I am slowly catching up on new releases now that MSPIFF no longer commandeers my watching house. This week's reviews include four film fest holdovers: Exit 8, Normal, The Stranger, and Two Prosecutors. Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers and David Lowery's Mother Mary are on deck for me as I decide if I hate myself enough to endure the brand rehab disguised as a biopic Michael. But also, two of my all-time fave highbrow flicks are screening this week, both adventurous romps: the Soviet avant-garde doc Man With a Movie Camera and Jacques Rivette's loopy Céline and Julie Go Boating.
Special Screenings
Thursday, April 23
Face/Off (1997)
Alamo Drafthouse
Travolta! Cage! Or is that vice versa? $13.99. 7 p.m. More info here.
A Few Good Men (1992)
Emagine Willow Creek
I think I could probably handle the truth. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Rope (1948)
Heights Theater
The body’s right there in the room! $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
A Land Within (2025)
Main Cinema
A story of ethnic tensions in an Italian border region with a German-speaking majority. $13. 1 p.m. More info here.
Colors of Time (2025)
Main Cinema
Four cousins inherit a family home in Normandy. $17. 4 p.m. More info here.
Threshold (2026)
Main Cinema
A documentary about Jessie Diggins. $17. 7 p.m. More info here.
Gol[e] Sorkh (2026)
Walker Art Center
The latest from Iranian director Maryam Tafakory, presented along with two of her other recent films, (Daria’s Night Flowers) and Razeh-del. $15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, April 24
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
Alamo Drafthouse
Apparently Godzilla catches on fire in this one? $10.99. 3:15 p.m. Saturday 12:15 p.m. Sunday Noon and 2:45 p.m. Monday 4 p.m. More info here.
La Vallée des fous (2024)
Alliance Française
A dedicated sailor enters an online regatta. Free (donation requested). 6 p.m. More info here.
The Evil Dead (1981)
AMC Southdale 16
Damn near redefined the horror flick. $7. 8 p.m. More info here.
Event Horizon (1997)
Heights Theater
Hey, they stole that title from Racket! $13. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
Miami Vice (2006)
Trylon
Guys in my high school used to share tips about how to shave to get Don Johnson’s stubble. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:45 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:45 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, April 25
Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape (2023)
Alamo Drafthouse
A selection of the late internet artist’s work. $13.99. 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Miss Congeniality (2000)
Alamo Drafthouse
Michael Caine teaches Sandra Bullock to wear a dress. $17. 3 p.m. More info here.
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
Alamo Drafthouse
Not even gonna pretend I remember which one this is. $13.99. 6:15 p.m. Thursday 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Speed Racer (2008)
Emagine Willow Creek
The Wachowskis’ overwhelming, Taco Mike-approved live-action cartoon. Also Sunday and Wednesday. $11. 3:15 & 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025)
Emagine Willow Creek
Happy 80th birthday, Tim Curry. $13. 9:50 p.m. More info here.
Ponyo (2008)
Heights Theater
Miyazaki’s G-rated version of The Shape of Water. $13. 11:30 a.m. More info here.
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (2004)
Heights Theater
Guessing you’re supposed to be high for this? $13. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
Diary of Madmen (2024)
Trylon
An independent production by director Dmitry Krymov. $20. 1 p.m. More info here.
Year of the Cat (2025)
Trylon
A filmmaker searches for traces of his father, who disappeared during the fall of Saigon. Free. 4 p.m. More info here.
Be Kind Rewind (2008)
Walker Art Center
The Middle School Movie Club returns. Free. 1 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, April 26
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
AMC Rosedale 14/Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Choose your Lecter: Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins. Also Wednesday. Showtimes, prices, and more info here.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Grandview 1&2
Men be decent to Teri Garr in one movie challenge. Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Man With the Movie Camera (1929)
Heights Theater
Dziga Vertov’s avant-garde adventure still feels ahead of its time. Accompanied by Paul Metzger on his modified banjo? I’m in. $20. 11:30 a.m. More info here.
The Green Knight (2021)
Lagoon Cinema
The poem’s funnier. $11. 2 p.m. More info here.
Speed Racer (2008)
Marcus West End
This movie is everywhere these days. 6:40 p.m. Monday 7:25 p.m. More info here.
Trainspotting (1996)
Roxy’s Cabaret
I like the part where they have fun doing drugs better than the second part. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Public Enemies (2009)
Trylon
Filmed in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. $8. 8:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Monday, April 27
Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974)
Alamo
The epitome of the greatest film genre: Two wacky European gals have avant-garde escapades. $13.99. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
American Graffiti (1973)
Edina Mann
George Lucas invents boomer nostalgia. Also Wednesday. $12.12. 7 p.m. More info here.
One Cut of the Dead (2017)
Emagine Willow Creek
A Japanese film crew sets out to make a zombie flick in one take. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, April 28
Boys Go to Jupiter (2024)
Alamo Drafthouse
The animated adventures of a Florida teen trying to rustle up $5K. $7. 7 p.m. More info here.
Is God Is (2026)
Alamo Drafthouse
Advance screening of Aleshea Harris’s story of two sisters seeking revenge. $13.99. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Driller Killer (1979)
Alamo Drafthouse
You’ll never guess what this one’s about. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
Power to the People: John and Yoko in New York City (2026)
Lagoon Cinema/Marcus West End
Rock out with the original power (to the people) couple. Lagoon: $15.50. 7 p.m. More info here. Marcus: $15.50. 7:25 p.m. More in here.
Wednesday, April 29
The Hidden (1987)
Emagine Willow Creek
Kyle McLaughlin tracks down an alien turning humans into criminals. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Hellavision Television Presents: Cuntavision 2 (2026)
Main Cinema
Sorry, I still feel weird even typing out the C-word, let alone saying it. $11. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, April 30
The Princess and the Frog (2009)
Granada
The latest edition of Taste the Movies. Sold out. 6 p.m. More info here.
The American President (1995)
Emagine Willow Creek
What if a president didn’t have a wife (and wasn’t gay like James Buchanan)? $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
North by Northwest (1959)
Heights Theater
The funnest Hitchcock? Probably! In 70mm. $19. 7 p.m. More info here.
Days and Nights in the Forest (1970)
Trylon
Archives on Screen brings us a recently restored Satyajit Ray film. $8. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
Desert Warrior
A princess flees into the desert and becomes, yes, a warrior.
Eagles of the Republic
This thriller is the final installment in Tarik Saleh’s Cairo Trilogy.
Fight Club
Back in theaters, and in 4K.
Fuze
An unexploded bomb leads to an evacuation of London.
I Swear
The story of John Davidson—the Tourette’s activist, not the That’s Incredible! Host.
Michael
Oh don’t worry, all that other stuff will be addressed in Michael 2.
Mother Mary
Yes! Keep putting Michaela Coel in movies.
Over Your Dead Body
Samara Weaving and Jason Siegel are a husband and wife out to kill each other.
The Stranger
"Great butts" may not be a comment you’d expect to hear about a Camus adaptation, but it’s hardly the first time I’ve made it about a François Ozon film. The libertine French director’s Meursault is Benjamin Voisin, who made his mark in Ozon’s Summer of 85 and then held his own at the center of the 2021 Balzac adaptation Lost Illusions. Voisin has the look of a lippy sensualist, whether he’s enduring his mother’s funeral, distractedly fucking the woman who inexplicably adores him, or sealing his fate by shooting an Arab. In other words, he seems impeccably French in attitude and style, as does the film itself, shot as it is in a stylized black and white by cinematographer Manu DacosseI—Dennis Levant even shows up to do his weird-little-guy act. And if the film’s requisite 21st century postcolonial framing can feel a little studied, so can the novel’s postwar absurdism, non? (Another sign of the times: When I typed “Is Meursault” and Google completed “autistic” before I got it—apparently there’s a whole literature on the question.) A-
Two Prosecutors
The law moves slowly, they say, but not nearly as slowly as the latest from Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. Across a series of prolonged scenes, a young, idealistic prosecutor in the 1930s Soviet Union (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) uncovers the false imprisonment and torture of an upstanding Party member by the secret police and decides to bring it to the attention of the higher ups. Loznitsa captures the banality of totalitarianism, with lots of waiting around for meetings and chummy backslapping as each authority figure humors our naive hero along the way. We humor him as well, knowing as we do that everything the prosecutor disdains is according to Stalin’s design. The conclusion, which splits the difference between tragic inevitability and delayed predictability, doesn’t shock, but does satisfy in its grim way. B+
Whisper of the Heart
A young girl has typically Ghibli-like adventures.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Exit 8—ends April 23
Sorry, but I don’t want to hear anybody call the arty-ass (ahem, contemplative) cin-e-mah that I recommend “boring” ever again, not with this repetitive video-game adaptation making Béla Tarr look like Baz Luhrmann. After learning that he knocked up his ex-girlfriend, our hero, the Lost Man, is trapped in a subway tunnel and has to uncover the rules that will allow him to escape to the surface via, yes, Exit 8. Every time he screws up, it’s back to Exit 0. And screw up he does: I know “watching people play video games” is now a supposedly fun thing to do, but is “watching people play video games badly”? The production design is suitably alienating in a Cineplex Kubrick way, but the genuinely freaky moments are too few. Oh, and Exit 8 is About Something: the importance of protecting children and assuming adult responsibility, a lesson that maybe people who spend a lot of time watching others play video games will find more educational than I did. B-
Normal
Look, I’m genuinely happy that Bob Odenkirk has found his unlikely place as an everyman action hero. And his latest, directed by action-comedy pro Ben Wheatley, even has a dubious local angle: It’s based in Minnesota (though shot in Winnipeg). Fun cast too: Henry Winkler as the mayor of a small town that’s made a deal with the yakuza and Lena Headey as a rough and tumble bar owner in addition to Odenkirk as the interim sheriff who stumbles across this shady situation and tries to set things right. As the town rallies to protect its golden goose, there are a few neat twists, a few bloody fun moments, and even kind of a political message—how else can small towns survive in this economic climate? But I’ve personally had my fill of the kind of action flicks that settle for quirky instead of delivering actual laughs. B-
Project Hail Mary
Anyone who has a heart will love this adorably techno-optimistic film about Ryan Gosling buddying up with an intelligent alien who looks like a rock as they save the galaxy together. I guess so, anyway—I’m extrapolating from the fact that even a soulless monster like me thought it was pretty cute. Interstellar parasites are gobbling up the stars, including our sun, and as will happen when the Earth is in danger, only a middle school science teacher can save the day. Ryland Grace (which sounds like a name Gosling would give if he wanted to check into a hotel in secret) is recruited by a grim German bureaucrat (the great Sandra Hüller, who deserves all the Hollywood blockbuster cash that comes her way) to research these solar gluttons. His insights prove so invaluable he’s sent on a suicide mission to the only star that’s proven impervious to the baddies to learn how to counteract them. There he meets an alien scientist on the same quest for his own world, who he dubs Rocky, and both species work together to etc. etc. as their unique friendship and so on and so forths. Drew Goddard’s script, adapted from the much-loved Andy Weir novel, has the same plucky scientific spirit as Goddard’s script of Weir’s The Martian, and Gosling remains likeable as ever, though I do wish he’d find some new ways to be likeable. The pleased laughter all around me at the screening was so delightful I felt left out a little. Maybe someday when the wizard grants me a heart I’ll give this another go. B
