Screening Report 1/29/25

A great week for international cinema and thrilling classics.

Jan 29, 2025

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Hello, readers, to this week’s Horizon Line screening report! Welcome to our new readers who’ve come from my interview with Tone Madison’s Grant Phipps, who I had a lovely time talking with about the project. The 97th Academy Award nominees have been announced, and you’ll see many of the nominees appearing in our listings as we move through February.

Our big new commercial releases are Dog Man and Companion, suitable counterprogramming to the heavier awards fare dominating film discussion this week. If you’re seeking more arthouse fare, however, two of the best reviewed films of last year are playing in town. AMC and Flix will be playing The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian film up for Best International Feature, a political thriller set against the Mahsa Amini protests in Tehran. Cinematheque is playing a one night engagement of All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia’s film about nurses navigating cultural mores around sex and marriage. And MMOCA is playing Hong Sang Soo’s A Traveler’s Needs, his second film working with legendary actress Isabelle Huppert - Hong is notorious for working at such a rapid pace that he’s made two more features since A Traveler’s Needs debuted at the Berlin Film Festival last year.

In repertory, I absolutely have to draw attention to Cinematheque’s screening of The Wages of Fear. A 50s French thriller, four desperate truck drivers are hired to transport highly volatile nitroglycerine across the mountains. One bump in the road too hard and they’ll go up in flames - but if they make the journey, they’ll be able to leave their destitution. It’s one of the most tense and exciting films I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait to see it on the big screen. A week later, Cinematheque will be playing the William Friedkin remake Sorcerer, which was a bomb upon release but was reclaimed to the point where its reputation may have eclipsed the original. WUD Film is also offering a fun horror double feature of The Shining and The Thing, each both playing Friday and Saturday evening.

I also want to highlight the Bartell Theater Film Series, as they’re a less common addition to our schedule - they’ll be running three acclaimed films, starting with the first National Lampoon’s movie, Animal House, on Thursday the 31st. Next, they’re playing the John Waters shock and awe Trash Trilogy originator Pink Flamingos on Friday. On Saturday, they’re offering Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind at 6:30pm. These are the only films on their program until a screening of Hundreds of Beavers on March 28th.

Next week, we’re looking at the multiplex arrival of Brazilian Best Picture nominee I’m Still Here, Ke Huy Quan/Ariana DeBose action vehicle Love Hurts, and ironic slasher Heart Eyes. In our curated programming, Cinematheque will offer a gnarly crime thriller Dead Mail on February 6th, which they compare to the films of Brian De Palma and the Coen Brothers. MMOCA will continue its cinema series with documentary Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted, which is netting raves from the handful of festival screenings it’s had so far. In repertory, alongside Sorcerer, Cinematheque will be playing Seven Samurai, and WUD Film will be playing Chungking Express, Memento, and Longlegs. And a week past that, it’ll be a huge week back at the multiplex for Captain America: Brave New World and Paddington in Peru.

PLUG ZONE

Rob Thomas published a review on All We Imagine as Light, which is excerpted below.
With nothing else to plug this week, I’ll plug that I’m writing up my favorite video games of 2024 on my personal website.

If you wrote something you’re proud of and want me to plug it here, please shoot a link to horizonlinemadison@gmail.com.

THIS WEEK (1/30/25-2/5/25)

New Releases

-All We Imagine As Light - 7p 1/30 at UW Cinematheque
“There are eight million stories in the naked city,” goes the intro to the old TV show. In Mumbai, make that 12 million. The opening scene of writer-director Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine As Life” shows a bustling Mumbai train station full of people, swimming upstream and downstream to and from work.
But Kapadia brings us close enough to eavesdrop on snatches of conversation here and there. It may be an overwhelmingly large mass of humanity, but Kapadia shows us that every one in that sea is an individual, with their own hopes, dreams, secrets and regrets.” - Rob Thomas

-Companion - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Dog Man - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Green and Gold - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Valiant One - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Love Me - AMC, Marcus Point
-The Seed of the Sacred Fig - AMC, Flix Brewhouse
-Luther: Never Too Much - AMC
-Sky Force - 3:15pm 1/30 at AMC
-A Traveler’s Needs - 7p 2/5 at MMOCA

Repertory

-National Lampoon’s Animal House - 8p 1/30 at Bartell Theater
-Pink Flamingos - 8p 1/31 at Bartell Theater
-The Shining - 6:30p 1/31 at The Marquee Union South, 9p 2/1 at The Marquee Union South
-The Thing - 9:30p 1/31 at The Marquee Union South, 6:30p 2/1 at The Marquee Union South
-The Wages of Fear - 7p 1/31 at UW Cinematheque
-Close Encounters of the Third Kind - 6:30p 2/1 at Bartell Theater
-Clueless - 6p 2/1 at Flix Brewhouse
-Murdering the Devil - 7p 2/1 at UW Cinematheque
-Edge of Tomorrow - 2:45p 2/2 at Flix Brewhouse
-Wayne’s World - 6:45p 2/4 at Flix Brewhouse
-Cowboy Bebop: The Movie - 2/5-2/6 at AMC, Marcus Point
-Get Out - 7:45pm 2/5 at Marcus Palace
-Hellraiser - 2/5-2/6 at AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Nope - 4:30pm 2/5 at Marcus Palace
-Trolls Band Together - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace

NEXT WEEK (2/6/25-2/12/25)

New Releases

-Heart Eyes - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Love Hurts - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Becoming Led Zeppelin - AMC
-I’m Still Here - AMC
-Renner - AMC
-Vidaamuyarchi - AMC
-Dead Mail - 7p 2/6 at UW Cinematheque
-Paddington in Peru Preview Screening - 1pm 2/8 at Marcus Palace
-Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted - 7pm 2/12 at MMOCA

-Companion - AMC
-Dog Man - AMC, Marcus Palace
-The Fire Inside - AMC
-The Forge - AMC
-Longlegs - 9p 2/7 and 2/8 at The Marquee Union South

Repertory

-The Five Demands - 6:30p 2/6 at The Marquee Union South
-Chungking Express - 6:30p 2/7 at The Marquee Union South
-Sorcerer - 7p 2/7 at UW Cinematheque
-The Lego Movie - 2/8 and 2/11 at Flix Brewhouse
-Memento - 6:30p 2/8 at The Marquee Union South
-The Nice Guys - 6:30p 2/8 at Flix Brewhouse
-Seven Samurai - 7p 2/8 at UW Cinematheque
-The Twilight Saga Marathon - 12pm, 12:20pm 2/8 at Marcus Point, 12pm 2/8 at Marcus Palace
-13 Conversations About One Thing - 2p 2/9 at Chazen Museum of Art
-Cowboy Bebop: The Movie - 4:30p 2/9 at AMC
-Get Out - 11:10a 2/9 at Marcus Palace
-Nope - 2p 2/9 at Marcus Palace
-If - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace

Follow us on Bluesky if it’ll help you keep up with us! If you wrote something you’re proud of and want me to plug it here, please shoot a link to horizonlinemadison@gmail.com.

The Horizon Line Madison

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