Green Sliiiiiiiiime, Rooftop Cinema goes out with their greatest hits, Hirokazu Kore-eda at Madison Sourdough, and the 48 Hour Film Project.
Thursday
The Green Slime (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Michael Knutsen rolls around in trash cinema with mirth. And make no mistake, The Green Slime is trashy, with its two astronauts (Robert Horton and Richard Jaeckel) bringing back an alien substance to their space station and jump-starting the ooze’s evolutionary assault on its power supply. A Japanese cut excised out an undercooked love triangle with Bond Girl Luciana Paluzzi’s space doctor, but those reveling in Thursday night’s FREE screening can delight in static playset effects and two hammy male leads measuring their dicks instead of containing the threat at hand. In 1968, Kinji Fukasaku’s camera had a long way to go before his masterfully fucked up Battle Royale (2000), so much of this Japanese-American production between MGM and Toei looks like footage from a garish, tacky lost season of Star Trek. Dammit, Jim, I’m an asshole, not an astronaut!
All freakin’ weekend
Lambert & Stamp (Sundance)
Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were two young Brits who set out in the early 60s to forge filmmaking careers off discovering a hot new band and making a movie about them. They ended up stumbling upon a group called The High Numbers in an underground cafe; you’d probably know them best as The Who. In this ersatz oral history-turned-documentary, veteran cinematographer James D. Cooper compiles their rich, unlikely partnership.
Saint Laurent (Sundance)
Saint Laurent, the 150 min biopic of the prime of fashion guru Yves Saint Laurent by musician-turned-transgressive director Bertrand Bonello sounds like niche fluff. In a twitchy, nuanced performance though, Gaspard Ulliel (remember Hannibal Rising?) portrays the gay fashion icon on his swift rise through Christian Dior, France’s biggest fashion house in 1957. What follows are bouts of discrimination, nervous breakdowns, and drug addiction.
Aloft (Sundance)
Together with Mélanie Laurent’s videojournalist, Cillian Murphy’s falconer (yes, really) sets out across the Canadian snow to find his long lost mother (Jennifer Connelly).
Sinister 2 (AMC Star, Point)
Scott Derrickson and former Aint It Cool News blogger C. Robert Cargill didn’t exactly write themselves into a corner with 2012’s Sinister, their meta-commentary on the oxymoronic pleasures derived from horror cinema, but the fate of Ethan Hawke’s crime writer and his family complicated the possibility of a future sequel. What’s more, the horror metal-stylized demon Bughuul is one of those movie monsters who’s cooler the less you see of him. After making bank on a shoestring budget though, Blumhouse Productions doesn’t seem to agree in their inevitable follow-up. The good news is that Derrickson, Cargill, and series newcomer Ciaran Foy have engineered their sequel around Shannyn Sossamon’s single mom and pied piper Bughuul’s stealing of children’s souls, this time from the child’s perspective.
American Ultra (AMC Star, Point)
Stoner Mike (Jesse Eisenberg) and stoner girlfriend Phoebe are stoners. That is, until Mike is awakened from a government-induced slumber and revealed to be pot-smoking sleeper agent. The bureaucrats in charge of his program (Connie Britton, Topher Grace) decide to shut him down, and there’s something about Jon Leguizamo as a drug dealer in this action-comedy penned by Superman enthusiast Max Landis.
Hitman: Agent 47 (AMC Star, Point)
After 2007’s ill-received Hitman (with Justified‘s Timothy Olyphant shaving his head for the role) Fox makes it abundantly clear they really, really want this hit videogame thing to be a hit movie thing. The “soft reboot” has a new lead in Rupert Friend, a Zachary Quinto, and a lot of bad special effects.
Friday
Black Sea (6:45p — Alicia Ashman Library)
(FREE.)
Rooftop Cinema presents “From Puppets to Pixels” (8:00p — MMoCA Rooftop Sculpture Garden)
“…Especially with Rooftop, I feel like trying to figure out what types of films worked well on the roof was tough, and there were years in which we showed kind of feature-length experimental films.” Earlier this week, MMoCA programmer Tom Yoshikami reflected on ten years of screening fun, obscure, wacky films on the museum rooftop. Ten years is a long-ass time so “From Puppets to Pixels” will pull from the best of the series’ decade-long run with selections like Tunnel of Love by cine-activist Helen Hill and Ryan, Chris Landreth’s splayed out interpretation of an interview with acclaimed, tortured Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. (Admission is FREE to MMoCA members, $7 for everyone else.)
Still Walking (8:15p — Madison Sourdough)
Family gatherings are already intolerable; now imagine revisiting the memory of a dead loved one at every meal. Every year, the family in Still Walking visits the grave of their eldest, deceased son Junpei, who died as a child in a drowning accident. And every year, the surviving siblings, now grown enough to marry and have kids of their own, have to listen to their parents second-guess their life choices. Deliberate with a sensitivity to human nature, Hirokazu Kore-eda apparently drew on his own experiences as a child in his 2008 drama and was once postulated to be the heir to Yasujiro Ozu by Roger Ebert. Forget the lofty expectations for Sourdough’s FREE Patio Nights, though. Just bring a blanket.
Saturday
Food Patriots (2:00p — Meadowridge Library)
A 10% change in our eating habits is all director Jeff Spitz wants in Food Patriots, his 2014 agri-conscious documentary on dietary choices. It’s a simple proposal. His solution? Raise some chickens, maybe! Privileged absurdities aside, there’s a lot to get behind in this Wisconsin Film Festival alum from urban gardens to highlighting Madison’s own Slow Food Cafe. A Q&A with farmer/shaker/mover/thinker Robert Pierce will follow. Doors open at 1:30p. (FREE.)
Monday
Friday Night Lights (7:00p — Point)
($5.)
Airplane! (9:00p — Union Terrace)
(FREE.)
Wednesday
No Escape (AMC Star, Point)
Owen Wilson, Lake Bell and their children are stuck in the middle of a violent coup in “Southeast Asia,” where the insurgent rebels are threatening to execute any and all foreigners, and it’s up to government operative Pierce Brosnan to lead them to safety. 14 years after Behind Enemy Lines and Owen Wilson, Action Star is back, baby!
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (2:30p, 7:45p — Sundance)
You guys, we’re basically telling summer to fuck off by screening this out of season.
Abhyasam (7:00p — Alicia Ashman Library)
Sreeni Reddy shows off Abhyasam, his short film in which a freedom fighter provides shelter to orphans and victims of child labor in the name of social justice. Reddy will appear in person for a Q&A afterward. (FREE.)
Friday Night Lights (7:00p — Point)
($5.)
Madison 48 Hour Film Festival (7:00p + 9:00p — Sundance)
Madison’s teams are a little more than a day away from torpedoing their weekend plans to make a 48 Hour Film Project. What kind of bullshit name will they be forced to work into their films this year? How artificial will that required line of dialogue sound in conversation? And will any asshole groups leave early after their film is subsequently screened for an audience at Hilldale? All submitted entries are broken into two separate programs and screened at Hilldale, where audiences vote on their favorites. A “Best Of” program will follow on Fri, Aug 28 where this year’s winners will be announced.