Screening Report 2/19/2025

Passion, Guinea Fowl, Love & Basketball, and more!

Feb 19, 2025

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Horizon Line Madison screening report! Final Oscar voting officially ended yesterday, and with that the end of the season is finally almost upon us. You can tell by the screening times for the Best Picture nominees, which are now each staggered to two or three days per week, and by the number of premieres on the calendar. However, if you don’t want to miss anything (except Emilia Perez, which is not being shown theatrically) you can attend the two-part marathons of Best Picture contenders at AMC and Marcus.

Of the new releases, the film I’m most excited for is easily On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, screening at Cinematheque on Thursday the 20th. Filmmaker Rungano Nyoni made her feature debut with Wisconsin Film Festival selection I Am Not A Witch, and like that previous film, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl has been receiving acclaim for its sharp sense of humor and its layered characterizations. I was energized by reading the (always great) Kambole Campbell on the film in Empire. I’ll also make a note of Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, a wuxia film by legendary action filmmaker Tsui Hark (Peking Opera Blues, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, Once Upon a Time in China.)

As mentioned last week, we also have a number of great rep screenings celebrating Black filmmakers in Madison this week. My favorite film playing is Gina Prince Bythewood’s Love & Basketball, a patient and wonderful story about growing closer and apart over the years. But the films I’m most excited to see for the first time are Pam Grier vehicle Coffy (the largest direct inspiration on Jackie Brown) and Spike Lee semi-autobiography Crooklyn (scripted by his sister Joie and framed through her perspective.) Marcus Palace is also offering screenings of two biopics, Straight Outta Compton and Just Mercy, as part of their Black History Month programming.

Next week, there’s another strong double-header of Madison premieres on Thursday the 27th. Cinematheque will be screening Universal Language, Canada’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar, a film which has received rave reviews comparing it to every lighthearted surrealist filmmaker from Kiarostami to Kaurasmaki, from Wes Anderson to Roy Andersson, from Charles Kaufman to Charles Schultz. But WUD Film also has a screening of the new documentary Separated, studying American migrant family separations and directed by legendary filmmaker Errol Morris (Gates of Heaven, The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War.)

Whatever you decide to see, I implore you to try to make time for Saturday the 1st’s screening of The Passion of Joan of Arc. The film is most famous for Maria Falconetti’s performance of the saint, who she plays with breathtaking conviction, and for its expressionist imagery and architecture. But the film is also an archetypical procedural film, portraying the Catholic Church’s early invention of witness interrogation and trial proceedings, and then inverts tropes it’s simultaneously inventing.

Looking forward to the week of March 6th, Bong Joon-Ho’s Mickey 17 stands out among the new releases alongside Paul W.S. Anderson and George R.R. Martin fantasy action flick In The Lost Lands, John Lithgow/Geoffrey Rush horror movie The Rule of Jenny Pen, and Afghan girls’ robotics team drama Rule Breakers.

PLUG ZONE

-The Blank Check movie podcast may be based out of New York, but their researcher JJ Bersch is still here in Madison, WI. He also contributes weekly to their weekly newsletter Check Book, and this week he shared a summary of his UW grad program dissertation on E.T. and product placement. (If you want a good starter episode, they have episodes on both Love & Basketball and Cinesthesia February screening Something Wild!)

THIS WEEK (2/20/2025-2/26/2025)

New Releases

-The Monkey - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-The Unbreakable Boy - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Cleaner - AMC
-Las Tres Sisters - AMC
-Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants - AMC, Marcus Point
-Parthenope - Marcus Point
-On Becoming a Guinea Fowl - 7p 2/20 at UW Cinematheque
-2025 Oscar Nominated Short Films (Live Action) - 2/26 at Marcus Point, Marcus Palace

Repertory

-Love and Basketball - 6:30p 2/20 Flix Brewhouse
-Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - 2/20 AMC, Marcus Point
-Coffy - 7p 2/21 at UW Cinematheque
-Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - 2/21 AMC, Marcus Point
-21 Jump Street - 6:15p 2/22 at Flix Brewhouse
-Air Conditioner - 7p 2/22 at UW Cinematheque
-Crooklyn - 9p 2/22 at The Marquee Union South
-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 2/22 AMC, Marcuts Point
-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 2/23 AMC, Marcus Point
-Steel Magnolias - 11:45a 2/23 at Flix Brewhouse
-Happy as Lazarro - 7p 2/25 at La Cineteca Italiana
-Shrek 2 - 6:45p 2/25 at Flix Brewhouse
-Just Mercy - 4:30p 2/26 at Marcus Palace
-Let’s Get Lost - 7p 2/26 at MMOCA
-Something Wild - 7p 2/26 at Madison Central Library
-Straight Outta Compton - 7:45p 2/26 at Marcus Palace

NEXT WEEK (2/27/25-3/5/25)

New Releases

-Last Breath - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Riff Raff - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Ex-Husbands - AMC
-Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-My Dead Friend Zoe - AMC, Marcus Point
-No Address - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Superboys of Malegaon - AMC
-Separated - 7p 2/27 at The Marquee Union South
-Universal Language - 7p 2/27 at UW Cinematheque

-A Complete Unknown - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Anora - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Brutalist - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Captain America: Brave New World - AMC
-Conclave - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Dog Man - AMC
-Dune Part Two - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-I’m Still Here - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Nickel Boys - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Substance - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Wicked - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Marcus Best Picture Marathon Day Two (Oscar Animated Shorts, Anora, Conclave, Wicked, The Brutalist) - 10am 2/28 at Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-2025 Oscar Short Films (Animation) - 5p 2/27 at Marcus Point, 4:20p 2/27 at Marcus Palace

Repertory

-Cleopatra Jones - 7p 2/28 at UW Cinematheque
-The Passion of Joan of Arc - 7p 3/1 at UW Cinematheque
-Gangs of New York - 6p 3/2 at Flix Brewhouse
-Il Divo - 7p 3/4 at La Cineteca Italiana
-Abominable - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Castle in the Sky - Flix Brewhouse
-Just Mercy - 7:50pm 3/2 at Marcus Palace
-Straight Outta Compton - 4:20p 3/2 at Marcus Palace

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