Movies in Madison get interesting again with a David Bowie tribute, Charlie Kaufman’s newest weirdness, and a six-hour odyssey.
Thursday
The Wicker Man (6:30p — Central Library)
The Room may hold the distinction of being the most questionably directed inside joke, but in 2006, Neil LaBute and The Wicker Man sure gave Tommy Wiseau a run for his money. In a nod to the lead from Robin Hardy’s 1973 original, Nicolas Cage plays Edward Woodward, who tears across the pagan island of Summersisle in search of his ex-fiancee’s missing daughter. What follows is an undulating mess of tonal shifts and hilarious melodrama, the bulk of which — you guessed it — comes from Cage, slapsticking his way through deranged cult sisters dead set on securing their “precious honey.” Any threads that make sense are as exciting as a wet towel, with the compelling material relegated to Cage’s spastic shifts and out of place distractions. That LaBute and Cage maintain it was meant to be this amusing is still very much up for debate. I don’t think the “Bad Cinema” series cares either way, though. (FREE.)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (6:30p — Union South Marquee)
Singer-songwriter. Glam rocker. Magician. Goblin King. Alien. Whether on stage, on screen, or blending the divides between music and movies, David Bowie’s personas were manifold. What made the late icon, who unexpectedly passed away last week, such a timeless figure is how each distinct, fascinating, weird and inviting personality was but a piece of a grander whole. WUD Film celebrates that whole with Bowie’s 1976 film debut, playing gaunt and softspoken extraterrestrial Thomas Jerome Newton, who goes in search of water to rehydrate his drought-stricken home world. Director Nicholas Roeg channels Bowie’s theatricality on the tail end of his funky “Thin White Duke” era, surrounding Newton’s interstellar traveler with naysayers who doubt his authenticity. True to his career, David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth isn’t for the majority. As the ultimate outsider, part of his genius was finding a way to let the other outcasts in. (FREE.)
All freakin’ weekend
Anomalisa (Sundance)
Sexual fixations. An awkward portmanteau. The promise of opaque artistry. It’s all in the title, really. Charlie Kaufman does not shy away from his insecurities in his work, a self-conscious tradition that stretches all the way back to 1999’s Being John Malkovich. His newest weirdness, a stop-motion collaboration with animator Duke Johnson (aka “the guy behind Community‘s Abed Christmas Special”), finds Kaufman channeling himself through another onscreen avatar. But far from the eccentric duality of his split personalities in Adaptation., this time he’s motivational speaker Michael (David Thewlis), who hears every voice in life as the same one. Literally. Veteran strange guy Tom Noonan voices every additional role in Anomalisa short of its namesake Lisa (Jennifer Jason), who captures the affections of Michael — and later sings a wonderfully barren cover of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” in his hotel room. Adapted from a 10 year-old radio play and financed through a combination of crowdfunding and Burbank’s Starburns Industries, this herky-jerky tale of loneliness finally stretches its limited run to Madison (Madison Film Forum‘s even giving away a pair of free passes for next week’s meetup).
Saturday
Arabian Nights, Vols. I — III (1:00p + 3:30p + 7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Split across three volumes (The Restless One, O Desolado, and The Enchanted One), director Miguel Gomes’s six-hour plus odyssey weaves elaborate tales of allegory, fantasy and stark realism. Too broadly focused to summarize in a single paragraph and yet too audacious not to address, Arabian Nights first stood apart from the twee and predictable cog-work at Sundance last year, making it an ideal fit for Cinematheque’s programming. Gomes and actor Crista Alfaiate as Scheherazade loosely adapt One Thousand and One Nights for their framing device, interweaving tales of a singing competition for pets, a teleporting runaway, and prosecuting a rooster for waking everyone up too damn early. Sure there’s other stuff you could see this weekend (Cinematheque’s Spring Calendar starts a day earlier with Hitchcock/Truffaut), but this might be the most ambitious lazy afternoon you’ll have in a while. (FREE.)