This week the Main continues its run of Kurosawa samurai films, along with another installment of its Images of Africa series. I hope they finally fixed their popcorn machine! And let's hope the weather clears up for the Walker's Sound of Silents tonight. Weather, so confusing.
Oh, and scroll down to Opening and Ongoing to find new capsule reviews of Cuckoo and Sing Sing.
Special Screenings
Thursday, August 15
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Emagine Willow Creek
Meatballs falling from the sky? Preposterous. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Grandview 1&2
In this economy? Also Sunday. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
The Heights
Preston Sturges's screwball classic of love and money and divorce and marriage. $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Seven Samurai (1954)
Main Cinema
That's too many samurai! $10. 2 p.m. Friday-Saturday 12:30 p.m. Wednesday 1 & 6 p.m. More info here.
Rashomon (1950)
Main Cinema
This is just like that Happy Days episode where Fonzie got shot in the ass while the gang was on a hunting trip and everybody had a different story about how it happened. $10. Thursday, Sunday 7 p.m. Saturday 4:45 p.m. Tuesday 4 p.m. More info here.
Strange World (2022)
Logan Park
Sure is. Free. 8:15 p.m. More info here.
The Bad Guys (2022)
Riverview Theater
Animal villains try to go straight. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Back to the Future (1985)
Target Field Station
A white kid travels through time to invent rock 'n' roll and cockblock his dad. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sound for Silents 2024
Walker Art Center
A new work by deVon Russell Gray, performed in concert with silent films from the Walker's collection. Free. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Friday, August 16
The Smurfs (2011)
Emagine Willow Creek
Smurf off. All week. $3. 11 a.m. More info here.
Barbie (2023)
Lake Nokomis
Never heard of it. Free. 8:15 p.m. More info here.
Throne of Blood (1957)
Main Cinema
Kurosawa's take on Macbeth. So many arrows! $10. 4:45 p.m. Saturday 7:10 p.m. Monday 1 p.m. Tuesday 7 p.m. More info here.
Yojimbo (1961)
Main Cinema
You might recognize the plot from its remake, A Fistful of Dollars. $10. 7:10 p.m. Sunday-Monday 4 p.m. More info here.
Sanjuro (1962)
Main Cinema
Toshiro Mifune's unconventional samurai returns. $10. 9:45 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday 1 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. More info here.
Turning Red (2022)
Phalen Beach House
It's a metaphor for menstruation, you see. Free. 8 p.m. More info here.
The Shining (1980)
Riverview Theater
RIP Shelley Duvall. Also Saturday. $5. 10:30 p.m. More info here.
Time of the Heathen (1961)
Trylon
In this underground thriller, a drifter is accused of murdering a Black woman. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 8:45 p.m. Sunday 3 & 4:45 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, August 17
Forest Gump (1994)
Lake Harriet
A repulsive little movie. Free. 8:15 p.m. More info here.
Supa Modo (2018)
Main Cinema
A terminally ill girl in a Kenyan village dreams of being a superhero. Part of Images of Africa. $7. 1 p.m. More info here.
Mambar Pierrette (2023)
Main Cinema
A seamstress in Cameroon is beset with problems. Part of Images of Africa. $10. 4 p.m. More info here.
Mother of George (2013)
Main Cinema
A Nigerian couple in Brooklyn have trouble conceiving a child. Part of Images of Africa. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Parkway Theater
It's a living. $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
Metallica Film Fest
Riverview Theater
Three films—Metallica: Cliff 'Em All (1987), Cunning Stunts (1998), and Metallica: Orgullo Pasion y Gloria (2009)—are screening as part of the band's two-night stand at U.S. Bank Stadium. $15. 11 a.m. More info here.
Sunday, August 18
Bring It On (2000)
Emagine Willow Creek
Simply a classic. Also Wednesday. $9. 12 & 5 p.m. More info here.
Catvideofest 2024
Main Cinema
Yet another encore of this year's feline vids. $12. 1 p.m. More info here.
1917 (2019)
Trylon
Sam Mendes's "one-shot" (not really) take on WWI. $8. 6:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
Webber Park
Maybe 4 u. Not 4 me. Free. 8:15 p.m. More info here.
Monday, August 19
Tales of Terror (1962)
Emagine Willow Creek
Emagine's celebration of Corman/Poe/Price continues. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, August 20
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022)
Riverview Theater
Oh hey, that rhymes. Also Wednesday. $1. 11 a.m. More info here.
Wonka (2023)
Sibley Park
More like "Wanka," amirite? Free. 8:10 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, August 21
Past Lives (2023)
The Commons
A woman doesn't cheat on her husband. Free. 8:05 p.m. More info here.
Trailer Trash: Hail to the King
Emagine Willow Creek
A "mixtape" of Roger Corman and Corman-influenced clips. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
The Wad: The True Story Behind the Phantom Lake County Chewing Gum Disaster! (2024)
The Heights
A wild faux-documentary. $15. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Purple Rain (1984)
North Loop Green
Never heard of it. Free. 7 p.m. More info here.
Who Killed Captain Alex? (2010)
Trylon
Uganda's first action film! Presented by Trash Film Debauchery. $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Alien: Romulus
I wish they would Xenolessph.
Coraline
Not an ideal time to resurrect a Neil Gaiman project.
Good Bad Things
A disabled man tries a dating app.
LiSA LiVE is SMiLE ALWAYS -LANDER-
And don't you forget it.
Sing Sing
From trailers (I know!) I mistook this worthy project for pure Colman Domingo Oscar-bait (which wouldn’t exactly make it unworthy). In fact, Domingo’s production company centers this film on the Sing Sing Correctional Facility’s real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts theater program, and most of the cast are formerly incarcerated RTA alums. Domingo is Divine G, a stalwart of the RTA’s productions who’s certain he’ll be sprung after his next parole board hearing. His clashes with a tough newcomer to the program (an incredibly charismatic Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin) to form the dramatic backbone here. Even if you’re a bit leery of art as therapy, watching these men learn to communicate emotionally with one another is moving, and their faces are made for the screen. (Will we ever have enough decent film dramas for all the great unsung Black actors out there?) But Domingo hits some off notes. He remains too commanding a presence (the bass notes in his voice make me want to watch his films in Dolby) to blend in with the ensemble, and while I wouldn’t say he turns in a bad performance, his moments do feel the least authentic. Almost like he’s angling for an Oscar. B
Skincare
Elizabeth Banks is an aesthetician who believes someone is out to get her.
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Follow the links for showtimes.
Cuckoo
You can only go so wrong with Hunter Schafer as a moody teen (who plays bass in a band that sounds like the Raveonettes?) and Dan Stevens in his latest weird manifestation as a creepy German toodling on a little wooden recorder. (Every time Stevens says “Gretchen” you’ll be glad you showed up.) Throw in a red-eyed, time-loop-inducing baddie that the credits accurately call “The Hooded Lady” and an creepily atmospheric Bavarian lodge and you’ve got the makings of... well, of something a little more haunting than what writer/director Tilman Singer concocts here. As with so much post-Dobbs horror, there’s a struggle for the womb here, but for all its inspired nastiness, Cuckoo is a little scattershot, and not in a “hold on to your seats” way—Singer doesn’t seem to have a firm grip on the reins, and the more info that’s divulged, the more questions you’ll have about what’s going on. Sometimes in horror, as in politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. B
Dìdi
The semi-nostalgic coming-of-age comedies aren’t creeping closer to the present, you’re just getting older. Sean Wang’s directorial debut is calibrated to trigger feelings of sheepish relatability in any late millennial who ever had second thoughts about the instant message they almost sent or creeped on a crush’s Facebook page so they could lie about their favorite movie. But Dìdi stands apart in one significant way: its teen hero Chris (Izaac Wang) is a first generation Taiwanese-American, his adolescent awkwardness compounded by the culture gap with his well-meaning mom (Joan Chen). As Chris navigates the limbo that is the summer between middle and high school, he splits away from his old pals and starts shooting video for some older skaters while flirting with a girl who finds him “cute for an Asian.” A justifiable crowd-pleaser, with moments of secondhand embarrassment and uncomfortable laughter—you’ve seen a lot of this before. But you’ve never seen it quite like this. Generic it ain’t. B+
Inside Out 2
Inside Out’s model of the human psyche was something only Pixar could have dreamt up (derogatory): Your brain is an office staffed with project managers jockeying for control of your emotional responses. Despite the corporatized determinism at its core, the 2015 movie worked dramatically because its story of a Minnesota girl named Riley played off adult sympathies for distressed children in the sort of pitiless, heart-wrenching way that only Pixar can (complimentary, I think?). In this noisy, chaotic follow up, Riley enters adolescence and a new emotion, Anxiety, shows up to the job. The upstart feeling stages a coup, literally bottles up Joy and other inconvenient emotions, and constructs Riley’s sense of self based wholly on the perception of others. There’s so much focus on the internal conflict here that Riley becomes a puppet yanked too and fro, and the emotional dynamics make no sense even on their own terms. C+
Longlegs
There’s good dread (the kind you feel about what might happen next during an effective atmospheric build up) and then there’s bad dread (the kind that makes you feel that things are just going to keep getting sillier after someone mentions Satan for the first time). The two duke it out to a draw in writer/director Osgood Perkins’s debut, which—hype and box office and Nicolas Cage aside—cries out not for hyperbole but for weak critical fudge words like “ambitious” and “uneven.” Performances are solid all around, from Elevated Scream Queen Meika Monroe as an intuitive and emotionally reserved FBI agent to Blair Underwood making a welcome return as her boss to Alicia Witt doing what she can as a harbinger of the silliness to come. As for Cage, he’s (for the most part) genuinely creepy rather than merely Cagey. But echoes of thrillers past (notably The Silence of the Lambs) do not prove flattering. Me, I left deflated rather than spooked. B-
Thelma
A nonegenarian (June Squibb) gets scammed online and then tracks down the evildoers to get her money back—it’s kinda like The Beekeeper if Phylicia Rashad hadn’t needed Statham to avenge her. Squibb is generally wonderful as the plucky old gal, but despite some cute moments the whole shebang still felt a little too “hooray for the aged” overall. For me, that is. Everyone seems to love this movie. Maybe my experience was flavored by an excessively enthusiastic MSPIFF crowd? Or maybe I really do expect too much from movies? B-
Twisters
Twister may not be quite the summer classic that anyone who wasn’t old enough to vote in 1996 thinks it is, but it knew what it was and what it was supposed to do. This not-really-a-sequel (unless every movie about a shark is a Jaws sequel) is a bigger mess than a small Oklahoma town after an EF5. It can't really be about climate change because blockbusters have to be carefully nonpartisan, but it can’t not be about climate change because why else (as everyone in this movie is constantly saying) are there more tornadoes than ever. The goofiest part is that the chasers keep abandoning storms to instead rush into threatened towns to "help," i.e. telling everyone to get away from windows and get into the basement, which, sorry, but if you live in tornado alley and don't already know that you deserve to get swooped up into the sky. As Normal People and Hit Man showed, both Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell are better actors than they are movie stars. He needs to find another auteur to cast him against type instead of passing off his permasquint and smackably handsome grin as charisma; she needs to star in a Jane Austen adaptation or a Paddington sequel or something because I don’t believe she could find Oklahoma on a map. This will make enough money that neither of those things will ever happen, and I bet director Lee Isaac Chung never makes another Minari either. Meanwhile we’ll probably lose the National Weather Service. C+
