Two years ago, Milwaukee Magazine made a slightly baffling decision – allowing me to write a weekly agenda for the Milwaukee Film Festival, highlighting the movies I was most excited to see. While I very much appreciated the opportunity, I also assumed that once my editor read my first draft, she would come to her senses, delete the entire thing, scrub the server, and possibly throw tomatoes at me. But in a shocking twist, the agenda was actually published (repeatedly!) – even the one where I drew terrible storyboard cartoons.
So if you’ve been a loyal reader of every single Archer’s Agenda the past two years, I’d like to thank you and also ask if you might be able to do a load of my laundry this week because I’m kind of super busy with this film festival thing?
And for the rest of you who haven’t read every Archer’s Agenda, I’ll just say that I’m a weird little guy who loves movies and talking about movies and recommending movies. (I’ve never gotten through a first date without bringing up Tarkovsky. … I’ve also never gotten a second date. Connected?) And I’m excited to once again share the film fest finds I’m most looking forward to checking out. So let’s get this sequel going – Arch3r’s Agenda: The Crooked Arrow Flies By Night.
This year’s film fest kicks off on Thursday, April 24 and runs through May 8, and every week I’ll have a new agenda for you! Here are my picks for week one, in order of the earliest screenings:
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
1. Sally (And the Opening Night Party)
THURSDAY, APRIL 24 AT 6 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
FRIDAY, APRIL 25 AT 4:15 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
THURSDAY, MAY 1 AT 12 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
As I sit at my desk, sipping my third can of Red Bull, sweat dripping down my neck, my eyes twitching like chunks of gelatin slapped down on hot pavement on this late night, I’m contemplating opening night of the Milwaukee Film Festival. It’s an occasion I look forward to every year – one of the rare times I can wear my Eraserhead baby T-shirt in public and only a few give me weird looks.
This year, the fest is kicking off with a screening directed by one of Milwaukee’s own, Cristina Costantini, who will be at the festival to answers questions after every screening. Her documentary, Sally, tells the personal saga of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride. And after the screening, Milwaukee Film is throwing its opening night party a little differently from years past – this time it’s a block party. A bunch of surrounding taprooms and bars are doing buy-one-get-one drink specials (I’m in danger); Landmark Lanes is offering one free game of bowling; and there will be a DJ and dancing at Ivanhoe Plaza. I’m immensely looking forward to it – but for now, I’m cracking the fourth Red Bull and finishing the rest of this agenda.
2. Secret Mall Apartment
FRIDAY, APRIL 25 AT 1 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
MONDAY, APRIL 28 AT 4:45 P.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 AT 6 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
When I saw this movie listed in the program it really spoke to me because I’ve been living in the ceiling at the MilMag offices for 3.8 years now. After everyone leaves for the day, I steal their leftover snacks, block the security cameras with my wacky, arm-flailing inflatable Stanley Kubrick dolls, and climb up to my lair to watch VHS tapes of Frasier and occasionally weep. It’s a peaceful life. This documentary is about something similar, but less sad – a group of eight Rhode Islanders who, in 2003, built a secret apartment in a neglected nook of the newly-built Providence Place Mall and lived there undetected for four years. This story is just so perfectly, beautifully odd I have to know more.
3. Middletown
FRIDAY, APRIL 25 AT 5 1 P.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 3 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATER
Some young journalists expose vast conspiracies about the toxic waste that is poisoning their communities. Other young journalists use film festival agendas as excuses to complain about the new pants they bought (the undercarriage region is too dang tight and ankles flair far too provocatively). Is one form of journalism better than the other? Who’s to say? Either way, this documentary follows the first kind of journalist. A group of students in the early ’90s, inspired by an “Electronic English” class, start taping their lives – only to end up documenting an illegal waste dumping scandal in upstate New York.
4. Pavements
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 10 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
THURSDAY, MAY 1 AT 6:15 P.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
Had I ever listened to a Pavement album before April 2025? Nope. I thought about pretending to be cool for this article and acting like I was spinning Slanted & Enchanted in the cradle, but alas, I was more of a Neutral Milk Hotel baby. (Honestly, that might explain some things about how I’ve ended up.) But when I saw the trailer for this movie about the band – part documentary, part biopic, part musical – the chaotic, genre-melding, slyly amused, rebellious tone of the whole thing immediately hooked me. I’ve been listening to their music in preparation for the screening, and I’m quite excited. Also, I like Joe Keery’s hair.
5. Color Book
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 6:30 P.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
MONDAY, APRIL 28 AT 1 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
THURSDAY, MAY 1 AT 11:30 A.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
A few weeks, I had the opportunity to speak at Milwaukee Film’s “Friends and Family” night, where they preview some of the movies screening at the fest. I made a fool of myself, as I often do, with my shaky terrified voice, ogre-like appearance, and general aura of awkwardness and misery – and yet I was not booed off stage, which I appreciated. After I was done speaking and had returned to my seat, the folks at Milwaukee Film screened the trailer for this movie, and I quickly forgot my public embarrassment, immediately invested in the story I was seeing on screen. After I saw the trailer, Color Book quickly rose to the top of my must-see list at this year’s festival. The film follows a father caring for his son with Down syndrome after the death of the young man’s mother. It promises to be touching, thoughtful and an emotional journey I’m looking forward to taking.
6. Slice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts.
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 10:30 A.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
SUNDAY, APRIL 27 AT 2:30 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
There are certain rules in this life. Boundaries no one should cross. Edges over which you find only darkness and the wailing of lost souls. One of those rules is simple – No one out-pizzas the hut.
Say what you will about Pizza Hut (Frankly, as a fan of cheap food that isn’t particularly good, I’ve always been more of a Little Caesars guy) – but you can’t deny that they’re good at branding. And part of that brand is the buildings – that unmistakable slanted roof, that low ceiling. When a Pizza Hut leaves, the look stays, and this documentary is an examination of the wide variety of businesses that have taken over former Pizza Huts, from churches to bars to weed dispensaries. The premise of this movie is so unexpected and so weirdly endearing, that I feel I have no choice but to watch it.
7. Bar
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 3:30 P.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
SUNDAY, APRIL 27 AT 7 P.M. | DOWNER THEATRE
I’ve really been stepping up the classiness of my drinking habits lately. I’m talking High Life, Michelob Ultra, the occasional Red Bull and vodka – the good stuff, you know. And so I was immediately interested in this documentary digging into the “BAR 5-Day course,” the “world’s premiere educational program on distilled spirits and mixology.” I’m looking forward to seeing the mixologists competing and collaborating to make wild, delicious concoctions.
8. Desperately Seeking Susan
SATURDAY, APRIL 26 AT 11:30 A.M. | ORIENTAL THEATRE
Oh, the ’80s. Man, I still remember running around in my neon spandex, glorious mullet bouncing with each step. I wasn’t actually alive at the time, but I still remember it. Now the festival is screening this 1985 screwball comedy, featuring Rosanna Arquette alongside Madonna at the peak of her fame. Director Susan Seidelman will be at this screening for a book signing and Q&A, too. I haven’t seen this one before, but I can’t wait to bust out my leg-warmers and go.
