First, a bit of housekeeping. In an overdue change suggested a while back by a reader, this column now stretches over eight days, Thursday through Thursday. That'll help you plan your Thursday night better—especially since I always post this later than I expect. See, I'm always looking out for you!
Also, the Romanian Film Festival is at the Landmark Center this weekend. Tickets are free, and the lineup looks solid.
Oh, and finally, did I mention Jafar Panahi? One of the most consistent filmmakers of his generation has finally been permitted to work and travel again by the Iranian government (though the ban never exactly prevented Panahi from making movies). It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year, if you care about such things, opens at the Main on Friday. I'm a little excited, if you haven't noticed.
Special Screenings
Thursday, November 13
N’Ap Boule (2022)
Alliance Française
A short film about a family trying to find a safe place to have a baby in Haiti, followed by a discussion. Free; $10 donation requested. 6 p.m. More info here.
Retro Puppetmaster (1999)
Emagine Willow Creek
The folks from the Passages podcast present a terrible movie about puppets. $8.60. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
New Jack City (1991)
Grandview 1&2
Remember how cool Wesley Snipes used to be? $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Matter of Time (2025)
Marcus West End
Eddie Vedder organizes a benefit concert to fight the genetic disease Epidermolysis Bullosa. $12.50. 6:45 p.m. More info here.
Friday, November 14
The Lighthouse (2019)
Alamo Drafthouse
The best part of seeing The Lighthouse was the first time the lighthouse appeared on the screen and I whispered to Em, “That’s the lighthouse.” $20. 8 p.m. More info here.
Mountains on the Moon (2025)
Emagine Willow Creek
Skiing clips set to music from the Grateful Dead. $16.60. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Big Time (1988)
Trylon
All three screenings of this Tom Waits concert film are… Sold out. 7 p.m. Saturday 9:15 p.m. Sunday 3 p.m. More info here.
Down by Law (1986)
Trylon
Tonight there’s gonna be a jailbreak. $8. 9 p.m. Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 5 p.m. More info here.
Maliglutit (Searchers) (2016)
Walker Art Center
Director Zacharias Kunuk offers an Inuit take on the John Ford western. Also Saturday. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, November 15
Gumby (1956)
Alamo Drafthouse
Six episodes of the weird-ass stop motion classic. $10.99. 12 p.m. More info here.
Last Night to Login: OVERLORD 10th Anniversary Celebration
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
Watch (or re-watch) the first seven episodes of the anime series. $13.99. 7 p.m. More info here.
I Dream in Another Language (2017)
East Side Freedom Library
A linguist tries to learn about a dying language from two feuding old men. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Sound of Music (1965)
Emagine Willow Creek
When I saw this (for the first time ever) at Southdale this summer, an older woman had come with all her adult daughters. It was so cute. Also Sunday. $10.60. 2 p.m. More info here.
The New Year That Never Came (2024)
Landmark Center
Six people's lives converge during the 1989 Romanian Revolution. Part of the Romanian Film Festival. Free. 11 a.m. More info here.
Nasty (2024)
Landmark Center
A doc about tennis star Ilie Năstase. Part of the Romanian Film Festival. Free. 2 p.m. More info here.
Green Blah! The History of Green Bay Punk Rock (2024)
Main Cinema
Just what it says. $11. 4 p.m. More info here.
The Neverending Story (1984)
Parkway Theater
Freak out your children. $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
Little Women (2019)
Walker Art Center
A special screening for middle school kids, with related activities. Free. Noon. More info here.
Sunday, November 16
Top Secret Mystery Movie
Alamo Drafthouse
All I know is that it’s an “ultra-cool 1990s Hong Kong action” flick. $10.99. 4 p.m. More info here.
Unicorns (2023)
Emagine Willow Creek
A single dad unexpectedly falls for a drag queen. $11.60. 2 p.m. More info here.
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Grandview 1&2
Yes, Jon Voight used to be cute (and non-fascist). Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Comatogen (2024)
Landmark Center
A nurse faces an ethical dilemma while trying to keep her son out of jail. Part of the Romanian Film Festival. Free. 1 p.m. More info here.
Traffic (2024)
Landmark Center
A heist film! Part of the Romanian Film Festival. Free. 3:15 p.m. More info here.
Heathers (1989)
Roxy’s Cabaret
Teen suicide used to be funny, dammit. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
His Motorbike, Her Island (1986)
Trylon
A small-town girl obsesses over a guy with a motorcycle. Tale as old as time. (Or as old as motorcycles, I guess.) $8. 7:15 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9 p.m. More info here.
Monday, November 17
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Edina Mann
In case you’d rather see it in Edina. Also Wednesday. $12.15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Blood Feast (1963)
Emagine Willow Creek
Yum! $8.50. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
WTF! Watch Terrible Films Club
56 Brewing
I don’t know what film they’re showing, but I know it’ll be terrible. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Harold and Maude (1971)
Heights Theater
In this economy??? $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, November 18
Jason X (2002)
Alamo Drafthouse
The masked killer joins the Nation of Islam. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
The Man Who Saved the World? (2025)
Riverview Theater
An immersive documentary on oddball activist Patrick McCollum. $15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, November 19
Death Promise (1977)
Emagine Willow Creek
The son of a murdered man seeks revenge against his killer landlords. $7.60. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Heights Theater
Quentin Tarantino goes back in time to kill (adult) Hitler. $16. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
A League of Their Own (1992)
Parkway Theater
That Tom Hanks is so cranky and crotchety! $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Little Hercules (2009)
Trylon
Featuring Robin Givens, Elliott Gould as Socrates, and Terry “Hulk” Hogan as Zeus. $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, November 20
Union (2024)
East Side Freedom Library
A documentary about grassroots labor organizing at the Staten Island Amazon center. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Sting (1971)
Heights Theater
Why’s there so much ragtime in a movie set during the 1930s? $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Blue-Eyed Girl
Filmed right here in MN and featuring Minneapolis’s own Marisa Coughlan.
The Boy and the Heron
*Kim Gordon voice* Betting on the boy… and the heron.
The Carpenter’s Son
Nicolas Cage is Joseph in this horror movie about supernatural forces coming for the baby Jesus.
Christmas Karma
A Bollywood-inspired revamp of A Christmas Carol.
It Was Just an Accident
Look, Jafar Panahi don’t miss.
Kaantha
A filmmaker and his star have creative differences in 1950s India.
Keeper
Can Oz Perkins’s new movie live up to its title? (I doubt it.)
King Ivory
This action movie about the fentanyl trade looks a little too full of itself.
Muzzle: City of Wolves
Apparently this is a sequel?
Now You See Me: Now You Don't
The conclusion of the Now You See Me trilogy, it says here.
The Running Man
“Glen Powell” is such a CNN ass sounding name.
Trap House
A Dave Bautista drug-cop action flick.
Trifole
I swear, there is at least one new movie about truffle-hunting every year.
Wicked
Prep for the second half, out next week.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc
Frankenstein
That’s Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, if you must. As opposed to “Mary Shelley’s,” I suppose, though to be fair del Toro approximates the original novel more faithfully than most adaptations. In spirit, at least—he takes liberties with the story, most cleverly in making it so the Creature (Jacob Elordi) can never die. But he also ladles on an excess of motivational cues. F’rinstance, Victor Frankenstein’s father, the old Baron (Charles Dance), beats his son, which is why the doctor rejects the Creature so violently, you see, Frankenstein also juices up the conflict between Victor and Creature with several layers of jealousy: Mia Goth’s Elizabeth, Victor’s fiance in the book, is here engaged to his brother William, and, as del Toro heroines will, she falls for the Creature. And while the addition of Christoph Waltz as VIctor’s angel investor Heinrich Harlander is, I suppose, meant to highlight that our latter day mad scientists are funded by even madder financiers, his is one subplot too many. While Frankenstein has a vivid pop goth sheen, it lacks any real poetry or madness; humanist softie that he is, Del Toro even arranges a final reconciliation between the maker and his creation. And though it’s fun as hell to watch the Creature wreck shit, flinging people about with Hulk-like ferocity, his look is kinda wanting: He’s just a big, stitched together guy, kind of a jacked, overgrown Gollum. B
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
If I wanted to be cute I’d call Mary Bronstein’s frenzied If I Had Legs I’d Kick You the Uncut Gems of motherhood. But where Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner thrives on chaos, Rose Byrne plays a woman here who, unable to control the tumult of her life, strives desperately to escape it. With her husband (Christian Slater) away at work for two months, Byrne’s Linda, a therapist, is left to care for her child (Delaney Quinn) who has an eating disorder, a feeding tube, and typical childly needs. A colossal hole floods Linda’s apartment, sending her and the kid to a nearby motel as she juggles some sort of transference issues with her therapist (Conan O’Brien), the demands of a needy patient (Danielle Macdonald) with a newborn child, and the unwanted friendly gestures of a motel neighbor (A$AP Rocky). Bronstein presents the impossible demands of motherhood as a Matryoshka doll of failure, with Linda feeling guilty for feeling guilty about feeling guilty about her guilt, and Byrne bravely burrows into the harrowing, hilarious core of her role. (It’s not easy to make Byrne look unattractive, but the extreme closeups and garish lighting do their best.) This is anxiety as it’s actually lived, where every input is re-interpreted as a threat and every inconvenience is a catastrophe and objecting that “It isn’t supposed to be like this” doesn’t help a damn bit. A-
I Wish You All the Best—ends November 13
Karen Kingsbury’s The Christmas Ring
Nuremberg
Nuremberg promises us both a stirring old-school courtroom drama and a keen psychological battle of wits, and on both counts it only half delivers. After WWII, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon) is determined to take down imprisoned Nazi second-in-command Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) in a fair trial. The film practically plays up the devious Göring as a Hannibal Lecter figure, and his would-be Will Graham is psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), sent to find out what makes the runner-up Führer tick. As Jackson, Shannon has the needed gravitas and pride, and the skills to nuance the thunderous Oscarish moments. The supporting cast is good as well: Colin Hanks always makes a good pinhead, John Slattery would have regular work if they still made war pictures like they used to, and Richard E. Grant is quietly effective as the Brit who saves Jackson’s ass. Malek is fine, but he really needs to learn not to constantly smirk. Anyway, I was there to see Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring, and he delivered the same precise hamminess he brings to the title role as The Pope’s Exorcist or Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder. He doesn’t render Göring human—that would be silly. But he does create a well-rounded film character, and that’s all Nuremberg requires. B
One Battle After Another
Paul Thomas Anderson’s universally lauded tragicomic revolutionary epic has a lot on its thematic plate. It’s a movie about rescuing your daughter that’s really about how you can’t protect your kids, about the contrast between the glamour of doomed revolutionary action and the quiet victories of everyday resistance, about a parallel United States that mirrors our police state already in progress. And to white folks (like me and maybe you and probably PTA himself) who just wonder when all this will all be over in the real world, Anderson offers his most self-explanatory movie title since There Will Be Blood. But aside from all that One Battle After Another is just plain engaging and immersive and entertaining the way too many movies that make much more money only pretend to be. As in Killers of the Flower Moon, Leonard DiCaprio is a dopey white guy outclassed by a woman of another race (glad he’s found his niche); his greasy top-knot and Arthur Dent bathrobe will be the stuff of hipster Halloween costumes. Teyana Taylor is iconic in the true sense of the word as insatiable revolutionary Perfida Beverly Hills. (I told you all to see A Thousand and One, but did you listen?) Supremely unruffled as a Latino karate instructor, Benicio Del Toro is the calm center of the film’s most remarkable sequence. As the spirited abductee, Chase Infiniti (who somehow was not herself named by Thomas Pynchon) slowly accrues an echo of Taylor’s screen intensity. And I regret to report that Sean Penn is as brilliant here as everyone says. His Steven Lockjaw is a swollen testicle of a man, incapable of properly fitting into any suit of clothes, a walking study of the psychosis of authoritarianism. Oh yeah, and that climactic car chase is totally boss. A
Roofman
Probably not a good movie, and certainly not an honest one, Roofman is as desperate to be liked as its main character, serial McDonald's robber and escaped convict Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum). After ingeniously smuggling himself out of the clink, Manchester hides out in a Toys "R" Us and inconveniently falls for a store employee because she’s played by Kirsten Dunst. He follows her to church (calling himself John Zorn, heh heh), wins over her daughters and fellow churchgoers, and creates a new life for himself that can’t possibly last. And you know what, gosh darn it? I did like Roofman in spite of my (spiteful) self. Because Tatum is charming, especially when he’s playing with kids or flirting with Dunst, who is infallibly wonderful. Because the movie is relatively free of condescension to ordinary folks who find community at church and because it assumes that there’s a cineplex audience out there willing to root (with reservations) for a guy who robs fast food chains and big box stores. Let’s not go crazy here, though. Though relatively effective, the handheld camera is an affectation, a sign that director Derek Cianfrance wants Roofman to be a more credible movie than it is. But Tatum doesn’t have what it takes to truly plumb the pathological side of Manchester’s need to be loved. Still, if you’re in the mood for a crowd-pleaser turned tear-jerker or just want to see a liberal amount of Tatum’s bare ass, happy holidays. B
Sarah’s Oil
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Bruce sure knows how to sabotage synergy, don’t he? The Boss released the long craved “Electric Sessions” of his lo-fi acoustic classic Nebraska (as part of a pricey box set) just in time for fans to watch Jeremy Allen White’s onscreen Springsteen complain about how those versions suck. And the artist was right to stand his ground against the big, bad money men at Columbia and insist that they release the haunted tapes he’d four-tracked on a TEAC 144 at his Colts Neck crash pad. Still, watching a guy write in a notebook and sing in his bedroom isn’t particularly cinematic. And you know what’s even harder to dramatize? The depression that Springsteen slipped into during this period, which writer/director Scott Cooper tries to explain via black and white flashbacks to a childhood dominated by an emotionally distant, physically abusive dad (Stephen Graham, doing his best as a psychological bogeyman). Jeremy Allen White, whose alleged charisma remains imperceptible to me, mostly plays Bruce as a sullen non-entity, and though he’s got the hunched shoulders and stretched, stiff neck down pat, half of the white guys in Jersey look more like the Boss than Allen does. But the big problem is that Cooper can’t match the eloquence with which Bruce Springsteen has written, sung, and spoken about his relationship with his father. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere may be as earnest as its subject, yet it's telling that a movie about a guy demanding that an album cover not even feature his photo lets someone prefix “Springsteen” to its title to make the film more marketable. C+
