Here are the movies we’re most excited about that are playing in New Orleans this week, including a wealth of artsy-fartsy counterprogramming for the closing days of the summertime blockbuster season.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Millennium Actress (2001) – A beautifully animated, dreamlike trip through memory from anime legend Satoshi Kon, director of Paprika, Tokyo Godfathers, and Perfect Blue. Screening Tuesday, 8/13 via Fathom Events.

Cassandro, the Exotico! – A documentary profile of the openly gay luchador Cassandro, who uses the glamour & pageantry of drag to intimidate his opponents in the wrestling ring. Screening at the Zeitgeist Theatre Lounge as part of their ongoing queer cinema series, Wildfire.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – A Guillermo del Toro-produced anthology horror adapted from a series of short stories that freaked us all out as children in the 80s & 90s.

Them That Follow – A tense, moody drama set in a deeply religious, insular Appalachian community that utilizes poisonous snakes in their Christian worship.

White Heat (1949) – Often cited as the quintessential James Cagney noir and one of the greatest crime films of all time. Screening Sunday 8/11 and Wednesday 8/14 as part of The Prytania’s regular Classic Movies series.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

Space Jam (1996) – Animated Looney Tunes characters play basketball in outer space with a live-action Michael Jordan to a Quad City DJs soundtrack. You have to appreciate the absurdity of that premise, whether or not you have any nostalgic associations with the finished products. Screening Friday 8/9 and Saturday 8/10 as part of The Prytania’s Summertime Kid’s Movie series.

Down by Law (1986) – Tom Waits, John Lurie, and Roberto Benigni become unlikely buddies in an Orleans Parish prison cell, then escape into “the swamps of New Orleans.” Easily my favorite Jim Jarmusch film. Screening free to the public Thursday 8/8 at the Orpheum Theatre.

The Farewell – Lulu Wang’s story of emigration, family, and truthiness amounts to a great, deeply personal film with an impressive tightrope balance between morbid humor and quiet emotional anguish. Starring Aquafina in a long-time-coming breakthrough role.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco – One of the best movies of the summer is a bizarre Sundance drama about gentrification & friendship. A wildly inventive directorial debut that filters anxiety & anger over housing inequality through classic stage play Existentialism & Surrealism touchstones like Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Playing only at The Broad Theater.

Once Upon a Time In . . . Hollywood – Watch Quentin Tarantino transform into a grumpy old man before your very eyes as he yells “Get off my lawn!” at a scraggly group of hippies for nearly three hours solid.

-Brandon Ledet

Here are the few movies we’re most excited about that are playing in New Orleans this week, including some high-brow art cinema and some summertime silliness.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood – Billed as the ninth feature film from genre sommelier (and obnoxious blowhard) Quentin Tarantino, this appears to be an irreverently obscured retelling of Sharon Tate’s murder by the Manson Family cult. Expect something just as immorally entertaining as that descriptor implies.

Suspicion (1941) – A lesser-seen Alfred Hitchcock thriller starring Cary Grant opposite Joan Fontaine, whose performance is the only Hitch role to ever land an Academy Award for best acting. Screening Sunday 7/28 and Wednesday 7/31 as part of The Prytania’s Classic Movies series.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

Girls Trip (2017) – A New Orleans-set friendship comedy that somehow finds common ground between maudlin Hallmark Channel sentimentality and over-the-top John Waters gross-out humor, set against the backdrop of Essence Fest. Screening free to the public (with stand-up comedians opening to warm up the crowd) Thursday 7/25 at The Orpheum.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco – One of the best movies of the summer is a bizarre Sundance drama about gentrification & friendship. A wildly inventive directorial debut that filters anxiety & anger over housing inequality through classic stage play Existentialism & Surrealism touchstones like Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Playing only at The Broad Theater.

-Brandon Ledet

Here are the few movies we’re most excited about that are playing in New Orleans this week and are presumably much, much worthier of your time & money than the goddamn Lion King remake.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

The Art of Self Defense – Jesse Eisenberg stars in a Foot Fist Way-reminiscent dark comedy set in a martial arts studio, satirizing Men’s Rights Activists and the general milieu of toxic masculinity. Playing only at AMC Elmwood.

Crawl – The killer shark genre has already been revived in recent summertime trash titles like The Shallows & 47 Meters Down, so we’re far past due to bring back an even cooler killer creature from schlocky cinema past: the alligator. There’s no telling whether Crawl will stack up to killer-gator classics like Alligator & Alligator People, but our trashy, swamp-dwelling asses are excited no matter what.

Wild Rose – Irish pop singer Jessie Buckley follows up her excellent performance in last year’s criminally underseen thriller Beast with a critically lauded film about an aspiring country musician from Scotland. Features songwriting contributions from Mary Steenburgen of all people, who claims to have woken up from an arm surgery with the uncanny ability to write country hits. Playing only at AMC Elmwood.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

The Last Black Man in San Francisco – One of the best movies of the summer is a bizarro Sundance drama about gentrification & friendship. A wildly inventive directorial debut that filters anxiety & anger over housing inequality through classic stage play Existentialism & Surrealism touchstones like Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. Playing only at The Broad Theater.

Midsommar – Ari Aster’s follow-up to Hereditary is yet another lengthy, morbidly funny meditation on grief, but this time wrapped around the folk horror template established by The Wicker Man. It’s a divinely fucked up melodrama about empathy, gaslighting, breakups, and finding your flock – whether they be academia bros or bloodthirsty cultists.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) – A brilliant coming-of-age queer teen comedy that filters the abusive horrors of gay conversion “therapy” through a 90s John Waters aesthetic while somehow maintaining a sweetness & empathy that combination should not allow. Easily one of the greatest films of all time, fresh off its 20^th  anniversary. Screening free to the public (with donations encouraged) Wednesday 7/24 at the LGBT Community Center of New Orleans.

-Brandon Ledet

Here are the few movies we’re most excited about that are playing in New Orleans this week, including some high-brow art cinema and some dumb-as-rocks summertime trash.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Midsommar – Ari Aster follows up last year’s excellent occultist drama Hereditary with a three-hour descent into daylit horror madness. It appears to be a darkly funny, playfully cruel update to The Wicker Man, which makes it the perfect folk-horror counterprogramming to combat more traditional summertime entertainment.

Fast Color – A critically-beloved festival darling superhero drama starring GuGu Mbatha-Raw that might have been a big commercial hit but was instead quietly shoveled off to VOD. This is likely your only chance to see it on the big screen. Playing for one week only at Chalmette Movies.

The Bayou Maharaja (2013) – A warts-and-all documentary about local-legend pianist James Booker, whom Dr. John once described as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.” Directed by Lily Keber, whose more recent doc Buckjumping is a gem. Screening free to the public Wednesday 7/10 at The Orpheum.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982) – Steven Spielberg’s alien invasion classic that everyone remembers as an adorable buddy comedy between a kid & his extraterrestrial pal but is actually a heart-wrenching traumatic drama about loneliness, grief, codependency, and isolation. Playing Friday 7/5 and Saturday 7/6 as part of The Prytania’s Summer Kids’ Movie Series.

Avengers: Endgame – Thanks to the emergence of yet another Spider-Man film on this week’s docket and Disney’s bizarre desperation to beat out Avatar’s box-office records, this year’s biggest superhero behemoth is back in AMC theaters with new promotional materials included after its end credits. Boomer was a big fan and, although less enthusiastic about it overall, I personally found it fascinating as a tipping point for our New Nerd America, so maybe there are worse ways to escape the summer heat.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters – Cool monsters, boring humans; achieves the bare minimum required for a decent Godzilla flick. These things are never going to be as charming as they were when they were stitched together with rubber costumes & hand-built miniatures, but this movie’s Pokémon-style approach of collecting all your favorite kaiju creatures for spectacular battles is still entertaining enough on its own terms.

-Brandon Ledet

Here are the few movies we’re most excited about that are screening in New Orleans this week, including some classic summertime gems and some recent documentaries on badass women.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Chasing Dreams: A Leah Chase Story (2011) – To memorialize local culinary legend Leah Chase, who recently passed away, the New Orleans Film Society will be playing this short documentary about her life & her art. Screening free to the public Thursday 6/27 at The Orpheum theater immediately followed by the 2016 documentary Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache – A long overdue documentary about the life & art of Alice Guy-Blanche, who has been almost entirely forgotten by male-dominated film criticism circles despite being a significant director in the Silent Era of early cinema. Playing all week (along with a recently restored short from Guy-Blache) at Zeitgeist Theater & Lounge, including a special screening with live musical accompaniment Saturday 6/29.

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017) – Wrap up the final days of Pride Month with this documentary profile of Marsha P. Johnson, legendary queer rights activist. The movie includes rare interview footage with Johnson herself, as well as research on the mysterious circumstances of her death. Screening for free at The Dragonfly, Friday June 28, in honor of the 50^th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

Jaws (1975) – The ultimate 4^th of July movie is a Steven Spielberg-directed, big-budget mutation of the Roger Corman creature feature, in which a gigantic shark terrorizes a summertime beach crowd just trying to enjoy their vacation. Screening Sunday 6/30 and Wednesday 7/3 as part of The Prytania’s Classic Movies series.

Independence Day (1996) – The second-most ultimate 4th of July movie is a Will Smith-starring, big-budget sci-fi action epic, in which space aliens invade America on its birthday. Screening outdoors on Wednesday 7/3 via Front Yard Productions.

Labyrinth (1986) –David Bowie steals babies, hangs around with goblins, and thrusts his crotch across every square inch of a Brian Froud fantasy dimension. It’s a dream. Playing Friday 6/28 and Saturday 6/29 as part of The Prytania’s Summer Kids’ Movies Series.

-Brandon Ledet

Here are the few movies we’re most excited about that are screening in New Orleans this week, including a couple verified classics and some brand new genre trash.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Child’s Play (2019) – I’m not entirely sold on the new CG design for Chucky himself and there’s almost no chance it’ll compare to the best of its franchise (1990’s Child’s Play 2, obviously), but this big-budget remake at least tries something new in updating the evil doll by connecting him to automated future-tech like drones & home security systems. Plus, Audrey Plaza’s there so it can’t be all bad.

The Dead Don’t Die – Jim Jarmusch’s latest is disguised as a goofball horror comedy about a zombie invasion but is reported in its early reviews to be yet another low-key, meandering indie dramedy from a director who’s built an entire career off just that. There’s no telling whether Jarmusch’s low-stakes, low-effort schtick will be charming here (as it was in Down by Law) or painfully pointless (as it was in Coffee and Cigarettes), but it’s also impossible to deny the appeal of a zomcom with a cast this stacked: Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Steve Buscemi, Chloe Sevigny, Carol Kane, Tom Waits, Iggy Pop, the RZA, Selena Gomez, etc.. etc., etc.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

Rear Window (1954) – An intense, perversely funny Hitchcock thriller about a disabled man (Jimmy Stewart) who can only watch in horror as he pieces together the mysterious murder of a neighbor by her traveling salesman husband. Screening as part of The Prytania’s Classic Movies series on Sunday 6/23 and Wednesday 6/26.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) – A Tennessee Williams stage adaptation (featuring performances from Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor) just boiling over with alcoholic fury, repressed homosexuality, and intense Mississippi heat. Enjoy it out in the authentic Southern humidity on the roof of the Catahoula Hotel Wednesday 6/26.

-Brandon Ledet

Here’s a quick rundown of the movies we’re most excited about that are screening in New Orleans this week.

Movies We Haven’t Seen (Yet)

Ma – Octavia Spencer stars as an unhinged spinster who terrorizes a group of idiot teens who just want a place to party. Along with other recent titles like the Isabelle Huppert thriller Greta and the Lifetime Original Movie camp fest Psycho Granny, this looks to be part of an unexpected revival of the psychobiddy horror film, a genre we’ll be discussing on next week’s podcast.

The Souvenir – Joanna Hogg’s A24-distributed British drama about a 1980s film student who falls in love with a potentially dangerous man. Features a supporting performance from the always-reliable Tilda Swinton and is now playing at AMC Elmwood, just a few short months after making waves at Sundance.

Movies We’ve Already Enjoyed

Booksmart –This may not be the most consistently hi-larious example of the femme teen sex comedy (in the Blockers/The To Do List/Wetlands tradition), but it is one with an unusually effective emotional core and more Gay Stuff than the genre usually makes room for. It’s very reassuring just to see that the kids are more than alright.

The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) – The Frank Oz-directed musical comedy was filmed on location in New York City, features a cavalcade of 1980s somebodies, introduced the world to The Muppet Babies, and was the final Muppet film completed before Jim Henson’s death. Playing only at The Prytania as joint programming for their Summer Kids’ Movies series and their ongoing Classic Movies series.

-Brandon Ledet