What’s Playing, Madison?

ellie lumme movie madison micro wave cinema

Thursday

Road House (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)

“Bad Cinema” presents this diamond in the (really) rough where Patrick Swayze’s bouncer gets paid to clean house in a scummy bar. Pain don’t hurt, and neither do FREE movies.

Top Hat (7:00p — Union South Marquee)

Aspiring entertainer Fred Astaire tries to win over Ginger Rogers while in London in this 1935 screwball classic that begins a string of FREE musicals at Union South this weekend.

Almost Famous (9:30p — Union South Marquee)

Er, there’s also Cameron Crowe FREE coming-of-age story about an aspiring rock journalist (Patrick Fugit) who gets paid to cover a fictional band’s road trip. Wait, paid journalists? Excuse me.

All freakin’ weekend

Queen and Country (Sundance)

Remember 1987? I don’t either, but that didn’t stop John Boorman from directing a follow-up feature to his Academy Award-nominated World War II drama Hope and Glory. This time, Boorman’s alter ego (played this time by Callum Turner) is ten years older and enlisting for service in the Korean War. David Thewlis, as an amusingly fanatical superior officer, struggles to keep him in line. The last thing cinema needs is another mid-century war picture, but Boorman’s decades-long pedigree proves its reputation with what sounds like a well-crafted and deeply personal recollection.

The Divergent Series: Insurgent (Sundance, AMC Star, Point, Eastgate, Stoughton Cinema Cafe)

Veronica Roth’s young adult series takes a turn for the post-apocalyptic as Shailene Woodley’s Tris flees the pursuit of Kate Winslet’s power faction. I knew it. One pixie cut and everything goes to shit.

Do You Believe? (AMC Star, Point, Eastgate)

In this “Christian Crash,” lives and personal beliefs intersect after Sean Astin’s pastor has a deeply religious experience on the street.

The Gunman (AMC Star, Point, Eastgate)

A one-time soldier gets pulled back into the international espionage game for the proverbial “one last job” just so he can leave it all behind for his one-time lover. Sean Penn tries his hand at the ironic, aging badass genre and… well you know this stuff’s getting old when the guy who directed Taken starts ripping off the guy who directed Taken.

Friday

Penguins of Madagascar (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)

This $2 “Kids Dream” selection features those three penguins. From Madagascar.

West Side Story (6:00p — Union South Marquee)

Jets vs. Sharks. Riff vs. Bernardo. I’m still trying to figure out if Maria was ever really in love with Chino. (FREE.)

Wisconsin Film Festival Sneak Peek (6:30p — Pinney Library)

Miss out on the Cap Times‘ preview of the Wisconsin Film Festival at Sundance? The Madison Public Library’s offering a stripped-down version with trailers and staffers on hand to answer questions. Can’t make this one? There’s three more this week and they’re all FREE.

For a Woman (7:00p — Alicia Ashman Library)

After the death of their mother, two sisters find a suitcase of old photographs and letters that cause them to re-assess everything they once believed about their parents. Then they write a screenplay about it (Alicia Ashman presents this “Best of the Fests” selection FREE).

Touki Bouki (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)

“I am increasingly convinced that there are no “old” or “new” movies, just movies I have or have not seen.” That’s how Jim Healy, Director of the UW Cinematheque begins a lovely introduction to this weekend’s “Il Cinema Ritrovato,” a sample from Bologna’s annual repertory festival. Praise from Madison’s premiere repertory program shouldn’t surprise you. What might is that C’tek is bringing over four films in collaboration with the festival’s programmer Guy Borlée (who’s appearing in person to talk about each one). First up is Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki, where a cowherd and a restless student steal money to flee from Senegal to France. FREE.

Whiplash (9:15p — Union South Marquee)

FREE.

Little Shop of Horrors (11:30p — Union South Marquee)

Say what you will about the merits of a cannibal plant, but I’d still settle for Audrey II’s vocals over my roommate’s shower singing. FREE.

Saturday

Penguins of Madagascar (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)

$2.

Big Hero 6 (2:00p — Pinney Library)

FREE.

Wisconsin Film Festival Sneak Peek (2:00p — Sequoya Library)

FREE.

Love Everlasting + Brand X + Journey to Italy (2:00p, 4:00p, 7:00p — 400 Vilas Hall)

As the Italians might say “Every saint has his own festival.” (Mine’s St. Healy, but I’m late on the whole ‘celebrating that’ thing):

Love Everlasting (Ma L’amour Mio Non Muore!, 1913), a silent vehicle for one of the great divas of the Italian stage, Lyda Borelli; at 4 p.m. an American underground classic, not seen for many years, Brand X (1970), conceived and directed by the late Wynn Chamberlain; and at 7 p.m., one of the great masterpieces of all time, Roberto Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia, starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders.” (FREE.)

Citizenfour (6:00p — Union South Marquee)

FREE.

Whiplash (8:45p — Union South Marquee)

FREE.

Pink Floyd: The Wall (11:00p — Union South Marquee)

Astaire and Rogers are legend and Leonard Bernstein spins gold, but if you see one FREE musical this weekend, make it Alan Parker’s smudgy, acid-laced indulgence of one of the greatest concept albums of all time. (And if you see it under the influence, keep that to yourself.)

Sunday

Penguins of Madagascar (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)

$2.

The Beguiled (2:00p — Chazen Art Museum)

In this “Universal ’71” selection, Don Siegel’s The Beguiled stars frequent collaborator Clint Eastwood as a Union Soldier who plays the affections of his all-women Confederate caretakers against one another. I have a suspicion this won’t end well for him. FREE.

Rear Window (2:00p, 7:00p — Point, Eastgate)

There’s some cross-pollination in Alfred Hitchcock’s voyeuristic classic as Turner Classic Movies appears to be presenting for Marcus and Sundance.

Top Hat (3:00p — Union South Marquee)

FREE.

West Side Story (6:30p — Union South Marquee)

FREE.

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky presents Ellie Lumme (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)

As someone who can appreciate terrible superhero cheese for what it is and not what we all secretly hoped it would be, I was delighted to hear that longtime critic, part-time filmmaker, and all-time Man of Steel equivocateur Ignatiy Vishnevetsky would be presenting his film, Ellie Lumme for Micro-Wave Cinema. An “anti-supernatural ghost story” about a young woman who tries to fend off the advances of an unwanted man, Ellie Lumme is also coming with another surprise. FREE.

Monday

The Little Bedroom (2:00p — Alicia Ashman Library)

A nurse with a heart o’ gold takes in an aging man from the care facility she works at, allowing him the modicum of independence he’s been denied. FREE.

Wisconsin Film Festival Sneak Peek (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)

FREE.

Pitch Perfect (7:00p — Point, Eastgate)

$5.

Tuesday

Wisconsin Film Festival Sneak Peek (6:30p — Lakeview Library)

FREE.

The Matrix (7:00p — Union South Marquee)

You take the blue, and you can enjoy this FREE co-presentation by WUD Film and the UW Lubar Institute’s series on religion in film. You take the red pill, the story ends and I stop making this stale reference.

Wednesday

Rear Window (1:55p, 7:45p — Sundance; 2:00p, 7:00p — Point, Eastgate)

La Dolce Vita (7:00p — UW Sterling Building, Rm 2335)

Fellini’s all time classic is a departure from La Cineteca’s usual slate of FREE Italian language deep cuts, but it’s so damn good who would possibly complain?

“Wild & Scenic Film Festival” (7:00p — Barrymore Theatre)

“Where activism gets inspired” is the theme of this year’s environmental film festival which features films on fracking and pollution in the Santiago River, among other topics. Hosted by the River Alliance of Wisconsin and Lindsay Wood Davis. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 day of.

Fast Five (7:00p — Point, Eastgate)

With Fast Five, Justin Lin breathed new life into a franchise that had begun to atrophy in 2009’s forgettable Fast & Furious. Partial credit goes to morphing the series into a string of increasingly ridiculous heists, with the gang heading to Rio to evade Brazilian gangsters and the Diplomatic Security Service. But let’s not overlook the added gravitas of 10-time WWE Champion Dwayne Johnson’s sweaty alpha cop, who makes for a perfect foil to Vin Diesel’s tough guy family man. $5, jabroni.

It Happened Here (7:00p — Union South Marquee)

WUD Film and PAVE present this FREE documentary on five college students and their experiences with sexual assault. A panel discussion about university counseling and reporting services will follow.