migration (2023)
Fuller Park
A family of ducks accidentally visit NYC—and learn a little something about themselves. Free. 8:40 p.m. More info here.
Purple Rain (1984)
Paisley Park/Target Center
Would you rather watch with hardcore fans or in a big ol' hockey arena of people? Paisley: $40 (includes pre-film tour). 7:30 p.m. More info here. Target Center: $19.99. 4:20 p.m. More info here.
Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Parkway Theater
Ah, the troubles of being a small business owner. $9/$12. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Parkway Theater
Will you people keep it down? I’m trying to watch the movie! With live shadow cast performance by Transvestite Soup. $10/$15. Midnight. More info here.
Sunday, July 28
Man and Witch: The Dance of a Thousand Steps (2024)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
A sequel to The NeverEnding Story, I guess? $11.94. 4 p.m. More info here.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Emagine Willow Creek
Yep, I'm gonna mention the abortion every time I list this. $9. 12 & 5 p.m. Wednesday 12:30 & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
I Am Cuba (1964)
Trylon
A cinematically ingenious look at life in pre-revolutionary Cuba. $8. Sunday-Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Monday, July 29
Day of the Animals (1977)
Emagine Willow Creek
Animals get mean as the ozone disappears. $6. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Godzilla (1954)
The Heights
Hey wait, where's Raymond Burr? $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Aquaman (2022)
Northeast Recreation Center
The fishiest superhero. Free. 8:40 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, July 30
The Starfish Throwers (2014)
Main Cinema
Celebrating the tenth anniversary of this documentary about ending hunger from Minnesota director Jesse Roesler, who will be in attendance. $10. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Trailer-O-Rama Presents: The History of Movies Part 1: 1939-1967
Parkway Theater
The trailer collectors play every trailer they own in chronological order! $10/$13. 8 p.m. More info here.
Wonka (2023)
Pearl Recreation Center
A summer classic, apparently. Free. 8:40 p.m. More info here.
Trolls Band Together (2023)
Riverview Theater
I could have sworn this came out like five years ago. Also Wednesday. $1. 10:30 a.m. More info here.
Wednesday, July 31
La Cenerentola
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
An encore screening of the Met's 2014 staging. $16.35. 1 & 6:30 p.m. More info here.
O Brother Where Art Thou (2000)
The Commons
Did you know that the Coen Brothers grew up in St. Louis Park? Free. 8:45 p.m. More info here.
Moonstruck (1987)
Grandview 1&2
Nic Cage ain't no freakin' monument to justice. He. Lost. His. Hand. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Boom! (1968)
The Heights
John Waters calls this Elizabeth Taylor film—his all-time favorite—"the greatest failed art movie ever." $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984)
Emagine Willow Creek
Remember Pia Zadora? $6. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Clueless (1995)
Luminary Arts Center
Top 5 Jane Austen adaptation. 7 p.m. $10. More info here.
Lyd (2023)
Main Cinema
An imaginative documentary look at the past and possible futures of a Palestinian city. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Deadpool & Wolverine
"‘Grown Men’ Were ‘Sobbing’ During ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Camera Tests Because Hugh Jackman Showed Up in Wolverine’s Yellow Suit"
The Fabulous Four
College friends reunite at a wedding.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
Exactly what it says.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
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 & Bilall 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
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-
MaXXXine
Live by the fanboy, die by the fanboy. Former Ti West enthusiasts are in such an indignant huff about the conclusion of the director’s slasher/porn trilogy you’d think he just dropped the The Godfather: Part III of meta-trash. But that just shows how much they overrated the two very good predecessors to this more-than-entertaining-enough finale—and how obsessed everyone has become with whether a series can (ugh, dreadful phrase) “stick the landing.” After all, isn’t the whole point of championing (once?) disparaged B-genres that they prize style and enthusiasm and straight-up entertainment over the bland artfulness of three-act Hollywood craft? Here, Mia Goth, the titular (insert Beavis snicker) Maxine Minx and the Final Girl from XXX, now a genuine porn star, has landed her first serious acting role. But her past… yes, if you guessed that it returns to haunt her, you get the idea. If the conclusion conceptually satisfies the thesis of West’s world (horror and porn have always driven film innovation and resisted American fundamentalism) but doesn’t quite satisfy audiences, well, sometimes theses be like that. But West vividly recreates the atmosphere of ’80s L.A. during the Night Stalker murder spree, the gore is first-rate, and almost every scene is stolen by a supporting performance: Elizabeth Debicki as a no-bullshit director, Bobby Cannavale as a cop given to tough-guy cliché, Giancarlo Esposito as a badass agent with a natural, and Kevin Bacon in full sleaze mode. If that doesn’t make for a diverting enough summer 1:45 for you, maybe termite art just ain’t your thing. B+
Oddity
What’s most unsettling about Damian Mc Carthy’s clever little puzzle of a thriller is that you can’t quite guess what the picture’s supposed to look like until all the pieces are in place—though you can be pretty sure once that big wooden statue of a man with a gaping mouth shows up that he’ll have a prominent position. Carolyn Bracken plays twins. One is murdered early in the film while restoring her creepy old house with no cell phone reception. The other is a blind psychic shopkeeper who traffics in the arcane and is displeased when the dead sister’s husband, a doctor at a mental hospital that seems to indulge in some 19th century therapeutic practices, takes up with a pharmaceutical rep less than a year after his wife’s death. The plot is a little baggy, a few of the characterizations too broad, the climax a little creaky. But we could use more modest little creepshows like this and fewer grand statements about horror. B+
Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot
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+
