Screening Report 6/18/2025
Zombies and aliens charge into theaters.
Hello, and welcome to this week’s screening report! MMOCA has announced its first Rooftop Cinema screening, a showing of a German animated psychodyssey titled Cathedral of New Emotions. Cinematheque kicks off next weekend with The Elephant Man, A Man and a Woman, and The Cat! Without any other major movie news, let’s get into the report.
This week, we have three major new releases - Danny Boyle’s standalone 28 Days/Weeks Later sequel 28 Years Later, Pixar’s new extraterrestrial caper Elio, and Pitch Perfect reunion Bride Hard. Elio is reviewing quite well, and Bride Hard is reviewing quite poorly. My understanding after speaking with a critic friend of mine is that 28 Years Later has been embargoed late for plot/spoiler reasons - mostly, I’ll be glad to stop seeing that trailer set to Kipling’s “Boots,” which I find less “thrilling” or “scary” and more “anxiety inducing” and “uncomfortable.” Kuberaa is a Telugu crime drama from Fidaa director Sekhar Kammula, and Sitaare Zameen Par is a Hindi sports comedy starring 3 Idiots actor Aamir Khan.
In repertory, beyond the Cinesthesia screening of Cooley High tonight and the return of UW Cinematheque next week, we have a few highlights to note. In pride programming, we have Mike Nichols-directed and Elaine May-scripted The Birdcage, an American adaptation of the French La Cage aux Folles, starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, and a host of great character actors. We also have the 20th anniversary release of Ang Lee masterpiece Brokeback Mountain, a mixture of the epic scale he captures in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life of Pi with the human stories he tells in films like Eat Drink Man Woman and Sense & Sensibility. Lastly, for the unfamiliar, Studio Ghibli film The Secret World of Arrietty is the directorial debut of filmmaker Hiromasa Yonebayashi - while the film is largely playing in its American dub, I’d highly recommend seeing the Japanese release or catching up with the far superior UK dub another time.
Next week’s new releases open with the release of F1 and M3GAN 2.0. The former I actually haven’t seen the trailer for in theaters yet, surprising for a film from Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski starring Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem among others. However, I’ve seen plenty of advertising for M3GAN 2.0, and I admit I’m hopeful the ad campaign is just trying a little too hard as a fan of the first film. However, the new releases for the week of 7/4, 40 Acres and Jurassic World: Rebirth, are actually opening on July 1st and 2nd, hoping to capitalize on the extended weekend holiday. While I don’t need to sum up this Jurassic World reboot, 40 Acres is a fairly small action thriller starring Danielle Deadwyler that isn’t getting much promotion - keep an eye on that one.
Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, his most famous film, kicks off the repertory lineup for that week’s programming. It’s the kind of steamy romance we never get anymore - I really liked Materialists, but that film’s more cool with emotional simmering than hot and heavy. The Cat is on the darker, slower side of robbery/hostage films, but it’s certainly the kind of film you’ll only see in our arthouse program. WUD Film is wrapping up their Pride programming on June 30th with Rachel Seligman’s high school comedy Bottoms, starring Ayo Edibiri and Rachel Sennott at the last moment before Edibiri was everywhere. And Marcus has screenings of a 40th anniversary rerelease of Clueless - no clue yet if that will expand to other theaters as well.
One programming note for Horizon Line - I’ll be on vacation next week, and while I definitely plan to publish the newsletter, it’ll be a more barebones screening report rather than a full written piece.
PLUG ZONE
-Tone Madison has Jason Furhman reviewing Cinematheque kick-off film The Elephant Man (excerpted below.)
-James Kreul has a review of John wick spin-off Ballerina, as well as more information about the Art + Lit Lab screening of A Photographic Memory in collaboration with
!-Rob Thomas has a review of A Photographic Memory (excerpted below) as well as the AppleTV+ series Echo Valley.
Want to see your film writing or short film here in The Horizon Line? Send a link to your work to horizonlinemadison@gmail.com.
THIS WEEK (6/19-6/25)
New Releases
-A Photographic Memory (Rachel Seed in person) - 7p 6/23 at Art + Lit Lab
“A photograph is seen as an objective record. But of course, in looking at it, we imprint it with our own memories and emotions. What was behind that smile? What was she thinking about?” - Rob Thomas
-28 Years Later - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Bride Hard - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Elio - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Kuberaa - AMC, Marcus Point
-Sitaare Zameen Par - AMC
-F1 [Early Access] - 7p 6/25 at AMC and Marcus Point and Marcus Palace
-Ballerina - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-How To Train Your Dragon - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
-The Life of Chuck - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Lilo & Stitch - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Materialists - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-The Phoenician Scheme - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
-Bring Her Back - AMC
-Karate Kid: Legends - Marcus Point
-Sinners - AMC
-A Sloth Story/The Sloth Lane - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Thunderbolts* - AMC
-Sheetla - 5p 6/25 at Chazen Museum of Art
Repertory
-The Elephant Man - 7p 6/25 at UW Cinematheque
”Lynch imbues his striking, transcendent portrait of Merrick with deep compassion and a keen sense of the duality of human nature, while masterfully evoking the atmosphere of London in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution.” - Jason Furhman
-Meet Me in St. Louis - 1:30p 6/19 at AMC
-The Birdcage - 11:30a 6/22 at Flix Brewhouse, 9p 6/23 at Memorial Union Terrace
-Purple Rain - 6:45p 6/24 at Flix Brewhouse
-Born To Be Wild 3D - 10a 6/25 at AMC
-Brokeback Mountain - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Secret World of Arrietty - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Bad Guys - AMC
-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - Flix Brewhouse
NEXT WEEK (6/26-7/2)
New Releases
-F1 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Jurassic World: Rebirth - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-M3GAN 2.0 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-40 Acres - AMC
-Local Legends + Local Legends BloodBath (Matt Farley in Person) - 4p 6/29 at Bartell Theater
-28 Years Later - AMC
-Elio - AMC
-Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
Repertory
-A Man and A Woman - 7p 6/26 at UW Cinematheque
-The Cat - 7p 6/27 at UW Cinematheque
-The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [Extended Edition] - 11:30a 6/29, 5p 6/30 at Flix Brewhouse
-Bottoms - 9p 6/30 at Memorial Union Terrace
-French Connection II - 7p 7/2 at UW Cinematheque
-Hubble 3D - 10a 7/2 at AMC
-Clueless - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Land Before Time - Flix Brewhouse
-Minions: The Rise of Gru - AMC