***CRITIC’S CHOICE***
MONDAY, JULY 14
through THURSDAY, JULY 17: SNOWPIERCER
@ AMC Mayfair 18 Click here for showtimes and pricing.
Thanks to audiences showing up in solid numbers, Snowpiercer
was surprisingly held at AMC Mayfair over the weekend and will continue screening
until Thursday. With the number of major releases hitting the big screen this
Friday, this is likely your last chance to see this sci-fi masterpiece on the
big screen before it leaves town for good. I adored this
movie, and I think that you will too.
MONDAY, JULY 14: THE PRESTIGE
Dusk @ Brocach Irish (Free!) Pub
Call (414) 431-9009 to make reservations.
Polish off your Michael Caine impressions. Christopher
Nolan’s underrated dueling magicians’ picture The Prestige plays as
part of Brocach Pub’s patio movie series tonight. Recently remade into a comedy
as The
Incredible Burt Wonderstone (note: I’m lying) this story of two men
(Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) find their lives and careers undone by a
rivalry based over who can perform the most astonishing illusion on-stage. Michael
Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie co-star in a movie that I feel, in
tandem with Inception, is the closest we’ve come to Christopher Nolan opening
his heart up on the screen.
TUESDAY, JULY 15: UNDER THE SKIN is released on
DVD/Blu-Ray
Available at all finer local media
retailers.
While it’s unfortunate that Jonathan Glazer’s Under
the Skin only mustered a very limited local release (in and out of the
Marcus Ridge over the course of a week), Tuesday’s DVD/Blu-Ray release will
give the film a chance to cast a wider net and disturb audiences the whole
country over. A movie whose publicity seemed to be based on prurient interests
that in fact works as a refutation of such interests, Glazer crafted a
spectacularly dissonant experience with this movie, keeping the audience with a
perennially knotted stomach as we watch Scarlett Johansson (finding nuance in a
mostly emotionless performance) scour the Scottish countryside looking for
lonely men who won’t be missed. To give more away would be both criminal and
useless. This is a film meant to be viscerally experienced and discussed, the
rare double threat that will leave both a psychological and physical effect on
you as the end credits unspool.
FRIDAY, JULY 18: SEX TAPE and THE PURGE: ANARCHY open in wide release
Check local listings for showtimes
and pricing.
If Jake Kasdan had never made Bad Teacher, his big screen
resume would be spotless. Between the wildly underrated Zero Effect and the
comedy all-timer Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (not to mention his TV work on Freaks
and Geeks) he’s earned more than enough goodwill from me that I’ll give
his creative collaboration with Cameron Diaz another chance with Sex
Tape. Diaz and co-star Jason Segel play a married couple who videotape
an amorous encounter in an attempt to rekindle their spark only to find the
titular tape loosed into the wild, leading to a wild night spent attempting to
stop everyone they know and love from seeing them in the act. Bad
Teacher was, well, bad. Diaz didn’t work as a comedic lead (she seemed
mean, not wittily acerbic), but hopefully the sins of the former are washed
away by a new and fruitful comedic collaboration.
Meanwhile, The Purge: Anarchy attempts to atone
for the sins of its forbearer by actually focusing on the premise established.
I wouldn’t call the notion that all crime is permitted by our government for 12
hours per year is nuanced social commentary, but nuance isn’t why skuzzy genre
work generally gets made. The first Purge established this premise only
to focus on a tired home invasion horror story, whereas this picture looks like
we delve a bit into the nitty gritty of who exactly chooses to participate in
this annual celebration with what looks like a dash of The Most Dangerous Game
mixed in. Frank Grillo should be a bigger deal than he is, and regardless of
whether this movie proves to have much worth, hopefully it will push us in that
direction.
FRIDAY, JULY 18: VENUS IN FUR opens in limited release at
the Landmark Downer/Oriental
Check the Landmark Theaters website for showtimes and pricing.
If new Linklater isn’t enough for
you this weekend, we’ve also got new Polanski coming our way. He appears to
have it in for stage adaptations recently, with Carnage and now Venus
in Fur, and his not inconsiderable cinematic talent makes these single
location pictures come to life via all the tools of his trade. It certainly
doesn’t hurt to have actors as talented as Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu
Almaric as your leads and Tony-award winning source material to base your
production off of. It looks to be thematically stimulating material at that,
with role reversals and gender exploration aplenty.
FRIDAY, JULY 18: THE GREAT OUTDOORS screens as part of the Milwaukee Bike-In Series
Dusk @ South end of the Holton St. Viaduct across from Trocadero, 1758 N. Water St., (FREE!)
The Milwaukee Bike-In series reconvenes this Friday with the thematically appropriate The Great Outdoors. Wisconsin-set, this comedy stars Dan Aykroyd and John Candy as brothers-in-law trapped together on a family Northern excursion. As a person who tolerates outdoor time instead of relishing it, any movie that gently prods the nature experience immediately gains a bit of sympathy from me, even if critics believe this is far from the best use of these comedic actors.
FRIDAY, JULY 18: AMERICAN HUSTLE kicks off the Point Fish Fry and a Flick series
Dusk-ish @ 500 N. Harbor Drive, just outside Discovery World (FREE!)
The Fish Fry and a Flick series is fast-becoming one of the Milwaukee-area’s most beloved film-going events of the year and it finally restarts this Friday. I only wish it was in the service of a movie I liked. Now divorced from the undeserved Oscar discussion it was generating last year, perhaps I will find American Hustle shaggily charming instead of distended and grating. David O. Russell has made some of my very favorite modern films (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees), so even if I still find the movie to be largely disposable on repeat viewings at least there’ll be fried food to ingest and lakefront scenery to take in.
