Tuesday, Dec. 2: Slacker
7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!)
A program titled “Triple Play: Benning + Linklater” commences this week, celebrating the friendship between two of American independent cinema’s most memorable participants in James Benning and Richard Linklater. It kicks off on Tuesday with Richard Linklater’s debut film Slacker, an experiential romp through early ‘90s Austin, Texas and the artists and eccentrics that populated it. The first harbinger of a new wave of independent filmmaking in the U.S., if you haven’t yet experienced this remarkable time capsule, it’s high time you do so.
***CRITIC’S CHOICE***
Wednesday, Dec. 3: Snowpiercer & Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater
4:15 p.m. and 7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!)
You may be aware that I rather liked a film by the name of Snowpiercer. I can safely say that you’ll be hearing me talk about it a bit more when my ‘Best of 2014’ list comes out later this month, but we’ve been blessed with one last chance to catch it on the big screen before the year end, courtesy of the Union Theatre. This is a phenomenal movie, a sci-fi action polemic bouillabaisse, and I can’t encourage you enough to check it out.
Afterwards, the Linklater/Benning programming continues with Double Play, a documentary that chronicles their friendship and the myriad ways their lives and art intersect. It has garnered a healthy amount of positive buzz as its wove around the festival circuit, and is the perfect bridge between Linklater’s work on Tuesday and the special screening of two of Benning’s experimental short films on Thursday night (beginning @ 7 p.m.).
Friday, Dec. 5: Force Majeure, The Homesman and The Pyramid open locally
Check local listings for showtimes/pricing.
It’s another slow week for major releases (all films still tread lightly in the wake of Katniss Everdeen and her dystopian hijinx) locally, but there are three very interesting options available to you as of Friday if the planned scheduling holds true, including two films I’ve been very eager to catch up with.
Described as a feature-length Swedish episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Force Majeure tracks the fallout on a family skiing vacation when Tomas, the family patriarch, makes a momentous split-second decision when faced with an oncoming avalanche. It won a Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes festival and the acclaim it has received has pretty much been universal (93 percent fresh, bro).
Another movie I’ve been long awaiting is the second film to be directed by beloved actor Tommy Lee Jones. His debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, was a stunning modern entry into the Western genre, and although we’ve had to wait nearly a decade to finally receive a follow-up, if The Homesman is in any way comparable in quality, it will have been well worth the wait. Starring Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones as a mismatched pair who join together to help traffic three women driven mad across the country in a covered wagon, The Homesman’s buzz has skewed mixed-to-positive but I’m nonetheless very excited to check it out.
Finally this week, what’s more in the spirit of the holiday than a movie about a team of adventurers being hunted down by an ancient evil through a labyrinth underneath a recently-excavated pyramid? The Pyramid looks like it takes a little found footage flair (lots of over-the-shoulder corridor walkin’) but isn’t beholden to explaining why somebody would be filming instead of wetting themselves as death encroaches on all sides.
Friday, Dec. 5 through Thursday, Dec. 11: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Check here for participating Marcus Theaters and corresponding showtimes/pricing.
As we’ve now transitioned into December, it is of course time for the various holiday-themed movies to start making their repertory bows in our movies theaters all month long, and the Marcus chain is the first to get there with this week-long programming of Christmas Vacation. It’s not quite on the level of the previous entries in the series but a solid family comedy nonetheless.
***ANOTHER CRITIC’S CHOICE***
Friday through Sunday, Dec. 5-7: UWM Presents The Nordic Film Festival
(ALL FREE!)
12/5: Beyond @ 5 p.m. & 1000 Times Goodnight @ 7 p.m.
12/6: Ragnarok @ 5 p.m., Open Up to Me @ 7 p.m. & The Hunt @ 9 p.m.
12/7: Metalhead @ 5 p.m., The Village at the End of the World @ 7 p.m. & Simon and the Oaks @ 9 p.m.
Luckily for us, UWM can’t stop throwing mini-festivals throughout the year, and the latest amongst them is this weekend’s Nordic Film Festival. I’m particularly excited to catch up with 1000 Times Goodnight, a picture starring Juliette Binoche as a war photographer that I unfortunately missed during the 2014 MFF. But there’s a find spread of both fiction and non to partake in over the weekend, and as I always say with these festivals, this is basically your only chance to catch many of these films locally on the big screen. And they’re all free – go check it out!
***YET ANOTHER CRITIC’S CHOICE***
Sunday, Dec. 7: A Christmas Carol (1938) & Christmas in Connecticut double feature
2 p.m. & 7 p.m. at local participating Marcus Theaters (Click here for pricing & theater list.)
Wrapping up the week is Marcus’ second volley in the battle over our hearts and minds this holiday season with a TCM-sponsored double feature. I’ve never seen the 1938 vintage of A Christmas Carol, but Dickens’ tale of miserly greed giving way to holiday cheer is almost always a sure-fire bet to work gangbusters with an audience. Christmas in Connecticut on the other hand, is a lovely underseen holiday treat featuring my favorite actress ever of all time in some genuinely heart-warming fare. No actor has ever been able to make the transition from phony to genuinely in love as well as Stanwyck does in pictures like this (see also: The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Meet John Doe, etc.). Of the two holiday screening options this week, this double feature is far and away the one I’d recommend checking out.
