Screening Report 8/6/25
Weapons, Atwood Music Hall, and more!
Hello, and welcome to this week’s screening report! This week marks the start of the Atwood Music Hall’s Silent Movie nights, the first film screenings from the newly opened concert venue. Mills Folly Microcinema has announced its next Project Projection dates for Dane County filmmakers. Submissions are due by October 13th, and the screening will be held October 22nd, with more details on their site.
This week’s new releases are helmed by Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lee Curtis comedy sequel Freakier Friday (getting quite positive reviews!) and enigmatic Zach Cregger horror film Weapons (getting raves), but they’re accompanied by many smaller films hoping to leg it out to a modest profit in the quiet of a typical August and September. Of the collection, the most notable is probably Mahatavar Narsimha, an animated Indian epic, the first from production company Kleem Productions. The film has already set box office records for animation in India, and with the success of Ne Zha 2 (and its upcoming return to our theaters,) we may see more animated fantasy features from India releasing in the States as well. One other note - Strange Harvest, the second film by Grave Encounters co-director Stuart Ortiz, is a faux-true crime horror film absolutely littered with egregious AI effects, so luddites (like me!) best stay away.
Next week, however, is the true dump week for August releases, with Nobody 2 the far and away highest profile film of the bunch. Instead of delving too much into the other films in the lineup before reviews hit next week, I’ll say that A24 and Apple have supposedly moved the release date of Spike Lee’s Akira Kurosawa remake Highest 2 Lowest to August 15th. However, that release date is not currently reflected in Madison theaters, meaning we may end up waiting til the 22nd after all. I’ve seen teaser for the film at Marcus at least, so I’m confident we’ll be seeing the Denzel Washington/Jeffrey Wright film soon enough.
The rep lineup this next two weeks is significantly bolstered by the Atwood Music Hall offerings of Metropolis, The Phantom of the Opera, and Nosferatu. They’ll be presented with a live DJ (though these are seated screenings, not just dance parties) and be first come first seated. For those who are less familiar with silents, The Phantom of the Opera and Nosferatu are probably more accessible - depending on the cut of Metropolis, the film is quite a bit longer than the other two, though it’s also excellent. We also have two exciting films in our local curation series - MMOCA is offering Ryan Trecartin’s I-Be Area, the follow-up to his viral sensation A Family Finds Entertainment, and Cinesthesia returns with Tarsem’s debut film The Cell.
There are some exciting rep screenings in our commercial theaters as well. The 4K rerelease of Shin Godzilla is one of the more exciting rereleases of the year so far, and it’s getting a full theatrical run at AMC and Marcus theaters. And Tobe Hooper’s masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is getting a “Texas Chain Saw Day” screening at Marcus theaters and Flix, with a preview of an upcoming documentary on the film’s cultural impact, Chain Reactions. Flix has a few more interesting rep films as well; perhaps the most mainstream is Amy Heckerling’s debut high school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I’m equally interested in seeing Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders, being shown in his extended re-edit, and in James Dean classic Rebel Without A Cause, a great representative of Nicholas Ray’s operatic melodrama. (The Griffith Observatory, which features heavily in Rebel Without a Cause, also is the home of the planetarium dance sequence in La La Land, playing the next night on the Memorial Union Terrace!) Looking ahead to the week of the 22nd, we have the releases of Eden and Honey Don’t!, as well as the A24 rerelease of Ne Zha II.
PLUG ZONE
-James Kreul has an extended introduction for this week’s MMOCA Rooftop Cinema film, acclaimed documentary Sugarcane.
-Tone Madison offers Grant Phipps on Atwood Music Hall’s silent film trio, including details on seating and philosophy for their live accompaniment.
-Rob Thomas has reviews of Sugarcane, concrete documentary Architecton and fantasy adventure Sketch.
-Madison Public Library published an interview with Cinesthesia curator Jason Furhman.
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 (8/7/25-8/13/25)
New Releases
-Freakier Friday - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Weapons - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Andaaz 2 - AMC
-Mahavatar Narsimha - AMC
-My Mother’s Wedding - AMC, Marcus Point
-STANS - AMC
-Strange Harvest - AMC, Marcus Point
-Sugarcane - 9p 8/7 at MMOCA
-Coolie - 8p, 9p 8/13 at Marcus Point
-Red Sonja - 7p 8/13 at Marcus Point
-War 2 - 8/13 at AMC
-The Bad Guys 2 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Eddington - AMC
-F1 - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
-The Fantastic Four: First Steps - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-How to Train Your Dragon - AMC, Marcus Palace
-I Know What You Did Last Summer - AMC, Marcus Point
-Jurassic World: Rebirth - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Kingdom - AMC
-The Naked Gun - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Oh, Hi! - AMC
-Sketch - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Smurfs - AMC
-Superman - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Together - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
Repertory
-What If… - 6:40p 8/7 at Marcus Palace
-Metropolis (Live Music by DJ Slimzy) - 8p 8/8 at Atwood Music Hall
-The Phantom of the Opera (Live Music by DJ Kelly) - 8p 8/9 at Atwood Music Hall
-Mamma Mia - 9p 8/11 at Memorial Union Terrace
-Fast Times at Ridgemont High - 7p 8/12 at Flix Brewhouse
-Shin Godzilla - 8/13 at AMC and Marcus Point and Marcus Palace
-To The Arctic 3D - 10a 8/13 at AMC
-Grave of the Fireflies - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Secret Life of Pets - AMC
NEXT WEEK (8/14/25-8/20/25)
New Releases
-Americana - AMC
-East of Wall - AMC
-Eli Roth Presents: Jimmy and Stiggs - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Nobody 2 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Went Up That Hill - AMC
-Witchboard - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Triumph of the Heart - 7p 8/14 at Marcus Point
-Hell House LLC: Lineage - 8/20 at AMC
-Freakier Friday - AMC
-War 2 - 8/14 at AMC, Marcus Point
-Weapons - AMC
Repertory
-I-Be Area - 8:30p 8/14 at MMOCA
-Nosferatu (Live Music by DJ Slimzy) - 8p 8/16 at Atwood Music Hall
-The Outsiders: The Complete Novel - 6:30p 8/16 at Flix Brewhouse
-Rebel Without a Cause - 11a 8/17 at Flix Brewhouse
-La La Land - 9p 8/18 at Memorial Union Terrace
-The Texas Chain Saw Massacre - 8/18 at Marcus Point and Marcus Palace and Flix Brewhouse
-The Cell - 6:30p 8/20 at Madison Central Library
-Hubble - 10a 8/20 at AMC
-The Grateful Dead Movie - AMC, Marcus Point
-Shin Godzilla - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
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