Paper Towns and Paper Moons.
Thursday
Black Magic (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
FREE.
All freakin’ weekend
Paper Towns (Sundance, AMC Star, Point, Stoughton Cinema Cafe)
After harboring a crush for classmate Margo Spiegelman (Cara Delevingne), Quentin Jacobsen (Palo Alto‘s Nat Wolff) has his dreams come true when Margo asks for his help in pranking her friends all night. The next day, Margo is nowhere to be found, so Quentin and his friends embark on a road trip, following clues Margo may(or may not) have left behind. The latest young adult novel-turned-movie from YouTuber/author John Green, Paper Towns has already received modest buzz for crafting a real human story about why we shouldn’t always be the center of our own worlds.
Pixels (AMC Star, Point)
Based off the 2010 short film of the same name. Kind of. Like Patrick Jean’s original two and a half minute project, Tetris pieces rain down from the sky on New York City streets and a giant Pac-Man swallows subway stops whole, but Adam Sandler and director Chris Columbus don’t stop there. They aim for bonus points with Michelle Monaghan (as the overqualified Sandler love interest) Josh Gad, and Peter Dinklage, all frantically trying to save the Big Apple from space invaders who receive a time capsule from the 1980s and decide to attack Earth in the style of well, Space Invaders. Don’t forget the Waka Flocka x Good Charlotte cross-over tie-in.
Southpaw (AMC Star)
Where did Jake Gyllenhaal come from? I mean, I know October Sky and Donnie Darko. But after playing a bug-eyed sociopath in 2014’s Nightcrawler he’s now a shredded boxer on the road to redemption and winning back his daughter with the help of coach Forest Whitaker. The guy’s gone full method. You never know if you’re getting The Equalizer or Training Day from Antoine Fuqua, but with a soundtrack featuring original songs by Eminem (Fuqua’s first choice to play boxer Billy Hope) and what will mark the last score by the dearly departed James Horner, Southpaw might be worth putting up with the melodrama.
Mr. Holmes (Sundance)
(Opening at Hilldale.)
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (AMC Star)
Fri-Sun at 12:00p and Mon-Thurs at 12:00p and 10:00p. $5.
Friday
Human Capital (6:45p — Alicia Ashman Library)
Palo Virzì has long harbored a fixation for destroying façades. He poked fun at Italy’s political system in Ferie d’agosto, modern sensibilities in Hugs and Kisses, and 19th century intelligentsia in Napoleon and Me. His latest target? Social strata. Featuring a Tribeca Award-winning performance from Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, the Italian director’s latest links together two families — one upper-class and one just trying to get by — following a devastating car accident on Christmas Eve. (FREE.)
Paper Moon (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
It’s the middle of the Great Depression. Real-life father-daughter team Ryan and Tatum O’Neal (who became the youngest Oscar winner at 10 as Addie Loggins) are scamming widows out of what money they have left by convincing them to make good on Bibles their deceased husbands never ordered. In 1973, Peter Bogdonavich directed a loving throwback to classic conventions while reminding the rest of cinema why The Last Picture Show wasn’t a fluke in the first place. (FREE.)
Saturday
Get Hard (2:00p — Hawthorne Library)
(FREE.)
The Karate Kid (2:00p — Pinney Library)
Pinney’s “Blockbusters of Summers Past” rolls on, and of course it’s the 1984 version. (FREE.)
Frozen (5:00p — Duck Pond)
Madison Parks’ Moonlight Movies has outfield seating for their FREE screening at the Duck Pond. Gates open at 4:30p.
Sunday
Horton Hears a Who! (10:00a — Point)
I think Hollywood has as many bad Seuss movies as Bartholomew Cubbins has hats. This 2008 20th Century Fox animation doesn’t add much to the story of an elephant who discovers the town of Who-Ville and tries protecting its microscopic citizenry from danger, but Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell are talented enough on their own to make it worth taking the kids for $3 admission. Can Dr. Seuss have a Cinematic Universe, too?
Monday
Horton Hears a Who! (10:00a — Point)
$3.
Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (9:00p — Memorial Union Terrace)
Best. Breakfast. Ever. (FREE.)
Tuesday
Reservoir Dogs Brew ‘n View (8:00p — Majestic Theatre)
Quentin Tarantino’s scene-shattering debut gets a lot of love and for a lot of reasons. Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth’s great chemistry. Gratuity philosophy. Ruining Steeler’s Wheel forever. For its endless quotability, bloody shoot-outs, Chris Penn’s knack for saying “fuck,” Reservoir Dogs is foremost a masterclass on the importance of context. Context, as in remember this piece from two years ago? Majestic opens the doors at 7:30p. (FREE.)
Wednesday
Vacation (AMC Star)
Don’t call it a comeback. National Lampoon’s resurrecting their Vacation franchise with a now adult Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms), who takes his wife (Christina Applegate) and two sons to Walley World one last time before it closes for good. Best of all, it’s co-directed by Sam Weir from Freaks and Geeks.
Horton Hears a Who! (10:00a — Point)
$3.
Gremlins (2:30p, 7:30p — Sundance)
From Mayerling to Sarajevo (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
In Cinematheque’s final French restoration, Max Ophüls imagines the rollicking affair between Austrian patriarch Archduke Franz Ferdinand (John Lodge) and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg (Edwige Feuillère) all the way up to their assassination in 1914. Spoilers for World War I. (FREE.)