Tuesday, March 3: Rib Gets in the Way
7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!)
UWM’s Experimental Tuesdays program brings the latest work from video essayist Steve Reinke to town this week, a free-wheeling philosophical treatise that is comprised largely of a children’s animated version of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathurstra. If that doesn’t intrigue you, slightly, then I simply do not know what to tell you. See the trailer here.
Wednesday, March 4: 2 Fast 2 Furious
7 p.m. @ select Milwaukee area Marcus Theaters ($5!)
I’m a week late in relaying to you that Marcus Theaters is taking us back through the labyrinth that is the Fast and Furious series leading up to the early April release of Furious 7 (I just learned you get eye -abs when you watch the trailer for a 20th time), but I’m just in time to encourage you to tune in for the what may be the most latently homoerotic entry in the series in 2 Fast 2 Furious. Tyrese is visibly upset anytime Paul Walker interacts with a woman in this film, and they also pull a Dukes of Hazzard style car jump onto a riverboat. This is important stuff.
Wednesday, March 4: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
4:15 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!) ALSO screens Saturday, 3/7 @ 9 p.m.
I didn’t like Birdman very much, and its big Oscar success has done nothing to dissuade me from this. If you haven’t yet caught it, this is a free opportunity to do so, so more power to you. If you are equally underwhelmed, that can be cashed in for a free high five if we ever meet.
Wednesday, March 4: Stations of the Elevated
7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!)
A 1980’s city symphony of North Manhattan, the first documentary to cover graffiti art, a portrait the Village Voice described as “a 45-minute proto-hip-hop bliss-out” comes to UWM Wednesday evening. I love a good experiential doc, and this looks to be exactly that.
Thursday, March 5: Giuseppe Makes a Movie
7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (FREE!)
Another adventurous documentary option drops on Thursday at the Union. Giuseppe Andrews makes experimental feature films with a cast of characters culled from the trailer park he lives in. In making these often-outrageous pictures, he finds an understanding of humanity rarely seen in any cinema. Watch the trailer, and I dare you to not be interested in this story.
***CRITIC’S CHOICE***
Friday, March 6 through Sunday, March 7: The Babadook and Winter Sleep
3/6: 7 p.m. & 9 p.m., 3/7: 7 p.m. & 3 p.m. and 3/8: 5 p.m. & 7 p.m. @ UWM Union Theatre (Winter Sleep: FREE! & The Babadook: $6 general/$5 faculty/$4 students)
A killer double feature drops this weekend, one that gives me the first chance to check out the latest Nuri Bilge Ceylan picture while giving you the first chance to see my sixth favorite movie of 2014 in The Babadook. These are two can’t-miss films, and I’ll have a review of The Babadook for you later this week to explain exactly why you have to check this out at some point this weekend.
Friday, March 6: Chappie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Red Army & Unfinished Business all open in local release
Check local listings for showtimes/pricing
A healthy bounty of Dev Patel pictures this weekend, with him capturing all possible quadrants with both the robot action picture Chappie alongside the skews-slightly-older Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I’m willing to give Neil Blomkamp another chance even though Elysium was largely disappointing, so hopefully his Short Circuit/Robocop hybrid comes together a little more strongly. I don’t know what transpired in the initial Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (I assume an exotic marigold hotel is established, of which the quality is very high), but this new installment looks pretty charming and is populated with a handful of truly delightful performers.
Red Army, a documentary portrait of the Russian National hockey team makes its way to the Downer this weekend, and advance reviews suggest it is a highly entertaining portrait of one of the most dominant sports dynasties that sports have ever seen. As for Unfinished Business….well, Vince Vaughn’s recent comedic track record is not one that I’d put any money on so we’ll have to wait and see if this comedy reverses the trend.
