UPDATED 3/9/2015: UW Cinematheque’s additional screening for The Paper and featured speaker David Koepp has been added to Wednesday’s programming
Thursday
Interstellar (6:00p — Union South Marquee)
Christopher Nolan’s newest film looks to take us on a journey to other ends of the cosmos with Anne Hathaway and that guy from the Lincoln commercial. FREE.
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (6:30p — Central Library, Rm 302)
Before studios were hacking Paul Schrader films to pieces, there was Mishima, a gloriously colorful story of the final hours in the life of Yukio Mishima. Poet, philosopher, playwright and political radical, Schrader splits Mishima’s failed attempt to restore the Japanese Empire with gorgeous recreations of the author’s plays. “FREE art film” indeed.
Force Majeure (9:30p — Union South Marquee)
An avalanche would ruin any family’s ski trip. In Force Majeure, it may ruin the family itself. When one father (Johannes Kuhnke) flees the scene of a controlled avalanche, he spends the rest of his vacation avoiding the awkwardness that is leaving your wife (Lisa Loven Kongsli) and two kids behind. Director Ruben Östlund snaps a three-year hiatus in a drama that pits human nature against Mother Nature. FREE.
All freakin’ weekend
“Composers in Exile” (Friday – Sunday)
Not a film per se, but violinist Daniel Hope and the Madison Symphony Orchestra are putting on a weekend dedicated to exiled film composers. Featuring music from Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Captain Blood), MiklĂłs RĂłzsa (Ben Hur, Spellbound), and Franz Waxman (Taras Bulba), “Composers in Exile” stretches out its three-day program with talks from Hope and various literati from UW’s language, culture, and music departments. I’ll be out of town this weekend, so you’ll need to go for me. Please go for me? (Complete ticket information is available at overturecenter.org.)
What We Do in the Shadows (Sundance)
There’s too many motha’ ‘uckers ‘ucking with my crypt. Somewhere along their way to making a vampire mockumentary about four bloodsuckers scraping by in the modern age, Flight of the Conchords‘s Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi created a surprisingly sweet found footage film about the preciousness of life. And don’t forget the Madfilm Meetup on Tuesday.
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Sundance, AMC Star, Point, Eastgate)
India. Hotels. Dancing. Food. Sextagenarians sextagenarying all over the country. Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Ronald Pickup, Celia Imrie, and yes, Dev Patel are all back for another lovely excursion with Richard Gere in tow. Perhaps we’ve found the successor to The Hangover trilogy. Hopefully, it’s actually funny.
Chappie (Sundance, AMC Star, Point, Eastgate, Stoughton Cinema Café)
Obvious pun aside, Neill Blomkamp has come a long way in the six years since his promising if a touch obvious apartheid “allegory” in District 9. This time, he follows an engineer (Dev Patel, again) and his attempts to convince war-torn South Africa that not all robots are evil. Hugh Jackman has a mullet. Die Antwoord have speaking roles. (Is it still too late for that Halo movie?)
Unfinished Business (AMC Star, Point, Eastgate)
Vince Vaughn tries to close a cross-continental business deal. His partners Tom Wilkinson and Dave Franco try to fuck it up.
Friday
The Book of Life (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)
In this macabre Kids Dream selection, a pair of spirits place bets on whether Diego Luna’s Manolo Sanchez will win the affections of Zoe Saldana’s Maria. $2.
Force Majeure (5:00p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
Foxcatcher (6:30p — Pinney Library)
Channing Tatum’s Olympic wrestling star finds himself torn between the allegiances of an earnest older brother (Mark Ruffalo) and a domineering surrogate father (Steve Carell). If Moneyball is Bennett Miller’s marriage of logic and sports romanticism, then his based-on-a-true-story dramatization of Team Foxcatcher is the flipside, pointing out the hollowness in aphorisms and leadership. FREE.
The Dark Valley (6:45p — Alicia Ashman Library)
A stranger on horseback causes a ruckus in the Alps when his arrival coincides with the suspicious deaths of his host’s two sons. Alicia Ashman presents this “Best of the Fests” selection FREE.
Ashes and Diamonds + Innocent Sorcerers (7:00p, 8:45p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Martin Scorsese’s greatest asset will always be his eyebrows, but the director has found a second career in bringing international cinema to a larger audience. Together with Milestone Films, Marty’s “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema” has made its way to Madison with “great, sweeping, humanistic, intimate, profound” films from directors like Krzysztof Kieslowski.
This week is a Andrzej Wajda double feature. Ashes and Diamonds fuses the future fortunes of a Polish soldier with the uncertain trajectory his country now faces at the end of World War II. Wajda’s 1958 masterpiece will be followed by the more humble story of cocky doctor (Tadeusz Lomnicki) who falls in love with a woman (Zbigniew Cybulski) and then can’t find her. Think the “intercom search” stuff from Boy Meets Girl. FREE.
Interstellar (8:15p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
Metropolis (11:30p — Union South Marquee)
As a convenient (perhaps coincidental) follow-up to A Letter to Momo last week, WUD Film screens Rintaro’s anime of the manga of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film. Though Rintaro’s vision shares little with its source inspiration, the 2001 rendition captures the fearsomeness of its brave new world with Momo director Hiroyuki Okiura’s exquisite, anxiety-stricken animation. FREE.
Saturday
The Book of Life (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)
Kids Dream. $2.
Chaplin Short Film Festival (2:00p, 7:00p — Overture Center)
The Overture Center’s Duck Soup Cinema Club compiles four of the tramp’s shorter selections in everything from an old Chicago news ad to auto racing to Chaplin’s knack for poking fun at the industry’s behind-the-scenes nonsense. Featuring organ accompaniment by Clark Wilson. (Complete ticket information is available at overturecenter.org.)
Interstellar (6:00p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
The Price of Sand (6:30p — Memorial Union, Great Hall)
While cheap on literal face value, the price of sand gets much costlier when accounting for its troubling widespread use in frac mining. Director Jim Tittle will appear in person to discuss his documentary and the very real frac sand projects in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Co-presented FREE by the WUD Society and Politics Committee and UW’s Climate Action 350 awareness group.
Jauja + Two Shots Fired (7:00p, 9:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
Cinematheque has not one but two separate international cinema programs this weekend. The latter is their annual collaboration with UW’s Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies Program. “Festival de Cine” begins with the Danish-Argentine Jauja in which Viggo Mortensen and his 15 year-old daughter trek across a strange desert in a mystical, spiritual successor to Andrei Tarkovsky. Two Shots Fired, from Argentine visionary Martin Rejtman, chronicles the absurd aftermath of a teen (Rafael Federman) shooting himself twice and surviving. Both presented FREE in DCP with English subtitles. Languages. Languages, all around.
Rocky Horror Picture Show Brew ‘n View (9:00p — Majestic Theatre)
Doors at 7:30p. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 day of.
Force Majeure (9:00p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
Metropolis (11:30p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
Sunday
The Book of Life (10:00a — Point, Eastgate)
Kids Dream. $2.
The Last Movie (2:00p — Chazen Art Museum)
While shooting a western in South America, the late Dennis Hopper’s stuntman contends with Peruvian natives who don’t understand the difference between movie magic and actual violence. Cinematheque reckons Universal Studios 1971 slate of films mark one of the all-time “great years in Hollywood history” and their “Universal ’71” completist program is out to prove just that. FREE.
Interstellar (3:00p — Union South Marquee)
FREE.
Monday
Amour (2:00p — Alicia Ashman Library)
“BOOM” presents Michael Haneke’s soul-crushing (and from what I hear relatively accurate) depiction of a romance in the late stages of life. FREE.
Mamma Mia! (7:00p — Point, Eastgate)
Um, $5.
Ninja III: The Domination (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
The spirit of an insidious ninja possesses the body of an innocent telephone line worker/aerobics instructor (Lucinda Dickey). Her only means of spiritual salvation? Exorcism by ninja battle. WUD Film and the UW Cinematheque align their warrior spirits for another “Cannon Fodder” Marquee Monday. FREE (thy soul).
Tuesday
Guelwaar (7:00p — Union South Marquee)
WUD Film and the UW Lubar Institute continue their eight-film series on “Religion in Film” with this French-Senegalese dramedy about a dead Christian activist who receives a burial in a Muslim cemetery. UW Professor of French and African Languages & Literature Aliko Songolo will be on hand for a post-film discussion FREE.
Wednesday
Sunset Blvd. (1:55p, 8:00p — Sundance)
Hey, my waistline isn’t big. It’s the seats that got small.
War of the Worlds + The Paper (3:30p, 7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
The first of three appearances by Pewaukee native David Koepp, the co-writer behind some of Steven Spielberg’s most monolithic blockbusters, this special afternoon presentation will screen War of the Worlds on a 35mm print — and now later that evening, Ron Howard’s tabloid homage to paper pictures. FREE.
Roma cittĂ aperta (7:00p — UW Sterling Building, Rm 2335)
Roberto Rosselini’s Italian language drama toys with the illusion of a “free city” during Germany’s occupation of Rome in 1944. FREE.
A “First Look” at the Wisconsin Film Festival (7:00p — Sundance)
Presented by The Cap Times, grab an early glimpse of this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival schedule with a barrage of trailers. Or grab festival tickets early with the film guide released that same day. Grab a cocktail, too while you’re at it. (Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 at the door.)
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (7:00p — Point, Eastgate)
Juvenile delinquent Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) totals his car in an after-school street race and, to avoid going to jail, is sent to live with his estranged father on a Navy base in Tokyo. Japan, Sean quickly learns, is far from what he’s used to as a Yakuza boss’s nephew, Takashi (Brian Tee), controls much of the city’s underground racing scene. Stylish with terrific action, Tokyo Drift offers a fresh twist on a stale genre and a fish out of water story that avoids cheap gags and easy racist jokes. $5 is a small price to pay for hands-down the best film in the Fast and Furious series.
Food Chains (7:00 — Union South Marquee)
WUD Film and the Social Cinema Series present this documentary that looks at the unsettling state of farm labor in the U.S. FREE.