Movie Blog: This Week's Best Bets
With the holiday weekend come and gone, perhaps there's a bit more free time in your schedule for movies. If that's the case, you may want to check out the Walker Art Center's Summer Nights/Cool Cinema series, which starts this week.
The program screens beloved works from filmmakers and artists who've participated in the museum's Dialogue and Retrospective series. Among them are greats like the Coen brothers, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, and Christopher Nolan. The program runs until August.
Summer Nights/Cool Cinema kicks off Wednesday with Martin Scorsese's seminal Taxi Driver. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the museum's theater, and tickets are $6 ($5 for Walker members, students and seniors.) Then on Sunday, Robert Altman's massive, throbbing, melodious Nashville screens at 2 p.m.
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Tuesday, July 7: Hard Boiled (Trylon Microcinema)
If you didn't hear enough explosions over the weekend, this might be for you. Chow Yun-Fat stars in this 1992 masterpiece by Hong Kong action stylist John Woo. The final sequence is a gun fight for the ages. It rampages through a hospital with one incredible long take, a testament to Woo's skill and vision. Don't you just miss the days when action films were made with more sweat than CGI?
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Friday, July 10: The Apu Trilogy (Lagoon Cinema)
Satyajit Ray is considered one of the greatest directors in the history of world cinema. His first work, the coming-of-age Apu Trilogy, is playing at the Lagoon this week. The story follows the life of a Bengali boy and his family, showing their struggle to survive in Indian society as well as their relationship to nature and modernity. For anyone who considers himself a cinephile, this is required watching.
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Friday, July 10: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (Uptown Theatre)
This is a midnight screening of the best Terminator movie ever made. Who can forget that dream sequence where Sarah Connor is skeletonized while watching nuclear armageddon engulf LA? Who doesn't love T2's liquid metal antagonist? Or just Arnold in his prime? If you've never seen T2, watch it to grapple with the film's love/hate relationship with technology. If anything, you'll develop a healthy unease when reading the word "Skynet" in a headline. Also, once you see this Terminator, there's no reason to see any others.
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