Enjoy whatever holidays you happen to celebrate, and maybe catch a movie or two. See ya in 2025.
Special Screenings
Thursday, December 19
Trading Places (1983)
Grandview 1&2
Forty years later, I still do not understand the ending. Also Sunday. $12. 9:15 p.m. More info here.
Brazil (1985)
The Heights
It’s a Christmas movie. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Marcus West End
The Grinch does not require a traumatic backstory! $5. 5:15 p.m. More info here.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Marcus West End
It’s always a Christmas story but never the Christmas story, about the birth of our lord and savior. $5. 2:45 p.m. More info here.
The Polar Express (2004)
Marcus West End
“The Polar Express received divisive reviews from critics upon release, with some calling it an ‘instant Christmas classic’ and others criticizing the characters as ‘lifeless zombies.'” Can’t it be both? $5. 5:45 p.m. More info here.
2024 British Arrow Awards
Walker Art Center
As always these showings are selling out fast. $15/$18. Through Sunday, and then Thursday, December 26 through Sunday, December 29. More info and showtimes here.
Friday, December 20
Carol (2015)
Alamo Drafthouse
Merry Gay Christmas. $10. 2 p.m. More info here.
Elf (2003)
Orchestra Hall
Enjoy Elf with strings… $60-$119. 7 p.m. Saturday-Sunday 2 p.m. More info here.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Riverview
Yeah, it still chokes me up. $5. Through Tuesday. Showtimes and more info here.
Elf (2003)
Riverview
… or without strings. $5. Through Tuesday. Showtimes and more info here.
Late Autumn (1960)
Trylon
Setsuko Hara tries to get her daughter hitched. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:30 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:30 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, December 21
Elf (2003)
Alamo Drafthouse
Ladies and gentlemen, once again… Elf. $15.04. 12:30 p.m. More info here.
Home Alone (1990)
Parkway Theater
If you root for the kid, you’re basically a cop. $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Polar Express (2004)
Riverview
In case you missed it on Thursday. $5. Through Tuesday. Showtimes and more info here.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Riverview
Again, in case you missed it on Thursday. $5. Through Tuesday. Showtimes and more info here.
Do You Think I’m Weird? (2024)
Trylon
To help raise funds for his full-length version of this film, Ben Taman will be screening his short version, plus two other shorts. $16. 1 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, December 22
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse
Starring America’s sweetheart, Chevy Chase. $15.18. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Royal Ballet: The Nutcracker
AMC Rosedale 14/AMC Southdale 16/Emagine Willow Creek/Marcus West End
Very normal story about a nutcracker that battles a mouse. 3 p.m. Monday 7 p.m. $24.50. More info here.
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Emagine Willow Creek
I also like to think that if I hadn’t lived, at least one woman would have become a librarian spinster. Also Wednesday. $9. 12 & 6 p.m. More info here.
Laurel & Hardy Christmas Festival
The Heights
Sorry, this one is… Sold out. 1 p.m. More info here.
Beware My Lovely (1952)
Trylon
Uh oh, Robert Ryan. You gotta watch out for that guy! $8. 8 p.m. Monday 7 & 8:45. More info here.
Monday, December 23
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Alamo Drafthouse
Tis the season for Tom Cruise being confused and humiliated and haunted by cuck fantasies for almost three hours. $10. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
The Heights
Santastic! $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, December 24
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Alamo Drafthouse
Is it though? $10. 12 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, December 25
Violent Night (2022)
Trylon
The screenwriters are from here—and they’ll be there on Christmas. Also Thursday. $8. 7 & 9:30 p.m. More info here.
Thursday, December 26
La La Land (2016)
The Heights
More like Blah Blah Bland. $12. 7:30 p.m. More info here.
Love Actually (2003)
Parkway Theater
Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it. (Actually, you can. In fact, I have.) $9/$12. Trivia at 7:30 p.m. Movie at 8 p.m. More info here.
Friday, December 27
An Autumn Afternoon (1962)
Trylon
Ozu’s final film, featuring the master of noncommittal grunts Chishû Ryû. $8. Friday-Saturday 7 & 9:15 p.m. Sunday 3 & 5:15 p.m. More info here.
Saturday, December 28
Paris, Texas (2003)
Alamo Drafthouse
Nastassja Kinski’s face during Harry Dean Stanton’s monologue…. $10. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Mia
*Kraftwerk voice* Grand. Budapest. Hotel. Free. 2 p.m. More info here.
Gremlins (1984)
Parkway Theater
Once again, I must blame Jay’s prudery for the fact that I have retired my hilarious Gremlins joke. $5-$10. 1 p.m. More info here.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Parkway Theater
And I thought the crowd at Wicked was out of control. $10/$15. 12 p.m. More info here.
The Combination (2024)
Trylon
A new movie about Minnesota gangster Kid Cann. $8. 5 p.m. More info here.
Sunday, December 29
Reel Imaginings
Parkway Theater
“A festive showcase of short films” from director/choreographer Pam Gleason. $12/$15. 5 p.m. More info here.
High Sierra (1941)
Trylon
Bogey and Ida Lupino get mixed up in a jewel heist. $8. 7:45 p.m. Monday-Tuesday 7 & 9. More info here.
Monday, December 30
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
Alamo Drafthouse
Today’s edgelords wish they were this funny. $10. 7 p.m. More info here.
Tuesday, December 31
The Apartment (1960)
Alamo Drafthouse
Shirley MacLaine was just so cute. $10. 11 a.m. More info here.
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Alamo Drafthouse
Lol, she wants to eat the orgasm sandwich. $10. 2:10 p.m. More info here.
Wednesday, January 1
Phantom Thread (2017)
Alamo Drafthouse
Food poisoning has never felt so intimate. $10. 2 p.m. More info here.
Holiday Inn (1942)
The Heights
See Bing in blackface! $15. 1 p.m. More info here.
Tape Freaks
Trylon
New year, same old freaks. Sold out. 7 p.m. More info here.
Opening
Follow the links for showtimes.
Opening 12/20
A new Indian drama.
Looks like the right-wingers are making their own post-apocalyptic movies now.
There have gotta be better uses for Barry Jenkins.
Absolutely not.
Opening 12/25
A midwestern kid moves to New York—how original.
If Harris Dickinson can hold his own against Nicole Kidman, I’ll stop thinking of him as the deluxe edition of George MacKay.
The story of Olympic gold medal boxer Claressa “T-Rex” Shields.
Who needs a vampire to drain the life from a town when you’ve got Robert Eggers directing? Wisborg, the German community that Count Orloc (Bill Skarsgård) will eventually infest with plague, is so gloomy at the start of Eggers’s take on the Dracula story that the fiend has hardly got any work to do. And the wan woman Orloc is drawn to (Lily Rose-Depp) already endures joyless orgasmic gasps and speaks in trite Emily Dickinson first drafts. Like any well-prepared corpse, Nosferatu can be striking, even beautiful, in its airless, stylized way. For the German scenes, Eggers favors a blue filter familiar to admirers of The Piano or the first Twilight movie, and some of his fussily framed shots do rise to a Barry Lyndon quality—no mean feat. Orloc’s castle is a black-on-black-on-black realm of shadows within shadows, a daring and somewhat frustrating design for those of us who like to occasionally see what we’re looking at. Willem Dafoe’s mad, chaotic Prof. Albin Eberhart Von—ah fuck it, I’m just gonna call him Van Helsing—brings a mad touch of chaos to the proceedings, but much of Nosferatu advances with the grim inevitability of a fairy tale. Skarsgård’s Orloc, a hulking, shadowy beast with the bristly mustache of an ancient warlord and a booming, electronically modulated voice, is a beastly embodiment of menace, a dark force awakened. But without pathos or malice, he’s just acting on instinct. Turns out pure evil can be almost as boring as pure good. B-
Ongoing in Local Theaters
From Kitana Kiki Rodriguez’s enraged trans sex worker in Tangerine to Simon Rex’s washed-up porn star in Red Rocket, Sean Baker knows how to let a character loose upon a movie, and Mikey Madison’s Ani may be the most fully realized of Baker’s high-powered, self-deluded survivors. A stripper and occasional escort whose charm and sheer self-determination haven’t failed her yet, she’s eking out a life in Brooklyn’s least glamorous southern reaches. (Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island are captured in all their drab, offseason outer-borough-ness.) Her life changes after a dance for a Russian oligarch’s son parlays into a paid fuck, which in turn goes so well he hires her for an extended stint. Baker captures their whirlwind spree through all forms of excess, ending with a Vegas wedding, as an audiovisual sugar rush that makes Pretty Woman’s shopping montage look like amateur hour. But when Ivan’s parents find out, they sic his handlers on him; he runs off like the spoiled little fuckboy we always knew he was and Ani is left to unleash her rage on the hired muscle as they hunt for him. Madison can be as subtle here as she was on Pamela Adlon’s Better Things and even more furious than she was in Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood before Tarantino thought it’d be a hoot to immolate her with a flamethrower. This decade, we’ve seen plenty of commoners enter the worlds of the wealthy, often ending with fantasies of vengeance. Anora’s trip through the looking glass ends on a far more ambiguous note. A
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Edward Berger may think he’s cooked up something more substantial than a chewy Vatican potboiler here—a meditation on faith in the modern era, or some other middlebrow (papal) bull. Who knows and who cares? The crowd I saw it with thought Berger’s flamboyant pope opera was funny as hell (pardon the expression, Father) and they were right. Watching old guys from around the world in funny clothes politic, gossip, and backstab is just solid entertainment. Cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine milks everything he can from the ornate setting and bright costumery, and this cast knows how to project an ominous seriousness that’s forever camp adjacent. We’re talking Ralph Fiennes working his timeworn visage of existential indigestion, John Lithgow looking more like Donald Rumsfield than ever, Sergio Castellitto as a gregarious bear who wants to repeal Vatican II, Isabella Rossellini as a mysterious nun, and, for the ladies, a little Stanley Tucci. You’ll guess most of the twists, groan at some, and even get blindsided by a few. Still, without giving too much away, it’s hard not to notice that none of the scandals here are as horrific as those the Catholic Church has covered up in real life. B+
Gladiator worked as well as it did (which might not be quite as well as you remember) because Ridley Scott stocked his swords ‘n’ sandals rehash with hams who knew how to spout nonsense about “the dream of Marcus Aurelius” and “the glory of Rome” as though it were meaningful, nay crucial. And this sequel is almost worth seeing solely for Denzel Washington, who accepts his role as a challenge, supercharging the eccentric cadences that made his Macbeth a darkly comic curiosity a couple years back—his “I own … your house. I want … your loyalty” may be the line reading of the year. As the wily former slave Macrinus, Washington traipses, flounces, pounces, smirks, exclaims, and keenly outwits his dim foes. Close your eyes and he could be playing an evil Disney tiger. But poor Paul Mescal looks as out of place as a puppy at a Senate budget hearing. He’s surely swole enough as the son of Crowe’s Maximus (and a rightful heir to the imperial throne) to credibly wallop challengers in the arena, whether corporeal or poorly animated. But we all know Paulie’s a weeper not a fighter. Every generation needs its moody dreamboat, and Aftersun and Normal People made Mescal that nontoxic totem. As for the combat scenes, if the first Gladiator challenged Scott to revamp a genre for modern audiences, all his sequel can offer is more. Read our full review here. C+
for KING + COUNTRY’s A Drummer Boy Christmas LIVE
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
An older gay man sets his sights on a pretty younger fellow in a picturesque sunny clime, and if you think Luca Guadagnino has been here before, well, yes and no. We’re in Mexico City (actually a staged facsimile thereof) and the elder is Bill Lee (Daniel Craig), the alter ego of William S. Burroughs and the central figure of that author’s most personal work. Sure, it figures that Luca’d be the director to show us James Bond sucking dick, but Craig’s at his best here, bringing pathetic depth to a sensualist. There’s nothing smooth about Bill—he loves hot guys and shooting junk, and thinks he can manage both addictions. He’s so entranced by one Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) he does an awkward little dance for him in the middle of a bar and ignores how their relationship blurs the transactional and the intimate for as long as he can. Guadagnino sharply evokes a postwar gay expat milieu, fleshed out by Jason Schwartzman, pudgier and more hirsute than ever, as Bill’s cruising pal. But when Queer gets trippy in the home stretch, as Bill and Gene journey into the jungles of Ecuador in search of a rare psychotropic and the wonderful Leslie Manville lurches into frame, the only real revelation is that Guadagnino is a big fan of Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. The result is a movingly disappointing sort of film—heartfelt, but often dull. B
Thinkpieces are surely in the works about how Wicked, the story of a good woman who is cast as an enemy of the people by authoritarians using fiendishly disseminated lies, is a perfect Trump era fable (just as it was a perfect Bush era fable two decades ago). But maybe the best topical lesson that Wicked offers is that villains are often more entertaining than heroes. If anything, Cynthia Erivo has too much screen presence for her already underwritten part, and her almost-adult dignity undermines her character arc. Her Elphaba (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) is no ingénue misled by foolish dreams, and seems incapable of humiliation. Meanwhile, Glinda is a dream of a role that Ariana Grande floats through with perfect timing, flaunting her shallow vanity, scene-stealing blonde hair tosses, and comically sudden upshoots into her showy soprano. And while I’ll take songwriter Stephen Schwartz’s generically inspirational pop over the wan schlock of the dreaded Pasek and Paul, I have seen better movie musicals set in Oz. Read our full review here. B
