Fear and Loathing in a public space, Wild Strawberries, Fantastic Four opens wide and I Am Chris Farley at the Orpheum
Thursday
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Hunter S. Thompson is one of those rare singular personalities to have withstood the tests of stoner philosophizing and dorm room posterdom. For Christ’s sake, the man invited Conan O’Brien to shoot guns and drink whiskey. Maybe that Late Night remote segment isn’t an endorsement of his sanity, but it lends credence to Thompson’s drug-fueled road trip. Headlined by a bonkers pre-Pirates Johnny Depp performance, Terry Gilliam takes us through Sin City with Thomspon’s “legal advisor” Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro, who feasted on a dozen donuts a day for that gut). As your attorney I advise you to rent a very fast car with no top and see Cinesthesia’s FREE presentation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap (5:30p — Sundance)
“It wasn’t just that all the male students seemed to have a head start on programming compared to her, [director Robin] Hauser Reynolds said. It was that there were so many of them, and they seemed to fit into the tech world better than she did.” The Capital Times makes a darn good point about Silicon Valley and the male-dominated tech industry. CODE, which gets its Wisconsin premiere courtesy of the Madison Chamber of Commerce, looks at why that is. (The $25 admission gets you a seat to the documentary and access to a post-show panel with Hauser Reynolds and a host of Madison techies.)
Dragonball Z: Resurrection F (7:00p — Point)
All freakin’ weekend
Fantastic Four (Sundance, AMC Star, Point)
After Roger Corman’s shameless attempt to keep movie rights and Twentieth Century’s Fox’s debatably crappier justification for having them, could this finally be the film Marvel’s First Family deserves? Even with a much younger cast (Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Sue Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm) the jury is still out on this one. Blame the generic advertising? Or those Denny’s tie-ins.
Ricki and the Flash (Sundance, AMC Star, Point)
Boasting original songs by Jenny Lewis and a lead role that makes Meryl Streep look like kind of a dick (she’s a rock star returning home to her husband Kevin Kline and the family she left behind), the biggest hook here might be Streep not getting an awards campaign out of this. Or… she will? It’s August and we’re already talking about awards season. Now I get why she ran away.
The Gift (AMC Star, Point)
Michael Bluth and Alfred Borden’s wife find out that Owen Lars might be a little crazy when his neighborly advances take a turn for the creepy. The Gift is a peculiar choice for Joel Edgerton to make his directorial debut, but then again, he already said “yes” to Attack of the Clones.
Irrational Man (Sundance, Point)
In Woody Allen’s latest, Joaquin Phoenix is an impotent, alcoholic New England professor who plots a perfect murder with student and confidante (Emma Stone) all while struggling to get it up for a frisky colleague (Parker Posey).
Dark Places (AMC Star)
Two decades after her brother murdered her entire family, Charlize Theron falls in with a club of private investigators, tussles with a Satanic cult and learns that her sibling might be innocent after all. If Gone Girl put Gillian Flynn’s novels on the proverbial Hollywood map, this one might just bump her right off it again.
Srimanthudu (Point)
Furious 7 (AMC Star)
Fri-Sun at 12:00p and Mon-Thurs at 12:00p and 10:00p. $5.
Friday
Ex Machina (6:30p — Pinney Library)
Domhnall Gleeson’s programmer is selected to participate in a mountainside Turing Test courtesy of his company’s reclusive CEO (Oscar Isaac), and confusion sets in when it becomes unclear who’s really testing whom. As android Ava, Alicia Vikander is both unsettling and positively captivating, and Ben Salisbury and trip-hopper Geoff Barrow’s synthetic score is a messy blur between the artificial and the genuine. (FREE)
The Skeleton Twins (6:45p — Alicia Ashman Library)
After a failed suicide attempt, Bill Hader moves in with his estranged sister (Kristen Wiig) and her nice-to-a-fault husband (Luke Wilson) for the Sundance-iest film to come out of Sundance in years. (FREE)
Wild Strawberries (8:30p — Madison Sourdough)
The Seventh Seal handles death with macabre, Chaucerian iconography, while Persona assaults identity with subtlety and cinematic trickery of the highest order. For my money though, 1957’s Wild Strawberries is where Ingmar Bergman truly shines, tossing and turning about in Isak Borg’s (Victor Sjöström) late-life crisis as the again professor travels to accept an honorary award and revisits his life with haunting immediacy. Madison Sourdough continues its FREE series of arthouse on the patio with a dreamy and, at times, nightmarish acceptance of our past, present, and future.
Saturday
Dragonball Z: Resurrection F (11:00a — Point)
I Am Chris Farley (7:00p — Orpheum)
2012 called and they want movies at the Orpheum back. It’s true, Madison’s legendary theater is opening its doors at least one more time for I Am Chris Farley. Depending on what you want out your documentaries, the chronicle of Farley’s life as told by Bob Odenkirk, David Spade, Molly Shannon and an assortment of family and friends is a mixed bag. Two things are for sure about Madison, Wisconsin’s proudest export, though: (1) He was a true talent gone far too soon and (2) his hometown’s gonna love this. (Tickets are $12)
Sunday
Home (10:00a — Point)
$3.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (3:00p — Duck Pond)
(FREE)
Four Star Video Cooperative Anniversary Party (9:00p — Genna’s Lounge)
Have you heard? After 30 years in business, Four Star Video’s turning one again. To celebrate, the four owners of Madison’s video cooperative are throwing an anniversary party complete with music from DJ Carl Castle and plenty of projected media goodness.
Monday
Home (10:00a — Point)
$3.
We Are Marshall (7:00p — Point)
As the nation lurches toward the start of football season, Marcus Theatres’ preemptive series gets moderately more tolerable. ($5.)
Donnie Darko Brew ‘n View (8:00p — Majestic Theatre)
Doors at 7:30p. (FREE)
Snowpiercer (9:00p — Memorial Union Terrace)
After a catastrophic climate event wipes out most of the global population, Chris Evans leads a rebellion through the freight car caste system of a speeding train carrying the survivors across Earth’s icy surface. The ending of Bong Joon-ho’s realized graphic novel is depressingly overwritten, but neither a talky train conductor nor the meddlesome Harvey Scissorhands can wipe away the stellar production design and grease-smeared world-building. All aboard WUD Film’s Lakeside Cinema. (FREE)
Tuesday
Batman (6:30p — Pinney Library)
(FREE)
Dragonball Z: Resurrection F (7:00p — Point)
Wednesday
Home (10:00a — Point)
$3.
Coming to America (2:25p, 7:45p — Sundance)
We Are Marshall (7:00p — Point)
$5.
Dragonball Z: Resurrection F (7:00p — Point)
Madison Film Forum Drive-In Caravan (7:00p — Highway 18 Drive-In Theater)
Our friends at Madison Film Forum are united by a common mission: To get their readers to watch as many great films as possible, be it through streaming services, at the multiplex, and even hosting “caravans” to drive-in movies. With the summer winding down, Madfilm hosts a penultimate drive-in to the Highway 18 theater (just west of Jefferson) with a Mission: Impossible – Rogue Agent + Terminator: Genisys double feature.