April and the Extraordinary World, a Green Room preview, and LakeFrontRow Cinema presents Take the Dog
Thursday
Zero Hour! (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Having caused the accidental deaths of his co-pilots, Ted Stryker’s life is a bummer. He lives out his days in Ottawa, disappointing his wife so much that she buys a one-way ticket to Vancouver just to get out of the arrangement. Stryker follows her and their small child on the same flight, and when its passengers and crew become mysteriously ill, it’s up to Stryker to take the controls and redeem his manhood on the 2,200 mile journey. If that sounds like Airplane!, that’s because it is. Almost literally, Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers lifted the screenplay word-for-word for their 1980 camp classic. This FREE “Bad Cinema” presentation is sure to deliver some laughs, though definitely not with the same intentions.
All freakin’ weekend
Medal of Victory (Point)
Those “Crump” stickers you may have seen around town aren’t riffs on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. It’s true that both Richard Riehle’s Ted Crump (and Jack O’Connell’s Harry Maddox) make for wonderful cynical facsimiles to the GOP frontrunner but that’s just a coincidence, given that Joshua Moise’s Wisconsin-shot festival selection began its Kickstarter campaign years ago. And that $40,000 went toward what’s essentially a live-action adult cartoon. Its two soldiers (Will Blomker and Mason Hill) are on the lam from the military when they stumble into small-town corruption and are subsequently mistaken for war heroes. The Capital Times already made a Coen Bros comparison and rightfully so as Medal of Victory questions the value of change with the madcap hijinx of Raising Arizona. If you missed one of the screenings at this year’s festival, Marcus Theatres is featuring a week-long limited run.
April and the Extraordinary World (Sundance)
A combination of the composite work in contemporary Japanese animation and character designs reminiscent of George Remi, seeing Avril et le monde truqué in motion might be arresting for fans of Jacques Tardi’s graphic novel. While the filmic adaptation doesn’t follow the source material’s plot closely, it still pulls from Tardi’s 1940s steampunk vision of Paris. The orphaned April (voiced by Marion Cotillard) seeks out her missing scientists parents, whose decade-long disappearance have rendered France a technologically impoverished and creatively bereft shadow of its former self. Don’t let the talking cat lull you into the sense that this one’s strictly kiddie fare. Like the best Pixar entries, Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci’s adaptation is a family film for the adults in the room, too.
Friday
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Cinematheque isn’t done with Robert Altman yet. In this 1971 anti-Western, the director picks at classical myths of prosperity and entrepreneurship in its titular partnership as Warren Beatty’s John McCabe and Julie Christie’s Constance Miller jump-start a Washington town’s economy through America’s favorite pastimes: gambling and old fashioned sex trade. Whether “marred in bad sound” or putting an intentionally confusing mix to good use, Altman’s snow-driven anti-Western lives up to its director’s ornery and provocative rep. (FREE).
Saturday
Green Room (7:45p — Union South Marquee)
When the rockers of The Ain’t Rights make stop at a suspicious venue in Oregon, they soon go from down-and-out musicians to captives after witnessing a murder at the hands of a brutal white supremacist (Patrick Stewart). Blue Ruin‘s Jeremy Saulnier may be switching up colors in his follow-up, but this looks to be more of the same ruthless brand of filmmaking that first put him on the map at Cannes. WUD Film offers a FREE sneak peek.
Wednesday
Take the Dog (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Rest assured, this weekend’s preview portends a far worse fate for its punksters than April’s edition of LakeFrontRow Cinema. Take the Dog sends two brothers on a road trip to see a third, a yuppie who’s getting married in California. Departing Milwaukee in a rental, the pair come with Tim’s girlfriend and his dog and head out west. With Tim recently out of jail and the gang’s emotions getting the best (and worst) of them, the whole venture makes for a messy, engrossing experience, and the slim production from Milwaukee’s Shaky Balloon produces DIY transcendence from essentially a couple of people making a movie in a car. With an unexpectedly hypnotic vérité style, Take the Dog feels as cozy as home despite the distance it goes. (FREE).