On the Marquee: Fish Fry and Jurassic Park, Limited Landmark Releases, and more

Wednesday, August 26: No Escape opens in wide release

Check local listings for showtimes/pricing

Wednesday, August 26: Friday Night Lights

7 p.m. @ Select local Marcus Theaters (Click here to purchase tickets)

***CRITIC’S CHOICE***

Thursday, August 27 through Sunday, September 6: UWM Union Cinema reopens with Fall Welcome programming

8/27: Get Hard @ 9 p.m.
8/28: Pitch Perfect 2 @ 7 p.m., Furious 7 @ 9 p.m.
8/29: Mad Max: Fury Road @ 7 p.m., Office Space @ 9 p.m.
8/30: Ex Machina @ 7 p.m., It Follows @ 9 p.m.

@ UWM Union Cinema (FREE! for students, $5 gen. admission)

I’ll have a bunch more to say regarding the freshly returned UWM Union Cinema next week, when a slightly re-jiggered On the Marquee makes its way to you, but let’s for the time being celebrate the return of Milwaukee’s last bastion of truly unique programming – even if the Fall Welcome schedule doesn’t necessarily bear that out. Not to say that the choices aren’t inspired – between Fury Road, Furious 7, Ex Machina and It Follows they’re showing some of my absolute favorite films of the year so far – but this particular semester-opening schedule tends to be more all-inclusive than some of their more esoteric and cineaste-skewing choice that come in later months. Even so, support them by attending these screenings and catch up on some of the best 2015 has had to offer to this point!

Friday, August 28: Best of Enemies and ***CRITIC’S CHOICE*** Mistress America open in limited release at the Oriental and Downer theaters

Check the Landmark Theaters website for showtimes/pricing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PnbcHR6fww

Three movies into the creative collaboration between filmmaker Noah Baumbach and actor Greta Gerwig and it’s safe to say that they bring the best out in each other. After co-starring in Baumbach’s Greenberg the two became romantically linked and the two movies they’ve co-written since that point (Frances Ha and this weekend’s Mistress America) are simply wonderful. There’s a pleasant guilelessness, or at least enthusiasm, that each of these films are infused with that help temper what can sometimes come off as sardonic when Baumbach is rolling solo. With Mistress America, the duo is operating in the traditional screwball comedy milieu, and while that extraordinarily tricky genre has proven impossible to replicate for many modern filmmakers, I’m happy to say they pull off the lightning fast, whip smart dialogue that is screwball’s hallmark with style to spare. Gerwig is utterly winning as ‘woman about town’ Brooke Cardinas, a 30-something burst of unfocused creative energy who becomes linked with Lola Kirke’s Tracy, her soon to be stepsister, all culminating in a raucous road trip to Connecticut to visit an old frenemy and her husband. The dialogue crackles and the performers are more than game to handle the breakneck speed that’s required to pull it off (Kirke, in particular, deserves praise for her turn). May Baumbach and Gerwig continue collaborating in perpetuity if the end result always proves this winning.

Friday, August 28: War Room and We Are Your Friends open in wide release

Check local listings for showtimes/pricing

***CRITIC’S CHOICE***

Friday, August 28: Jurassic Park concludes the 2015 Fish Fry and a Flick

Dusk @ Discovery World (500 N. Harbor Dr.) (FREE!)

Don’t get me wrong – Jurassic Park is a classic crowd movie and a downright lovely choice to wrap up this year’s vintage of Fish Fry and a Flick – but I can’t help but think of what was meant to be with Mad Max: Fury Road, the film originally scheduled to screen this Friday. As some small consolation it is playing as part of the Union Cinema’s ‘Fall Welcome’ program, but it would’ve been awesome to experience one of 2015’s best films amidst the giant crowd it deserves. Instead, we get to hold onto our butts with Samuel L. Jackson. For some, a fair trade-off, but for me it’s still a bit of a disappointment.