Thursday
Mac and Me (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Jennifer Aniston’s (uncredited) onscreen debut. A perplexing score by Hollywood composer Alan Silvestri. A source of late night amusement for Paul Rudd. Orion Pictures’ ill-conceived and ill-fated E.T. rip-off has become better known for the celebrities in its proximity than for its own shoddiness. “Bad Cinema” presents Stewart Raffill’s 1988 shampoo commercial of a movie. (FREE.)
The Long Hot Summer (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Maybe it’s the heat, but I don’t know what phase of Cinematheque’s Orson Welles centennial we’ve entered. In Martin Ritt’s loose William Faulkner adaptation (is there any other kind?) Paul Newman becomes entangled in the Mississippi melodrama of Will Varner (Welles) and his daughter (Joanne Woodward). Madison’s repertory program begins their summer celebration of Welles as performer, and this southern variant on Confidential Report/Mr. Arkadin likewise plays to the intrigue and commanding presence of the legend. Amanda McQueen also praises the “sultry” score from Alex North, who apparently only gets his music scrapped on Kubrick projects. (FREE.)
All freakin’ weekend
Dope (Sundance, AMC Star, Point)
After a WUD Film sneak peek back in April, this Sundance breakout dramedy — an Inglewood high school’s geeky pariah (Shameik Moore) gets mixed up in a drug buy — gets an official Madison release. Featuring supporting performances by Zoe Kravitz, A$AP Rocky, Tyga, Blake Anderson, and The Grand Budapest Hotel‘s Tony Revolori.
Inside Out (Sundance, AMC Star, Point, Stoughton Cinema Cafe)
As of this writing, Pixar’s head trip about a young girl’s emotions after her father takes a job in the Bay Area, has a 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Review aggregators are a flawed metric of quality, but critics are already hailing Pete Docter (Up) and Ronnie del Carmen’s (um, Dug’s Special Mission?) film as a return to the animation juggernaut’s glory days of stories that aren’t based on vehicle play sets. The bold concept — visualizing and vocalizing our inner emotions of Joy, Anger, Sadness, Fear, and Digust — seems like a good place to start. The voice cast — Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Phyllis Smith — probably helps, too.
ABCD 2 (AMC Star)
So You Think You Can Dance‘s Lauren Gottlieb heads a cast of Mumbai street kids whose success leads them to Las Vegas in Disney India’s follow-up to their 2013 3D dance picture.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I (AMC Star)
Fri-Sun at 12:00p and Mon-Thurs at 12:00p and 10:00p. $5.
Friday
Grease “Sing-a-long” (7:00p — Capitol Theater)
A far cry from the hallowed “Duck Soup Cinema,” the Overture Center’s sing-a-long to the John Travolta/Olivia Newton John classic promises lyrics to follow, an extra 30 minutes for a vocal warm-up, and undoubtedly promising take-homes in a “fun pack.” I hope those leather pants are included. (Tickets are anywhere from $19 – $25. )
Bye Bye Birdie (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
FREE.
Rooftop Cinema presents “Cause and Effect” (9:30p — Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Rooftop Sculpture Garden)
Rooftop Cinema presents Frank and Caroline Mouris’s Frank Film animates magazine clippings for an Oscar-winning collage of touchstone images that feels right out of early-era Sesame Street; Bert Haanstra’s groundbreaking documentary short Glas, which humanizes the art of glass-blowing while making it the least bit interesting; and the cream of the evening’s crop, The Way Things Go, Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s short film that was allegedly so good when it first played at the museum in 2008 that guests abandoned their dinners for its “Rube Goldberg-like chain reaction.” (Admission is FREE to MMoCA members and $7 for the rest of us.)
Sunday
Paddington (10:00a — Point)
$3.
Jaws (2:05p, 7:40p — Point)
The original summer blockbuster gets a 40th Anniversary re-release.
Reefer Madness + Worthless (7:30p — Broom Street Theater)
Leave your marijuana cigarettes at home for Broom Street Theater’s fundraiser. According to the Facebook page, the $5 admission benefits the theater itself and “local artists,” artists that hopefully include those that make films like Worthless. The 2014 48 Hour Film Project will be paired with Louis Gasnier’s reactionary drug tract.
Monday
Penguins of Madagascar (10:00a — Point)
$3.
It’s Gonna Blow: San Diego’s Music Underground 1986-1996 (7:00p — High Noon Saloon)
After screening documentaries on the D.C. punk and Amphetamine Reptile Records, the High Noon moves on to San Diego’s “explosive” music scene. Featuring appearances from The Rapture’s Luke Jenner and, gulp, Tom DeLonge, It’s Gonna Blow chronicles the Cali underground’s uneasy relationship with the mainstream. ($8 admission gets you a screening and a set courtesy of DJ Ted Offensive.)
Mad Max (9:00p — Memorial Union Terrace)
Let’s hope it’s a lovely, lovely day. (FREE.)
Wednesday
Penguins of Madagascar (10:00a — Point)
$3.
Jaws (2:00p, 7:00p — Point; 2:05p, 7:40p — Sundance)
Diary of a Country Priest (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
If time remembers Claude Laydu for nothing else, surely we’ll still be honoring his performance as the chronically ill title character in Diary of a Country Priest. Robert Bresson directs this cinematic port of Georges Bernanos’s novel in which the French man of God is rejected by his new village congregation and comes to doubt his own faith. (FREE.)