Movie Blog: This Week's Best Bets
If the first weekend of fall taught us anything, it's that it's getting chilly out. The five block walk to the coffee shop or pizza place just isn't that nice when clouds threaten rain and the mercury reads 45 degrees. To be fair, the days of this season are lovely, fulls of sun and leaves. It's just when the sun sets, the shivers set in.
So if you like classic/not-quite-multiplex movies and you want to avoid chills, here are a few suggestions for the first week of fall.
Monday, Sept. 24 and Tuesday Sept. 25: Marvin Seth & Stanley (Trylon Microcinema)
Minnesota made. If those words mean anything to you, Marvin Seth and Stanley is a comedy focused on family relations that you shouldn't miss. It follows two brothers as they come home to the Land of 10,000 Lakes to go camping with their elderly, divorced father. The movie's writer and director, Stephen Gurewitz, plays one of the sons and he is slated to be at each of the screenings. See a movie? Meet the director? Why not?
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Wednesday, Sept. 26: Freaks (Trylon)
In this 1932-made, black-and-white movie, a dwarf named Hans falls in love with a gold-digging trapeze artist named Cleopatra. Cleopatra plots to make a fortune by marrying the inheritance-loaded Hans and then off him. But when drunk at the wedding, Cleopatra mocks Hans and his freak show friends, who then freak out and seek revenge. Good times.
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Thursday, Sept. 27: Robot And Frank (Heights Theatre)
Set in the not-too-distant future, Robot And Frank follows an ex-jewel thief named Frank (Frank Langella), who's lost a few of his marbles. In response, his son gets Frank a robot, whose chief goal is to restore Frank's neurological capabilities. In pursuit of that goal, the robot and Frank scheme to rob a library. Amidst the thievery are twists capable of felling tears. Not a bad date movie, I hear.
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Friday, Sept. 28: El Velador [The Night Watchman] (Walker Art Center)
If you can't make the screening of "Marvin Seth and Stanley," you can also see a film and its director at the Walker. Natalia Almada will be present at the screening of her film El Velador, a documentary which follows a quiet man as he works his graveyard shifts watching the graves of drug lords and soldiers who died in Mexico's bloody and ruthless drug war. Although a sobering film might not be what you're looking for on a Friday night, you have to ask yourself: how often are you in the same room with the director of such a film?
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Saturday, Sept. 29: Ugetsu (Trylon)
This Kenji Mizoguchi classic follows two couples in 16th Century feudal Japan as an invading army runs through their farming town. Tragedy befalls the couples as dreams are sought; the men fumble toward their desires while the women suffer under the oppression of samurai society. Ugetsu's long-shot, lyric cinematography and intense visuals make it a gem of Japanese cinema.
