Well, they're all one-word titles. And I've reviewed each of them below—just scroll down to the Opening and Ongoing sections. Other than that? Not much, really!
Special Screenings
Thursday, December 12
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Grandview 1&2
Not to be confused with the 1965 movie about the Dave Clark Five. Also Sunday. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Mommie Dearest (1981)
The Heights
It's a Christmas movie. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Know Your Place (2022)
Main Cinema
A seemingly simple task sends an Eritrean-American teen back and forth across Seattle. $11. 7 & 7:10 p.m. More info here.
Dr. Seuss's The Grinch (2018)
Marcus West End
Stop. Remaking. The. Grinch. $5. 6:10 p.m. More info here.
Elf (2003)
Marcus West End
Elf? Elf. $5. 3:45 & 8:30 p.m. More info here.
Candy Cane Lane (2023)
Marcus West End
"The 12 Days of Christmas" comes to life! $5. 3:10 p.m. More info here.
It's a Wonderful Life (1945)
Marcus West End
Is it though? $5. 6 p.m. Showtimes and more info here.
Heretics (2024)
Trylon
Starring Hughs Grants? $8. 5 p.m. More info here.
The Trylon Hallmark Holiday Special
Trylon
The Trylon's annual "celebration of Christmas kitsch" is sold out. 7 p.m. Saturday 1 p.m. More info here.
2024 British Arrow Awards
Walker Art Center
As always these showings are selling out fast. $15/$18. Thursday-Friday, Wednesday 7 & 8 p.m. Saturday 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 & 8 p.m. Sunday 1, 2, 4, 5 & 7 p.m. More info here.
Friday, December 13
Kina & Yuk (2023)
Alliance Française
Two foxes cope with climate change. Free. 6:10 p.m. More info here.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Marcus West End
The Grinch does not require a traumatic backstory! Through Wednesday. $5. Showtimes and more info here.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Marcus West End
It's always a Christmas story but never the Christmas story, about the birth of our lord and savior. Through Wednesday. $5. Showtimes and more info here.
The Polar Express (2004)
Marcus West End
"The Polar Express received divisive reviews from critics upon release, with some calling it an 'instant Christmas classic' and others criticizing the characters as 'lifeless zombies.'" Can't it be both? Through Wednesday. $5. Showtimes and more info here.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
Marcus West End
Starring America's sweetheart, Chevy Chase. Through Wednesday. $5. Showtimes and more info here.
Equinox Flower (1958)
Trylon
Ozu's first color film is about a woman who marries a man her parents haven't met. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:30 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, December 14
Elf (2003)
Alamo Drafthouse
Ladies and gentlemen, once again... Elf. $15.04. 2:30 p.m. Monday 6:30 p.m. More info here.
The Longest Yard (1974)
Alamo Drafthouse
Burt Reynolds and a team of inmates battle prison guards on the gridiron. $10. 11:45 p.m. More info here.
André Rieu’s Christmas Concert
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
OK, sure. $23.90. 3 p.m. More info here.
SEVENTEEN [RIGHT HERE] WORLD TOUR IN JAPAN: LIVE VIEWING
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Marcus West End
K-pop live! $21.68. 7 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, December 15
The Conversation (1974)
Alamo Drafthouse
Gene Hackman is a wiretapping expert who gets a little carried away. $10. 3 p.m. More info here.
The Great Gatsby (1974)
Alamo Drafthouse
Just read that producer Robert Evans didn't think Redford should have the title role because he believed Gatsby had dark hair—which I too have also always believed. $10. 11:30 a.m. More info here.
White Christmas (1954)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
In case you missed it at The Heights. Through Tuesday. $11.94. Showtimes and more info here.
A Silent Voice (2017)
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16
A bully tries to atone. Also Monday. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
BABYMETAL Legend-43 The Movie (2024)
Emagine Willow Creek
The Japanese rockers, live in Okinawa. $12.50. 3 p.m. More info here.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Emagine Willow Creek
More Grinch! Also Wednesday. $11. 12 & 6 p.m. More info here.
Found Footage Festival: 20th Anniversary Show
The Heights
A guided tour through the weirdest and funniest obscure VHS tapes. $20. 4:30 & 7:30 p.m. More info here.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Parkway Theater
The strange tale of Midwestern parents who don't want their kid to have a gun. $5-$10. 11 a.m. More info here.
On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Trylon
Not the '90s movie with Liz Hurley and Ice Cube! $8. 8 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 8:45. More info here.
Monday, December 16
A Complete Unknown (2024)
Alamo Drafthouse
Timothée Chalamet will not be at this sneak peek. $14.50. 7 p.m. More info here.
Christmas Evil (1980)
Emagine Willow Creek
A John Waters favorite. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
The Heights
It's an Ingmar Bergman Christmas! $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Camera Corner: Wende Cragg Documents the Birth of Mountain Biking (2024)
Parkway Theater
A look at how photographer Cragg has influenced the industry. $13. 7 p.m. More info here.
Die Hard (1988)
Pilllar Forum
Yes, yes, we know. Free. 6:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, December 17
Blast of Silence (1961)
Alamo Drafthouse
A hitman is on assignment in Manhattan. Timely! $7. 6:45 p.m. More info here.
Die Hard (1988)
Parkway Theater
Really though, have you ever noticed just how many words are on this movie's original poster? $9/$12. Pre-show trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, December 18
Black Christmas (1974)
Alamo Drafthouse
The holiday slasher classic. Sold out. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Trading Places (1983)
Grandview 1&2
Forty years later, I still do not understand the ending. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Hundreds of Beavers (2024)
Main Cinema
That's too many beavers! $11. 7:15 p.m. More info here.
Elf Bowling The Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike (2007)
Trylon
Merry Christmas from Trash Film Debauchery! $5. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening This Week
Follow the links for showtimes.
Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto Interstella 5555
A "visual companion" to the Daft Punk album Discovery.
The End
What's the deal with George McKay anyway? Do we really need a less expressive Harris Dickinson?
I Am the Immaculate Conception
Don't get it twisted!
Kraven the Hunter
And so ends Sony's sad attempt to create a Spidey-less Spiderverse.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
IP is forever.
Queer
An older gay man sets his sights on a pretty younger fellow in a picturesque sunny clime, and if you think Luca Guadagnino has been here before, well, yes and no. We’re in Mexico City (actually a staged facsimile thereof) and the elder is Bill Lee (Daniel Craig), the alter ego of William S. Burroughs and the central figure of that author’s most personal work. Sure, it figures that Luca’d be the director to show us James Bond sucking dick, but Craig’s at his best here, bringing pathetic depth to a sensualist. There’s nothing smooth about Bill—he loves hot guys and shooting junk, and thinks he can manage both addictions. He’s so entranced by one Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) he does an awkward little dance for him in the middle of a bar and ignores how their relationship blurs the transactional and the intimate for as long as he can. Guadagnino sharply evokes a postwar gay expat milieu, fleshed out by Jason Schwartzman, pudgier and more hirsute than ever, as Bill’s cruising pal. But when Queer gets trippy in the home stretch, as Bill and Gene journey into the jungles of Ecuador in search of a rare psychotropic and the wonderful Leslie Manville lurches into frame, the only real revelation is that Guadagnino is a big fan of Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. The result is a movingly disappointing sort of film—heartfelt, but often dull. B
Ongoing in Local Theaters
Anora
From Kitana Kiki Rodriguez’s enraged trans sex worker in Tangerine to Simon Rex’s washed-up porn star in Red Rocket, Sean Baker knows how to let a character loose upon a movie, and Mikey Madison’s Ani may be the most fully realized of Baker’s high-powered, self-deluded survivors. A stripper and occasional escort whose charm and sheer self-determination haven’t failed her yet, she’s eking out a life in Brooklyn’s least glamorous southern reaches. (Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island are captured in all their drab, offseason outer-borough-ness.) Her life changes after a dance for a Russian oligarch’s son parlays into a paid fuck, which in turn goes so well he hires her for an extended stint. Baker captures their whirlwind spree through all forms of excess, ending with a Vegas wedding, as an audiovisual sugar rush that makes Pretty Woman’s shopping montage look like amateur hour. But when Ivan’s parents find out, they sic his handlers on him; he runs off like the spoiled little fuckboy we always knew he was and Ani is left to unleash her rage on the hired muscle as they hunt for him. Madison can be as subtle here as she was on Pamela Adlon’s Better Things and even more furious than she was in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood before Tarantino thought it’d be a hoot to immolate her with a flamethrower. This decade, we’ve seen plenty of commoners enter the worlds of the wealthy, often ending with fantasies of vengeance. Anora’s trip through the looking glass ends on a far more ambiguous note. A
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Conclave
Edward Berger may think he’s cooked up something more substantial than a chewy Vatican potboiler here—a meditation on faith in the modern era, or some other middlebrow (papal) bull. Who knows and who cares? The crowd I saw it with thought Berger’s flamboyant pope opera was funny as hell (pardon the expression, Father) and they were right. Watching old guys from around the world in funny clothes politic, gossip, and backstab is just solid entertainment. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine milks everything he can from the ornate setting and bright costumery, and this cast knows how to project an ominous seriousness that’s forever camp adjacent. We’re talking Ralph Fiennes working his timeworn visage of existential indigestion, John Lithgow looking more like Donald Rumsfield than ever, Sergio Castellitto as a gregarious bear who wants to repeal Vatican II, Isabella Rossellini as a mysterious nun, and, for the ladies, a little Stanley Tucci. You’ll guess most of the twists, groan at some, and even get blindsided by a few. Still, without giving too much away, it’s hard not to notice that none of the scandals here are as horrific as those the Catholic Church has covered up in real life. B+
Gladiator II
Gladiator worked as well as it did (which might not be quite as well as you remember) because Ridley Scott stocked his swords ‘n’ sandals rehash with hams who knew how to spout nonsense about "the dream of Marcus Aurelius" and "the glory of Rome" as though it were meaningful, nay crucial. And this sequel is almost worth seeing solely for Denzel Washington, who accepts his role as a challenge, supercharging the eccentric cadences that made his Macbeth a darkly comic curiosity a couple years back—his “I own … your house. I want … your loyalty” may be the line reading of the year. As the wily former slave Macrinus, Washington traipses, flounces, pounces, smirks, exclaims, and keenly outwits his dim foes. Close your eyes and he could be playing an evil Disney tiger. But poor Paul Mescal looks as out of place as a puppy at a Senate budget hearing. He’s surely swole enough as the son of Crowe’s Maximus (and a rightful heir to the imperial throne) to credibly wallop challengers in the arena, whether corporeal or poorly animated. But we all know Paulie’s a weeper not a fighter. Every generation needs its moody dreamboat, and Aftersun and Normal People made Mescal that nontoxic totem. As for the combat scenes, if the first Gladiator challenged Scott to revamp a genre for modern audiences, all his sequel can offer is more. Read our full review here. C+
Flow
Every house cat stalks through its domain like some fierce jungle predator indifferent to any challenge. Latvian animator Gints Zilbalodis calls that supposedly independent beast’s bluff, tossing a kitty into a flood and saying “How tough are you now, huh puss?” Flow is in part a unique hangout movie, a kind a postdiluvian animal Real World where a prickly black cat is forced to coexist on a boat with a wounded secretarybird, an acquisitive lemur, a stolid capybara, and an all too friendly Lab. None of the critters speak—aside from knowing how to work a rudder, they generally behave as animals would. And while the computer animation isn’t exactly beautiful, and can’t avoid an occasional cutscene quality, we pass through computer-generated environments with an unmatched three-dimensional ease that's its own reward. Though we never learn what happened to the humans—Flow is blessedly free of any backstory—there’s also an element of wish fulfillment here. If humans ever do finally off themselves en masse, it suggests, at least the animals we love will find ways to survive. If they learn to work together better than humans did, that is. A-
for KING + COUNTRY’s A Drummer Boy Christmas LIVE
Nightbitch
Ladies, you have just got to stop marrying Scoot McNairy. Has a single one of this scrawny feller’s onscreen marriages not been beset with troubles? In director Marielle Heller’s latest he’s the undersupportive husband of Amy Adams, an artist-turned-mother who slowly transforms into the titular canine out of maternal frustration. That high concept premise had segments of the online Adams fandom (the kind who believe their idol should always be angling for awards) howling with demands to fire her agent, but on paper Nightbitch is honestly a dream project. It’s based on a buzzy book, Heller excels at combining the fantastic and the realistic while extracting sympathy for flawed characters, and Adams is so likeable she could clobber an infant with a brick without losing an audience. But despite gingerly risking some dark comedy and feints at body horror, Nightbitch feels too self-conscious about its audience’s perceived limitations, and it slumps safely into Women Who Run With the Wolves territory. B-
A Real Pain
You might expect a buddy comedy about Holocaust tourism to flounder on the side of bad taste or staid reverence. So one thing I’ll say about A Real Pain, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, is that it does strike the right delicate tonal balance. As to why that balance needed to be struck, however, I’m still not entirely sure. It's the story inseparable cousins who now rarely see each other, reunited because their beloved grandmother’s dying wish was for them to visit the home in Poland that she fled during the Holocaust. David is an uptight and tetchy, Benji is mouthy and moody. In other words, David is Jesse Eisenberg and Benji is Kieran Culkin. If you were hoping for Mark Zuckerberg and Roman Roy on the Road to Lublin, you’re in luck. Do they learn a little about themselves—and each other—along the way? Oh, brother (er, cousin?), do they ever. Though Culkin and Eisenberg are an ace comic pair, yuks are not enough for A Real Pain, and it’s one of those movies where the characters’ backstories seem to be written after the fact to justify the drama. The great thing about comedy? It never requires justification. B
Wicked
Thinkpieces are surely in the works about how Wicked, the story of a good woman who is cast as an enemy of the people by authoritarians using fiendishly disseminated lies, is a perfect Trump era fable (just as it was a perfect Bush era fable two decades ago). But maybe the best topical lesson that Wicked offers is that villains are often more entertaining than heroes. If anything, Cynthia Erivo has too much screen presence for her already underwritten part, and her almost-adult dignity undermines her character arc. Her Elphaba (aka the Wicked Witch of the West) is no ingénue misled by foolish dreams, and seems incapable of humiliation. Meanwhile, Glinda is a dream of a role that Ariana Grande floats through with perfect timing, flaunting her shallow vanity, scene-stealing blonde hair tosses, and comically sudden upshoots into her showy soprano. And while I’ll take songwriter Stephen Schwartz’s generically inspirational pop over the wan schlock of the dreaded Pasek and Paul, I have seen better movie musicals set in Oz. Read our full review here. B
