Unless you are absolutely in need for a new dinosaur movie this weekend, I'd advise against Jurassic World Rebirth. Plenty else to watch this week though. If you noticed a bunch of people slotting Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love in their top films of the 21st century recently, well, guess what? It's showing at the Main this weekend. Oh, and though this isn't a streaming column, I gotta say that Sinners and On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, both coming to Max this Friday, would make for a great weekend double feature.
Special Screenings
Thursday, July 3
Attack the Block (2011)
Alamo Drafthouse
John Boyega and his pals defend their 'hood from alien invaders. $13.99. 7:50 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys (2022)
Emagine Willow Creek/Riverview Theater
They’re not really “guys”—they’re animals. They are bad though. Emagine: $3. 11 a.m. More info here. Riverview: $1. 10:45 a.m. More info here.
eXistenZ (1999)
Emagine Willow Creek
Cronenberg does VR. $11.60. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Heights
Nobody’s perfect. $13. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)
Marcus West End
Sonic is back—and he’s still a hedgehog. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Outsiders (1983)
Parkway Theater
Every cute guy from the ’80s in one place. $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Jurassic Reborn (2025)
Trylon
Sounds legit. $8. 10 a.m. More info here.
The Invisible String (2012)
Trylon
A history of the Frisbee. $12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, July 4
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)
Emagine Willow Creek
Shawn Mendes singing Pasek and Paul songs? Sometimes it’s good not to have kids. Through Wednesday. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)
Trylon
Protect us, Godzilla! $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, July 5
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/B&B Bloomington/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
And somehow people still kept forming rock bands after this. Through Monday. Showtimes, prices, and more info here.
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Main Cinema
Best dresses ever. $11 3:30 p.m. More info here.
Happy Gilmore (1996) + Eegah (1962)
Main Cinema
The Adam Sandler golf romp, plus the story of a caveman discovered in the desert. Part of Midnight Mayhem. $11. 10 p.m. More info here.
Scream It Off Screen
Parkway Theater
Read all about it here. $13/$19. 8 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, July 6
Aftersun (2023)
Grandview 1&2
A sad one. A great one. $14.44. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Garfield Movie (2024)
Marcus West End
Garfield has a dad? No he doesn’t. That isn’t true. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Great Dictator (1940)
Trylon
Ron Rosenbaum: “Chaplin made a movie that did nothing but help Hitler because he made him seem like an unthreatening clown just at a time, 1940, when the world needed to take Hitler’s threat seriously.” Discuss. $8. 7 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Monday, July 7
The Bad Guys (2022)
Alamo Drafthouse
In case you missed this at Emagine or the Riverview. $7. 12 p.m. Through Wednesday. More info here.
Rabid (1977)
Emagine Willow Creek
Early Cronenberg. $7.60. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Heights
Like Wicked, but with good songs. $16. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
$5 Secret Movie
Lagoon Cinema
What could it be? $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)
Painter Park
Barry Jenkins, what are you doing? Free. 9:05 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, July 8
Slither (2006)
Alamo Drafthouse
Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks battle icky aliens. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
Moana 2 (2024)
Hiawatha School Park
Sorry, but sequels should have cool subtitles like On the Move. Free. 9 p.m. More info here.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Parkway Theater
Never heard of it. $9/$12. Costume contest at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Migration (2023)
Riverview Theater
Some ducks have a crazy vacation. Also Wednesday. $1. 10:45 a.m. More info here.
Wednesday, July 9
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
The Commons
They should start turning classics into teen movies again. Free. 9 p.m. More info here.
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Edina 4
If they made this movie today, it would be set in 2008. $14.44. 7 p.m. More info here.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Emagine Willow Creek
Yep, I'm gonna mention the abortion every time I list this. $12.60. 4:50 & 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Secret Movie Night
Emagine Willow Creek
Almost sold out! $11.60. 7 p.m. More info here.
Harley Flanagan: Wired for Chaos (2025)
Trylon
Doc about the leader of NY punk band the Cro-Mags. Presented by Sound Unseen. $15. 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Familiar Touch
A woman's life changes when she moves into assisted living.
40 Acres
Danielle Deadwyler defends her home in post-apocalyptic times.
Jurassic World Rebirth
Well, at least now we know why the dinosaurs went extinct—they couldn’t hunt for shit. I mean, one predator here not only fails to gobble up a child hiding under a life raft, but the loser can’t even pop the raft. Godzilla director Gareth Edwards and original Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp (who I’ll just note is also responsible for the Indiana Jones duds The Dial of Destiny and The Crystal Skill) were called upon to right this series seven installments in, but the best they can dream up is an island of mutant dinosaurs like the Distortus Rex and the Mutadon. Plotwise, a team of mercenaries organized by Scarlett Johansson (who must have serious gambling debts or something) is dispatched to collect blood samples from the three largest breeds of dinosaurs, a key ingredient in a cure for heart disease. En route, the adventurers rescue a family that’s crossing the Atlantic on a sailboat, because the pictures needs children to imperil. The pro-forma backstory these characters are given is worse than none at all—a friend of Johansson’s Zora Bennett was blown up by a Yemen car bomb so she’s ready to retire, Mahershala Ali’s Duncan Kincaid lost his son so he wants to protect children (he’d let them die otherwise?). But it’s hard to care what happens to these people unless you’re just opposed in principle to the idea of make-believe humans being eaten by make-believe dinosaurs. C
3BHK
An Indian family wants to buy a home.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Ballerina
The full official title is From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, but it’s not my job to do PR for yet another IP extension that flails around for two hours in search of a reason for existing. I’ll admit, many of the action sequences (grenades! flamethrowers! kitchen utensils!) are more imaginative than I’d expect from director Len Wiseman, best known as Kate Beckinsale’s ex-husband and second-best known as the auteur behind the Underworld vampire movies, which were essentially an excuse to ensconce Beckinsale in latex. (I mean, there are worse ideas.) Once we’ve trudged through tiresome exposition and Ana de Armas’s vengeful death-machine Eve makes it to a quiet mountain village where everyone turns out to be a killer, Ballerina approaches something like fun. But this is just not the right vehicle for de Armas. Keanu Reeves’s glum zen stoicism perfectly anchored the mayhem around him in the other Wick movies, but who would watch de Armas’s brief, delightfully glam turn in No Time to Die and prefer to see her trudging through rehashed lore as a dour assassin? And yes, Keanu does appear in Ballerina—though I’m not sure anyone told him he did. B-
Friendship
Some comedy punches up. Some comedy punches down. Tim Robinson punches himself in the face. Though written and directed by Andrew DeYoung, this is essentially a 100-minute I Think You Should Leave skit, as both admirers and skeptics have agreed. So how long can an audience endure the presence of a character so one-dimensional that nobody else on screen can put up with him? About 100 minutes, I’d say. With his hawk nose and arsenal of unsettling stares, Robinson is a walking punchline; here he’s Craig Waterman, a marketing director with no apparent interests or skills. That changes when he meets his new neighbor, a dynamic TV weatherman named Austin (Paul Rudd), who invites Craig into his circle then understandably cuts the obsessive weirdo off. Now won over to the idea of doing things with other people, a jilted Craig tries to pattern his life after Austin, only to alienate his coworkers, poison himself, and endanger his wife—he’s kind of the mirror image of Nathan Fielder, but instead of carefully rehearsing how a person behaves to fit into social situations, Craig thinks he can skip the hard work and just skate by as a mimic. Friendship doesn’t so much satirize modern masculinity as satirize anyone who thinks they might have something to say about modern masculinity. And where most comics, no matter how abrasive, deep down want you to love them, Robinson never softens Craig or asks for sympathy. He’s committed to the bit. A-
The Life of Chuck
Tom Hiddleston is one of many talented actors who profitably allowed the MCU to Thanos-snap away the prime of his career, and from the looks of The Life of Chuck he doesn’t seem like he’ll be back to doing quietly intense Joanna Hogg films anytime soon. In this razzle-dazzle puzzle of a heart-tugger he’s Chuck Krantz, a mysterious accountant who turns out not to be so mysterious after all. Once the film pulls the metaphysical rug out from under a resonantly apocalyptic first act, The Life of Chuck stacks the deck in the interests of life-affirming profundity so gratuitously you can tell it’s lying to itself. There’s a good reason I don’t turn to Stephen King for the profound or Mike Flanagan for the life-affirming (or vice versa). Though seeing both Mia Sara and Heather Langenkamp as old ladies certainly does confront the middle-aged among us with intimations of mortality, the inexorable passage of time, and all that jazz. C+
Materialists
Well now, someone finally figured out what to do with Dakota Johnson. As Lucy, a get-’em-girl NYC matchmaker, the self-possessed daze that Johnson inescapably floats around in makes an eerie sense—she’s a true believer in her product, convinced that data points can substitute for intangibles. Hell, I’d hand her my business card too. Her sales instinct attracts a wealthy suitor (Pedro Pascal) but she can’t shake an unprofitable attraction to her ex (an unglammed Chris Evans), an actor who does catering or vice versa. The first third bubbles along winningly, though things get predictably wobbly once Johnson has to impersonate a human. But as a Celine Song skeptic who considered the characterizations in Past Lives too vague, I’m surprised by how much speechifying the writer/director allows her love triangulators here: People haul off with monologues about who they truly are so often its like being trapped in a city solely populated by Crash Davises. I wish I could say you’ll be surprised who Lucy ends up with, but though Song eventually knocks the matchmaker’s rickety ideology out from under her, the film settles for romantic mystification rather than working toward some compromised realism. Am I saying Materialists is insufficiently dialectical? Not just that, comrades—it’s insufficiently materialist. B
M3GAN 2.0
Complaints that there’s no horror here and not enough action are valid, but there are plenty of laughs to compensate. While the trailer did have me fearing that writer/director Gerard Johnstone would take this too over the top, even the painfully convoluted plot is part of the fun. With the murderous M3GAN (voiced more bitchily than ever by Jenna Davis) safely dispatched (OR IS SHE?), her creator, Gemma (a still pitch-perfect Allison Williams), pivots to warning about the dangers of tech, while M3GAN’s BFF (emphasis on the second “F”) Cady (who’s looking like a young Shannen Doherty here) takes up taekwondo and starts idolizing Steven Seagal. But when a sexy, militarized lady droid (Ivanna Sakhno) goes rogue, it takes a fembot to catch a fembot, and in true T2 fashion M3GAN allies with the good gals (OR DOES SHE?) Along the way we get Jemaine Clement (with a prosthetic chest?) as a loathsome tech oligarch clumsily attempting a seduction to the exotic sounds of Les Baxter, a M3GAN musical number that at least equals “Titanium” and “Toy Soldiers,” and Timm Sharp doing a great turn as a dim, smug fed. “Don't go looking for an incisive commentary on AI,” warns a critic at Total Film—seriously, what is wrong with some people? Sorry if it’s not The Godfather Part II of killer doll sequels, you absolute nerds. B+
Mission: Impossible–The Final Reckoning
How is it that the only prominent person in this dumb country suspicious of AI seems to be Tom Fuckin’ Cruise? The most consistent action franchise this side of John Wick wraps up (or does it?—you really think that peppy lil guy is about to retire?) with Cruise’s agent Ethan Hunt fighting to prevent an all-powerful artificial intelligence called The Entity from starting a nuclear war. But The Final Reckoning is no more immune to bloat than any other blockbuster—you could lop a full half-hour of talking from this nearly three-hour adventure and no one would be the wiser. The script hunts for loose ends from previous installments just to tie them up, and the supporting cast is uneven—if Pom Klementieff has a truly fierce shooting-people face, Esai Morales remains a nonentity of a villain. By next month, you’ll remember The Final Reckoning as the MI where Tom hunts through a nuclear sub at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and climbs around on a biplane as the wind resistance does weirder things to his face than Vanilla Sky. Both incredible set pieces, worth the price of admission even. But you’ll probably forget most of the rest. I already have. B
The Phoenician Scheme
As a lukewarm Wes Anderson apologist, I take no joy in reporting that this chuckle-eliciting puzzle box is essentially the movie the dandy director’s haters accuse him of constantly remaking. Benicio del Toro is Zsa Zsa Korda, an apparently assassin-proof international power broker with a knack for wrangling slave labor and inciting famine. Following his latest near death encounter, Korda embarks on facilitating his final, most ambitious project, accompanied by his daughter and potential heir, a moonfaced and expressionless would-be novitiate named Liesl (Mia Threapleton). Thing is, all his backers want out, and he’s got to wrangle and manipulate a collection of terrific bit players (hearing Jeffery Wright recite Anderson/Coppola dialogue is always a pleasure) into ponying up the dough. Threapleton is a perfect match for Anderson’s schtick, and the zany final showdown between del Toro and a bewhiskered Benedict Cumberbatch should cap a much funnier movie. But a handful of pleasing moments don’t add up to much, and we get far more of Michael Cera’s dazed turtle expressions than anyone needs in 2025. B-
Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s Jim Crow vampire flick is a truly rare thing: a wholly self-assured mess. Technically and narratively, Coogler knows exactly what he wants to do, whether or not you can keep up, and each of the performers are just as committed. You get Michael B. Jordan distinguishing the murderous twins Smoke and Stack without resorting to caricature, Delroy Lindo as an aged bluesman. Hailee Steinfeld as a seductive quadroon, Jack O'Connell as an undead banjoist, Wunmi Mosaku as a wise hoodoo woman, Saul Williams as a preacher with a new wave hairdo, and I could just keep going. They all populate a vividly simulated Clarksdale, Mississippi to which Jordan’s gangsters have returned to open a juke joint soon targeted by bloodsuckers—you could call this August Wilson’s From Dusk to Dawn. There are visual moments that split the diff between cornball and visionary (I truly did not know Autumn Durald Arkapaw had this in her) and more ideas—about Black spirituality and its vexed relationship to Christianity, about the social role of music, about integration as a deal with the devil—than your average multiplex sees in a whole summer. And if Coogler never slows down to develop those ideas, they still pack a conceptual wallop that complements the film's lived-in texture. This world is so engrossing that by the time the vamps come calling, I almost wished Coogler would just let his people have their one night undisturbed. But America’s not really like that, is it? A-
28 Years Later
Maybe I was just in a shitty mood (though I don’t remember being in one when I walked into the theater) but this Danny Boyle/Alex Garland reunion irritated the hell out of me. Could be Boyle’s affected jitter-glitch montage style, the aesthetic equivalent of a cheap jump scare, haphazardly splicing in newsreels, Olivier’s Henry V, and the music of Young Fathers, whose gritty beatcraft I generally appreciate on its own. Or could be that I resent films where characters plunge nonsensically into danger for reasons I’m supposed to consider noble. Along the way, you get Ralph Fiennes as a cuddlier Col. Kurtz, “alpha” zombies who pluck spinal cords out by the head (pretty cool), Jodie Comer adding another accent to her CV, and a newborn baby to symbolize how life overcomes death or whatever. “Pretentious” is generally a lazy insult for dummies, but what else do you call it when a film makes such a show of insisting it has achieved technical feats and reached emotional truths that remain far beyond its grasp? C+
