New movies opening this week I'm curious about: Hope, The Uprising, Filipiñana.
New movies I reviewed this week: American Doctor.
Old movies I'll probably re-watch: Christ Stopped at Eboli, a David Lynch movie or two at the Heights.
Special Screenings
Thursday, September 10
Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World) (2026)
Capri Theater
Questlove’s latest music doc. Free-$20. 7 p.m. More info here.
Altered States (1980)
Emagine Willow Creek
About as commercial as Ken Russell gets. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Titane (2021)
Grandview 1&2
The very first movie I reviewed for Racket. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Ace in the Hole (1951)
Heights Theater
Billy Wilder at his most brilliantly cynical. $10-$13. 7 p.m. More info here.
In the Heights (2021)
Mia
But not at the Heights. Free. 8 p.m. More info here.
Gush (2023)
Walker Art Center
A montage of home movies, personal videos, animation, and TV clips from director Fox Maxy. $10/$12. 7 p.m. More info here.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Parkway Theater
These kids have nothing in common! $10/$15. DJ Chrissie Kawasaki at 7 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Vive Le Punk (2026)
Trylon
A doc that speaks with the original British punk bands still going today. Presented by Sound Unseen. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, September 11
School of Rock (2003)
Edgcumbe Recreation Center
How can you not snicker at “Edgecumbe”? Free. Dusk. More info here.
Eraserhead (1977)
Heights Theater
I don’t wanna even tell you how old I was when I realized this was the same guy who played Pete in Twin Peaks. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Dune (1984)
Heights Theater
I'll say this for Lynch—he knew not to cut the murderous witch-child. $13. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
TriLingua Micro-Cinema
Great timing for Teenage Sex fans who want to dig further. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979)
Trylon
Francesco Rosi’s remarkable epic about an artist exiled to the rural south of Italy by the fascists. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 p.m. Sunday 3 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, September 12
First Blood (1982)
Alamo Drafthouse
Like John Darnielle sings, “John Rambo never went to Vietnam.” $10.99. 4 p.m. More info here.
MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiment—Sting of Death
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Mike and the bots are back to roast another cheesy movie. Showtimes, prices, and more info here.
Cool Runnings (1993)
East Side Sculpture Park
The legacy of the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team lives on in the 21st century somehow. Presented by TriLingua Cinema. Free. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: 25th Anniversary Extended Edition (2001)
Emagine Willow Creek
Never heard of it. Also Sunday & Wednesday. $11. 1:45 & 6:15 p.m. More info here.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Heights Theater
Did you know there’s a dark underside to American life? $16. 3 p.m. More info here.
Twin Peaks (Pilot) (1990)
Heights Theater
Where it all started. $13. 6 p.m. More info here.
Lost Highway (1997)
Heights Theater
Gotta be honestly, this one’s a little too ’90s for me. $13. 9 p.m. More info here.
All The President’s Men (1976)
Howard Conn Theater
I wish I had an office just so I could put my feet up on my desk like Jason Robards. Presented by Cinema Ecclesia. $12.50. 10:30 a.m. More info here.
BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions (2025)
Main Cinema
Kahlil Joseph adapts his video art installation into an exploration of Black consciousness. $13. 11 a.m. More info here.
CatVideoFest 2026
Riverview Theater
Still goin'! Also Sunday. $5. 11:30 a.m. More info here.
MinnAnimate
Trylon
The annual local animation festival returns. Each screening is a different program. $10. 1, 3, & 5 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, September 13
Twilight (2008)
Alamo Drafthouse
These nostalgia screenings do so well for Alamo. $20. 7 p.m. More info here.
MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiment—Sting of Death
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Mike and the bots are back to roast another cheesy movie. Showtimes, prices, and more info here.
Come and See (1985)
Grandview 1&2
War is hell (Ivan’s version). Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Double R Dream (2026)
Heights Theater
A doc about working at the real-life equivalent of the Twin Peaks diner. $13. 1:30 p.m. More info here.
The Straight Story (1999)
Heights Theater
Lynch at his most wholesome. $16. 3 p.m. More info here.
Inland Empire (2006)
Heights Theater
Lynch at his most low-res. $13. 6 p.m. More info here.
Marcus Mystery Movie (2026)
Marcus West End
A secret new movie. $6. 7 p.m. More info here.
MinnAnimate
Trylon
Day two of the annual local animation festival. Each screening is a different program. $10. 11 a.m & a p.m. More info here.
It Happened One Night (1934)
Trylon
“Young people in love/Are very seldom hun-greeee!” $8. 7:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Monday, September 14
The Doors (1991)
Alamo Drafthouse
You kids don’t understand what it was like to grow up in a time where you were supposed to take Oliver Stone seriously. $13.99. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Edina Mann
If they made this movie today, he’d drive an Uber. Or a Lyft. Also Wednesday. $12.12. Free. More info here.
Error_MovieTitle_Unknown (2026)
Emagine Willow Creek
Another secret movie. $7. 7 p.m. More info here.
House of Wax (2005)
Emagine Willow Creek
Dumb thing to make a house of, if you ask me. $9. 7:30 & 7:45 p.m. More info here.
Marcus Mystery Movie (2026)
Marcus West End
Secret movies, two days in a row. $6. 7 p.m. More info here.
Out There: A National Parks Movie (2026)
Parkway Theater
Two childhood friends visit U.S. national parks for a documentary. $18/$25. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, September 15
Angel Heart (1987)
Alamo Drafthouse
Lisa Bonet is Epiphany Proudfoot. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
Juan Gabriel: Mi Primer Bellas Artes (2026)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Marcus West End
A film of the late Mexican star’s 1990 concert. Also Wednesday. Showtimes, prices, and more info here.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Heights Theater
Preceded by “Space Seed,” the 1967 episode that inspired it. $15. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Parkway Theater
Hated this smug little bastard when I was 16, still hate him now. $10/$15. DJ set from Jake Rudh at 7 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, September 16
Castration Anthology Movie II: The Best of Both Worlds (2025)
Alamo Drafthouse
Part two of Louise Weard’s trans epic. $10.99. 6 p.m. More info here.
Secret Movie Night
Emagine Willow Creek
Gotta show up to find out what it is. $12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Canoe Dig It? (2026)
Heights Theater
A comic look at the world of freestyle canoeing. $10/$13. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Lagoon Cinema
It’s Christmas in September! $11. 4:15 & 7 p.m. More info here.
Executive Koala (2005)
Trylon
A human-sized koala searches for his (human) wife’s murderer. Sold out. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, September 17
The Weight (2026)
Alamo Drafthouse
Starring Ethan Hawke as Crazy Chester. An advance screening. $13.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011)
East Side Freedom Library
A doc about the razing of a St. Louis public housing complex. Free. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Crimes of Passion (1984)
Emagine Willow Creek
Kathleen Turner leads a sexy double life. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Seven-Year Itch (1955)
Heights Theater
A middle-aged married man spends his vacation perving after Marilyn Monroe. $10/$13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
The Cycle of Love
A Delhi street artist bikes 6K miles to reunite with the woman he loves.
Don’t Move
"Based on the spine-tingling horror novel from the actor best known as 'Murr' on TV's Impractical Jokers."
Filipiñana
A surreal look at power and secrets at a country club.
Hope
Is it as cool as it looks? Please tell me it's as cool as it looks.
Maremma
A new Indian action drama.
Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger
An Oasis doc, if that's what you're into.
The Passion of the Christ
Jesus and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Practical Magic 2
Nicole and Sandy, together again.
Runner
Sorry, I'm old, but this title just makes me think of Logan's Run.
Sardar 2
Sardar is back! (I guess.)
The Uprising
I still don't understand what Robin Hood has to do with this movie?
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
American Doctor
Poh Si Tang’s documentary about three U.S. surgeons who travel to Gaza to perform emergency procedures on Palestinian victims of the Israeli invasion at Nasser Hospital will stir you up, especially if you’re the sort of comfortable coward like me who generally avoids visual evidence of the ongoing genocide. Seriously, I took so many deep breaths during this film, when I wasn’t outright flinching. But this doc doesn’t just worthily acknowledge an important subject; it’s a compelling study of three very different men who share the same humanitarian commitment. Blunt Jewish-American orthopedic surgeon Mark Perlmutter begins the film by demanding that Tang not blur images of dead children. Palestinian-American E.R. physician Thaer Ahmad is a family man who’s denied re-entry to Gaza. And then there’s the quietly charismatic trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa. The film covers both their personal lives (Ahmad’s daughters are impossibly adorable; Sidhwa shares why he’s undateable), their media appearances (Perlmutter tries to learn from the more diplomatic Sidwa), and their ethical motivations. Anyway, you wouldn’t think it would need to be said, but here goes: Don’t bomb hospitals and don’t murder children. A-
Colony—ends September 10
Coyote vs. Acme
When a fed-up Wile E. Coyote belatedly recognizes that defective Acme products are the source of all his woes, he seeks out Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a lawyer who specializes in settling animated clients’ product-liability cases fast and cheap. But the fired-up Coyote, along with Avery’s idealistic niece (Lana Condor), decide to stick it to The Man. Or rather, The Rooster—as Acme’s CEO, Foghorn Leghorn reveals himself as the evil bully we always knew he was, and it’s a hoot to watch him intimidate his lawyer, an obligingly game John Cena. If much of the comedy here leans on nostalgia, the old bits remain good ones. And while there’s a reason classic Looney Tunes didn’t exceed 10 minutes, Bugs and Daffy and Porky and Tweety all turn up at opportune moments. The human/toon interaction is as seamless as it should be, with Forte a serviceable enough straight man that I won’t compare him to Bob Hoskins. Though having avoided mentioning Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as long as I could, I could help but notice that this film flirts with the other’s idea of cartoons as manic chaos agents but never quite plunges in. As for the anti-corporate storyline, it could be a critique of animal testing if it wanted to. (It’s a stretch, I say, I say, a stretch to claim it’s metaphorically calling out Big Tech’s beta-testing.) What stage of capitalism have we reached when a solid piece of entertainment like this becomes a cause célèbre simply because biz pinheads nearly binned it as a tax write off? I’m just glad it gives today’s kids the opportunity to learn who Peter Lorre was the same way that I did. B+
Echoes in the Night: The Search for Jacob Wetterling
The End of Oak Street
Blame Spielberg, I guess. The ’80s were obsessed with the ’50s as a prelapsarian past to celebrate and/or deconstruct, so why shouldn’t the ’80s become the equivalent of the ’50s for blockbuster-minded cinephiles? Writer/director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) gives us a seemingly happy nuclear family where All Is Not As It Seems: Mom (Anne Hathaway) is secretly writing a novel about a woman desperate to ditch her family, and Dad (Ewan McGregor, looking oddly like Jim Walsh at times and still questing for that elusive American accent) is the too-cheery husband hiding that he’s been laid-off. When a chunk of their idyllic neighborhood is wormholed into prehistory, they must overcome their differences to etc. etc. etc. The genuinely scary dinosaurs do get to do some chomping, making meals of an unexpected character or two, and I’m especially fond of the raptors that are more Harryhausen harpies than Jurassic Park escapees. If elevated horror is a thing (bracket your objections for the moment), Mitchell seems to be going for elevated popcorn movie here, but he repeatedly edges toward uncontained violence and then backs away—the all-too-adequate fingerprints of producer J.J. Abrams (the Stray Cats to Spielberg’s Elvis) are all over this product. I’m just glad the wonderful Maisy Stella, as the teen daughter, is getting work, even if she’s not given much to do besides cry, run, and flirt sapphically with the girl next door. B-
Hadestown: The Musical—ends September 10
This is an impressive work. Taking a little narrative license (nobody tell Emily Wilson), Anaïs Mitchell’s Tony-gobbling musical weaves (as though Fates-like) the myths of Hades/Persephone and Orpheus/Eurydice together with a little au courant class politics, and its five leads embody striking characters. Our guide in silver, André De Shields is a dapper, precise Hermes. Amber Gray is a flask-tippling, fed-up Persephone, while wide-eyed Eva Noblezada is a delightful Eurydice. And Patrick Page plays Hades as a baritone silver fox, a mix of Leonard Cohen and Logan Roy. Only Reeve Carney as Orpheus is a bit of a chore —if I ruled Hell, I’d be like, “Take the girl and GTFOH with that corny Jeff Buckley falsetto.” And as a film, this impressively guides us around the stage and, like the production itself, acknowledges the rowdy audience. I’ll even allow the conclusion’s chin-up crimes against Aristotle (we’re not drawn to tragedy because we hope it’ll turn out differently, but because we know it won’t). But my problem is the same that I have with most contemporary stage musicals: Where da hooks at? Maybe after a few spins through the soundtrack I could hum a bar or two, but that’s not how musicals work. At least it’s not how they’re supposed to. B
The Odyssey—read full review here
What we tend to forget about The Odyssey is that it’s maybe 10% cool mythological shit like one-eyed giant cannibals and sinister witches and gods punishing impudent mortals and like 90% about exchanging gifts with your hosts and telling very long stories to impress them. What’s remarkable about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is that it honors this aspect of the epic while delivering the supernatural adventure film moviegoers want. Yet as always, Nolan is so transparent in his ideology you can almost believe he’s making an argument, when like any storyteller he’s just using fiction to justify his beliefs. Which, as always, is that we are always one well-told tale away from chaos. Whether the gods are real or not, warns the David Brooks of the cineplex, if we don’t honor them we will undermine the customs that hold our society together. Hey man, I just came here for the Cyclops. B+
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Look, we all know what’s wrong with the MCU. Too long, too constructed to promote future installments, just plain too familiar. But I’m not here to relitigate all that. I’m here to tell people who might be in the mood for a Spider-Man movie whether they should see this Spider-Man movie, and my answer is a resounding “Uh, sure.” It is the one currently in theaters, after all, and it’s downright sleek compared to the Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was overstuffed with Spiders-Men, supervillains, and multiverse nonsense. Peter Parker’s existence (Tom Holland) has been magicked away from everyone’s memory, and as he watches his once-gf MJ (Zendaya) and once-bff Ned (Jacob Batalon) live blissful Peter-free lives at MIT, he throws himself into his work. He debates attempting to reintroduce himself while tracking a mysterious entity that leaps from body to body in search of some government secret and dealing with some freakily increasing spidery tendencies. Along the way, he encounters Florence Pugh’s Black Widow (says “potatoes” amusingly), Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (bigger than ever), (a little too much of) Jon Berenthal’s Punisher, and, of course, Sadie Sink, who plays Jean Grey with an intense school-shooter vibe. Because this is Spider-Man, the fights are less monotonous than the MCU norm, though I was a bit fatigued by the time we got to the climatic battle with the evil ninjas. And as for future installments, I’m sure the device Peter invents that inhibits superpowers won’t be used against the good guys in future films. B
The Sun Never Sets—ends September 10
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma
Jane Schoenbrun’s latest had me hooked before the end of the opening credits sequence, which guides us through the cultural impact of an imaginary slasher series, right down to a fake New Yorker cartoon. Trash connoisseurs tend to be polemicists for their own niche fetishes—boys with toys and a rulebook for playing with them—but Schoenbrun is more intrigued with how pop culture psychologically embeds itself within our identities. They’re also, refreshingly, less respectful of their source material, and happy to indulge in fountains of blood, incongruous needle drops, and a willingness to cringe at the film’s tendency to wink at us. Here Hannah Einbinder is Kris, an indie director fluent in gender-ese and the theoretics of desire who has a shot to resurrect the played-out Camp Miasma series, centered on the unkillable, lake-dwelling trans serial murderer Little Death (Jack Haven). During a trip to recruit the reclusive star of the original installment, Billy Pressley (Gillian Anderson), for the new film, Kris must confront her own trashy sexual fantasies, and I gotta say, it gets pretty hot. Where Shoenburn’s moody, neon-saturated I Saw the TV Glow floated the idea of pop obsession as a fraught portal to self-awareness, this gloriously garish meta-slasher more simply encourages us to learn to revel in the tawdriness of our own unchosen, mass culturally imprinted desires. The leads are perfectly chosen, with a resonance for certain audiences beyond these roles, and the supporting cast balances avatars of contemporary cool like Eva Victor and Sarah Sherman with recognizable character actors like Dylan Baker and the unmistakably Lynchian Patrick Fischler. We’re offered plenty to ponder about the gaze (and, I suppose, the gays), and Teenage Sex may wax a little too therapeutic and, well, polemical in the homestretch. But it’ll take a second viewing for me to care about all that, ‘cause I was preoccupied laughing as hard as the theater of delighted 20-somethings around me. That’s the thing: This works first as entertainment, and also as a tale of sexual bonding that doesn't quite reduce to a love story. Lowering its stakes even as it ratchets up the tension, Teenage Sex is surprisingly tender for a movie that ends with its stars bloodier than Sissy Spacek at the prom. A-
Tony
A portrait of the artist as a young fraud. Looking like all of the Strokes rolled into one, Dominic Sessa plays Anthony “Call Me Tony” Bourdain as an intense, pretentious kid who confidentially mispronounces “bildungsroman,” slouches as though he’s perpetually passing through a low door frame only he can see, and lies as reflexively as only someone who hasn’t yet figured out who he is can. When his crush (Emilia Jones) heads to Cape Cod for the summer, the tousled lad stalks after her, pretending he won a writing fellowship while washing dishes at a touristy seafood joint. Tony succeeds because it’s less a biopic than a coming-of-age story, with the young Bourdain forced to choose between the devil on one shoulder (Leo Woodall’s hard-drinkin’, tail-chasin’, smack-shootin’, bar-fightin’ Sal) and the angel on the other (the restaurant’s somber, devout, and meticulous chef, played by Antonio Banderas). It falters because the choice that kept him alive and set him on his path is, well, just less fun to watch. Sessa has the charisma to play the young Bourdain (even if he’s just a few clicks away from his turn in The Holdovers—what happens when he has to play a 21st century adult?) and I’ve come to savor Banderas’s late career, in which he underplays as dramatically as he once overheated during the peak of his Hollywood stardom. B+
