Let us have no talk of Grogu here!
A fun thing you could do this month is go see the Walker's "Films of the L.A. Rebellion" series, which is screening some of the best work from a generation of Black filmmakers who emerged from UCLA in the late 20th century. Then you could check out Aleshea Harris' Is God Is (which I recommend but haven't had time to write about) and Boots Riley's I Love Boosters (which I cannot wait to see) and consider the trajectory of Black film over the past 50 years.
Special Screenings
Thursday, May 21
Edina Community Shorts
Edina Mann
A very local film fest. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Best in Show (2000)
Emagine WIllow Creek
Yep, dog people are weird. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Grandview 1&2
The movie that invented knuckle tattoos. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Heights Theater
Look, I know “Cary Grant is an airborne mail carrier” doesn’t sound like much, but trust me on this one. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
The First Rainbow Coalition (2019)
East Side Freedom Library
How the Black Panthers united the working class of all races in Chicago. Presented by TriLingua Cinema. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Wicked: For Good (2025)
North Loop Green
And so outdoor movie season begins! Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Compensation (1999)
Walker Art Center
Parallel stories of a deaf woman and a hearing man falling in love at different moments in history. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, May 22
The Elephant Man (1980)
Heights Theater
David Lynch’s only commercial success. $13. Friday, Tuesday 7 p.m. Saturday 1:30 & 6:45 p.m. Sunday 2 & 7:15 p.m. Wednesday 4:15 p.m. More info here.
The Room (2003)
Heights Theater
Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece. $16. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
The Ballad of Narayama (1958)
Trylon
In a village where the elderly are left on a mountain peak to die, a woman strives to find a wife for her son before she is sent away. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, May 23
Adaptation (2002)
Alamo Drafthouse
Nicolas Cage goes meta. $10.99. 3 p.m. More info here.
Chicken Run (2000)
Heights Theater
The Great Escape, but make it chickens. $13. 11 a.m. More info here.
Hausu (1977)
Heights Theater
Why wait till October? $16. 9:45 p.m. More info here.
Blood Simple (1984)
Walker Art Center
Where the Coen Brothers got started. $6/$8. 3 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, May 24
Carrie (1976)
Alamo Drafthouse
You think this is horrifying? My prom’s theme song was Billy Joel’s “This Is the Time.” $10.99. 4 p.m. More info here.
Legally Blonde (2001)
AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Back for its 25th anniversary. Also Wednesday. Prices, showtimes, and more info here.
2026 TXT MOA CON IN JAPAN: LIVE VIEWING (2026)
AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
If you say so. AMC: $20. 3 p.m. More info here. Emagine: $27. 3 p.m. More info here. Marcus: $20. 3 p.m. More info here.
Grease (1978)
Emagine Willow Creek
Saw this in the theater when I was 8 and I was so bored! Also Monday & Wednesday. $11. 3:40 & 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Casablanca (1942)
Grandview 1&2
Never heard of it. Also Thursday. $14.14. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Talk of the Town (1942)
Heights Theater
Cary Grant is a labor activist hiding in Jean Arthur’s attic. And yes, it’s a comedy. $13. 11:30 a.m. More info here.
Sing Street (2016)
Lagoon Cinema
An ’80s boy makes a music video for his crush to star in. $11. 2 p.m. Wednesday 4:15 & 7 p.m. More info here.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Roxxy’s Cabaret
Seems like a good place to watch it. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Stray Dog (1949)
Trylon
Toshiro Mifune is a cop on the hunt for his stolen pistol in this Kurosawa noir classic. $8. 7:15 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Monday, May 25
Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)
Alamo Drafthouse
Greek tragedy in queer Tokyo. $13.99. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Pressure (2026)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Marcus West End
Advance screening of the new movie about the weather forecast on D-Day. Your dad is pissing himself with excitement right now. AMC: $11.19. 2 p.m. More info here. Marcus: $9.25. 2 p.m. More info here.
Casablanca (1942)
Edina Mann 4
If you’d rather see it in Edina. Also Wednesday. $12.12. 7 p.m. More info here.
Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995)
Emagine Willow Creek
Creepy kid month continues at Emagine. $9. 7 p.m. More info here.
Shrek (2001)
Granada
A Taste the Movies event. Gotta wonder what Shrek tastes like. Sold out. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, May 26
Saw II (2005)
Alamo Drafthouse
The Godfather II of Saw movies. $10.99. 8 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, May 27
Roar (1981)
Emagine Willow Creek
Melanie Griffith’s dad made a movie in Africa with his family and dozens of untrained animals that kept attacking the cast and crew. $9. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Trylon Club Exclusive Screening
Trylon
For Trylon Club members only. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Bless Their Little Hearts (1984)
Walker Art Center
A Watts man struggles to find work in director Billy Woodberry’s debut feature. $12/$15. 7 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, May 28
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Emagine Willow Creek
Christopher Guest takes on aging folkies. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
His Girl Friday (1940)
Heights Theater
Cary Grant tries to convince ex-wife Rosalind Russell that she is a real newspaperman. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
GoldenEye (1995)
Parkway Theater
Gotta say, the Brosnan Bonds are all one big blur to me. $9/$12. Music from the Swongos at 7 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Killer of Sheep (1977)
Walker Art Center
Charles Burnett’s masterpiece about blue-collar Black life in L.A. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
Corporate Retreat
It turns deadly!
Drishyam 3
Oh, I'm way behind.
Everybody to Kenmure Street
The Scots fight back against immigration agents.
Godzilla Minus One
Nobody told me there was going to be math.
I Love Boosters
Boots Riley is back, and this time he’s got Keke Palmer with him.
The Last One for the Road
Two drunks mentor a young man.
Passenger
A #vanlife couple is stalked by a demon.
Peddi
An Indian sports action movie.
Saccharine
What if a weight loss drug… was haunted?
Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu
Me at 7: "I wish they made a new Star Wars movie every year." And a finger on the monkey's paw ominously closes.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour 3D—ends May 21
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—ends May 21
Hokum
More like ho-hum. Writer/director Damian McCarthy’s previous feature, Oddity, was constrained but effective, reaching its conclusion with the fatalist logic of a folktale. But though this attempt at an atmospheric chiller is focused on one locale, it sprawls too far both narratively and thematically. Adam Scott is Ohm Bauman, a blocked novelist with a bad attitude who travels to Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes at the site of their honeymoon, finish his damn book, and, yes, grapple with C H I L D H O O D T R A U M A. And wouldn’t you just know it, he stays in one of those old hotels with a room no one must enter because it’s haunted by a witch. There’s no shortage of events in Hokum: provincial oddballs drift in and out of the story with various motives and preoccupations, Bauman flashes back to harsh images from childhood, there’s even a suicide attempt. Yet through it all, Scott doesn’t just seem annoyed with the other characters—he seems irritated to be in this movie in the first place, and there’s something all too contagious about his peevishness. If he’s wondering when we can just get this nonsense over with and move on, why shouldn’t you and I as well? C
Michael
This is the story of a sweetly eccentric young fellow who merely wants to collect exotic animals, visit children in hospitals, and share his incredible talents with the world. With the help of agent (and, incidentally, the film’s executive producer) John Branca (Miles Teller), our hero wriggles free of his abusive, domineering father (Colman Domingo) and embarks on his first solo tour in 1988, finally his own man—presumably it was all smooth sailing from there. A glitzy extended ad for the disgraced superstar’s estate, Michael follows in the footsteps of the modern music biopic not only as a form of brand management, but as a means of score-settling—from NWA to Elton John, every star wants to be a victim nowadays. Michael has a made-to-order villain in Jackson paterfamilias Joseph, but with his grotesque prosthetics and Nixonian hunched shoulders, Domingo is actually more cartoonish than Mike Myers is in his brief borscht-belt turn as CBS head Walter Yetnikoff. The lesson of Michael Jackson’s life is that the further you retreat into escapist fantasy the more inescapably your neuroses surface, and that plays out with his fandom: The more irreparably Jackson’s reputation is tarnished, the more his worshippers demand a portrait of a saint’s life. And so they get as lousy a movie as they deserve. Shout out to Janet Jackson, who refused to participate and therefore simply doesn’t exist in this Michaelverse. C
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe
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
Silent Friend
Look folks, this is a two-and-a-half-hour movie about a solitary ginkgo tree and its effects on three different people at three different moments in time. (Whispering to my date: That’s the Silent Friend.) I will refrain from calling the movie “meditative” because too many reviewers already have, and the adrenaline junkies among you know what that critic’s euphemism really means. But I’m the guy writing the review here, and I was engrossed in Hungarian writer/director Ildikó Enyedi’s essay of sorts on the interrelationship between humans and their natural environment, a milder exploration of some of the same themes as Richard Powers’s novel The Overstory. Tony Leung Chiu-wai (in a role written explicitly for him) is a Hong Kong professor marooned at a solitary German university during Covid. Luna Wedler becomes that university’s first female student at the turn of the 20th century, and she explores her sexuality by studying photography. Enzo Brumm is a first-gen university student, just off the farm, studying poetry and out of step with the free-living ’70s, who falls for a botanist and winds up caring for her geranium while she’s off hiking with her latest lover. Each is an outsider in some way, each suffers from loneliness and detachment while exploring new ways of connection, each illustrates the blurred lines behind human technology and natural systems of. And Leung’s presence, already indelible in Wong Kar-Wai’s films decades ago, has only deepened with age. A-
Steal This Story, Please!—ends May 21
The Stranger—ends May 21
"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-
Top Gun—ends May 21
Top Gun: Maverick—ends May 21
The Wizard of the Kremlin—ends May 21
