Lobster season ending, Stranger Things shows up, and Kenny Powers is kind of reborn.
Thursday 7.14
The best movie of 2016 so far is about to leave theaters. Tonight is your last chance to see The Lobster on a local big screen, and you should take it. Writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos has made a uniquely twisted and ultimately sweet and melancholy love story, with Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz heartbreaking as a couple genuinely in love. Sounds simple, but in the skewed world seen here, society advances only wrongheaded views on the subject. See it tonight at the Tivoli or Screenland Armour. It won’t be there tomorrow.
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Friday 7.15
Tonight on the rooftop of the Kansas City Central Library (14 West 10th Street) is the third of this summer’s Off-the-Wall: Sorta Shakespeare series. If you’ve had trouble getting your teenager(s) to relate to the classic plays of the Bard, tonight’s showing of 2006’s She’s the Man just might do the trick. Tell them you’re going to see a Channing Tatum-Amanda Bynes rom-com with lots of broad humor and gender-bending. You won’t be lying. Just leave out the part about how its loosely based on Twelfth Night until after they’ve told you how much they liked it. Bonus for adults: free pours from KC Bier Co.
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Saturday 7.16
Speaking of obsessions, The Iron Giant is the 1999 directorial debut of Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille), and it remains an unexpectedly touching tribute to sci-fi movies of the atomic age. In this beautifully hand-drawn animated film, Vin Diesel shows early signs of the voice-performance prowess he would later use as Groot, playing an enormous robot befriended by a young boy. Enjoy all-you-can-eat cereal at today’s noon showing at Alamo Drafthouse. If you miss it today, it’s also showing Monday night at 7, sans cereal.
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Sunday 7.17
If you like the abrasive and uncomfortable humor of Eastbound and Down, featuring delusional legend-in-his-own-mind Kenny Powers (Danny McBride), then you won’t want to miss the premiere of Vice Principals tonight on HBO. Creators McBride and Jody Hill excel at pushing the boundaries of bad taste, and this new series features McBride and Walton Goggins (Justified, The Shield) as high school vice principals competing for the top job. HBO is confident it has a hit, having already ordered a second season. Awesome.
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Monday 7.18
The new Netflix series Stranger Things debuted on Friday, which means you can stream its eight episodes anytime. Why not start tonight? Starring David Harbour and Winona Ryder, it’s a 1980s-set teen fantasy-slash-suspense thriller about a missing boy with mysterious powers. The trailer showed some pretty big Steven Spielberg and Stephen King influences, for better or worse.
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Tuesday 7.19
Alternately silly, pompous and tough-as-nails, Miles Ahead, starring and directed by Don Cheadle, is out today on Blu-ray. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis was a complicated icon, so it’s fitting that Cheadle should jettison the format of other music-artist biopics for something bolder. Rather than taking a factual approach, Miles Ahead makes a wild, truth-like impression, the equivalent of a heavily improvised jazz tune. The Blu-ray sports a post-screening Q&A, a commentary track and a featurette.
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Wednesday 7.20
Penn and Teller: Fool Us found its audience slowly, after being rerun a bazillion times on the CW. It’s a showcase of magicians, with the titular Vegas duo judging and performing in each episode. The twist is that any act able to fool Penn and Teller wins a spot opening for them. Seasons 1 and 2 were shot four years apart, with perfectly dry British TV star Jonathan Ross hosting, but the third season, which bowed last week, opts instead for the “aww shucks” appeal of Alyson Hannigan. I’m not sold on her yet, but the show is still eminently watchable. See last week’s on demand and watch the latest episode tonight.
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Eric Melin is the editor of Scene-Stealers.com and president of the KC Film Critics Circle.
