My Weeknight Tickets at the 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival

Here's my plan for the last four nights at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

Mar 31, 2025

Films on Monday night, April 7, include Tsui Hark’s Hong Kong classic, *Shanghai Blues* (1984)

The 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival arrives this week, and I wrote about my Festival weekend movie-going strategy back when tickets first went on sale. But the Festival extends beyond this weekend, with ten to twelve films each day from Monday, April 7 through Thursday, April 10, all at Flix Brewhouse (with one very important exception at UW Cinematheque on Tuesday, discussed below).

How am I going to navigate the weekdays? Mostly weeknights, actually. I will miss most of the 12:00pm to 5:00pm screenings through the week. I’m not independently wealthy, so I work for a living. But the weeknights still provide plenty of opportunities to catch what should be very interesting films.

Before launching into my weeknight itinerary, first I want to provide some updates that could help you navigate two of the trickiest weekend scheduling conflicts.

As I mentioned in my March 10 post, the documentary Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse is disastrously scheduled essentially between two programming blocks on Saturday, April 5. You now have the option of waiting a few days and watching it on the PBS series American Masters, airing on WHA-TV, Tuesday, April 15, at 10:00pm.

Advance tickets for Erik Gunneson’s Milk Punch are sold out, and there will only be rush tickets available for the Saturday, April 5, 6:45pm screening at Music Hall. Erik has scheduled another screening of Milk Punch at the Bartell Theater on Friday, April 11 at 7:00pm. Advance tickets are available at the Bartell website.

Monday

There is a no-brainer choice for the early Monday evening block, and three valid choices for the later evening block.

If you’ve never seen Tsui Hark’s Shanghai Blues (1984) this will be a great opportunity to see it in a new restoration with a (hopefully) raucous crowd at 6:00pm. Most of us of a certain age know Shanghai Blues from relatively poor quality VHS tapes that circulated during the Hong Kong cinema boom of the 1990s. (I did get to see a 35mm print at some point at the Cinematheque.) Note: there are some jarring shifts of tone that might be off-putting to some people. I’m confident you’ll leave the screening saying to yourself, “They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”

Any of the late evening films on Monday would be good choices, but I’m going with Alex Ross Perry’s Pavements, which seems just odd enough to place it ahead of the other options. I’m not a huge fan of Pavement (sure, I own Brighten the Corners, but not much else). I’m more of a fan of Perry, and I’m hoping he will bring his trademark cynicism to temper and upend the rock band documentary. which is too often an exercise in nostalgia.

Two Strangers Trying to Kill Themselves is intriguing, and I made a last minute decision to see it on Wednesday afternoon (see below). That leaves Russ Meyer’s Vixen! which certainly would be fun to see with a crowd and a restored print. Assuming, of course, that you are a degenerate.

Tuesday

After so many multiple film days, I’m taking it easy on Tuesday, April 8. I’m just seeing one film: Endless Cookie at 8:30pm. Seth Scriver started working on Endless Cookie with documentary audio recordings nine years ago at his half-brother (and co-director) Peter’s home in Shamattawa, a First Nations reserve in northern Manitoba. (Peter identifies as Indigenous.) The audio recordings root the film in the documentary tradition, while Peter’s home life and storytelling allow for flights of abstraction via animation. I hope that Endless Cookie will be a strong contribution to this emerging hybrid practice.

The films of Shirley Clarke have received more attention in recent years, thanks to recent scholarship and “Project Shirley” from Milestone Films.

Wednesday

I made a recent decision to leave work early enough on April 9 to see Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other at 3:00pm. This doc examines the long-term romantic relationship between two artists, the acclaimed photographer Joel Meyerowitz and writer Maggie Barrett. I’m intrigued by the insights into the creative life as well as the honest portrait of real-life relationships that the film reportedly delivers.

The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, housed in the Wisconsin Historical Society building on campus, holds the papers of filmmaker Shirley Clarke. I became very familiar with this collection when I researched my dissertation on experimental film distribution and exhibition (completed 20 years ago!).

Recently Clarke’s career has received more interest from film scholars and historians, as well as from home video distributors. Milestone Films, through their Milestone Cinematheque label, has released four discs in its “Project Shirley” collection: The Connection (1960), Portrait of Jason (1967), Ornette: Made in America (1985), and The Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke, a compilation of her early short films. In terms of recent scholarship, Karen Pearlman has published a new book, Shirley Clarke: Thinking through Movement (Edinburgh University Press).

Pearlman will join Shirley Clarke’s daughter, filmmaker Wendy Clarke, for the Wednesday 5:20pm screening, Shirley Clarke: Thinking in Motion. The program provides a mix of personal work and commissioned films, typical for independent filmmakers who aspired to maintain a career working in 16mm film in the 1950s and 1960s. I’m most intrigued by A Visual Diary (1980, 6 minutes) which should provide an interesting counterpoint to Clarke’s dance films from the 1950s in the program.

In most cases, I would stay for the next program on the same Flix Brewhouse screen, Love, Links, Archives: Gems from the Wendy Clarke Collection at 8:30pm. Wendy Clarke also has an archival collection at the WCFTR. This program will feature a range of her work, including examples from her long-term project started in 1980, The Love Tapes, in which people are asked to share three minutes of their thoughts about love. If you are going to stay for the late block at Flix Brewhouse, this would be a good choice.

Instead, I’m going to hop to the only weeknight screening at the UW-Cinematheque, Slovak animator Viktor Kubal’s The Bloody Lady (1980), with live musical accompaniment by claire rousay, at 8:00pm. I’ve been paying attention to Arbelos Films’ reissues of Eastern European animation, so just seeing The Bloody Lady was probably enough to prompt me to quickly trek downtown. But rousay’s presence and live accompaniment of her own new score for The Bloody Lady should make this one of the more unique screenings at the 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival. (Ticket status is currently “rush only”.)

Thursday

I’m running out of space for the email version of the newsletter. So I’ll wrap Thursday up quickly.

If I can’t get out of work early, I will see the double feature of 3-D films, It Came from Outer Space (1953) at 6:00pm and The Glass Web (1953) at 8:30pm. The WFF guide mentions that both screenings are sponsored by Kristin Thompson. Thank you Kristin!

If I can get out of work early, I have a ticket for Afternoons of Solitude, the first feature documentary from Spanish filmmaker Albert Serra (Story of My Death, 2013; The Death of Louis XVI, 2016). Serra examines the glamorous and violent world of bullfighting, focusing on the career of “The Messi of Matadors,” Peruvian Andrés Roca Rey. I neglected Afternoons of Solitude when tickets went on sale, because it was programmed too close to Milk Punch on Saturday, and I didn’t think I could get out of work early enough Thursday. But the glowing responses I’ve heard and read about the film since then convinced me to purchase a ticket and try to make the screening.

What are you excited to see at the Wisconsin Film Festival? Let me know in the comments, or Restack this post with a note.

Now Playing In Madison: User’s Guide

Check the venue’s website (click venue name), especially after Wednesday for weekend openings and closings.
Brief notes under titles of interest to me are not endorsements unless noted.
Snarky comments are not negative reviews, I have not seen the films unless noted.

Barbie Ferreira (left) and John Leguizamo (right) star in 2024 South by Southwest Jury Award winner, *Bob Trevino Likes It*.

Wisconsin Film Festival

Maybe you’ve heard of it? Plenty to see April 3–10.

UW-Cinematheque

Regular programming on pause for Wisconsin Film Festival. Resumes with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on Friday, April 11.

WUD Film

FREAKY TALES free sneak peek, Tuesday, April 1, 7:30pm
- Latest from directing team Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, known on the indie Half Nelson (2006) and Marvel Studios’ Captain Marvel (2019). An action comedy inspired by real events in Oakland in 1987.

AMC Fitchburg

ALTO KNIGHTS, THE
AMC SCREEN UNSEEN: APRIL 7
AMATEUR, THE
- Espionage thriller with Rami Malek as nerd-turned-badass. If you jump now, you may survive the blast.
ASH
AUDREY'S CHILDREN
BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN
BLACK BAG
BOB TREVINO LIKES IT
- Winner of 2024 South by Southwest Grand Jury Award and Audience Award. Stars John Leguizamo and Barbie Ferriera.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
CHOSEN: LAST SUPPER (SEASON 5) PART 1, THE
CHOSEN: LAST SUPPER (SEASON 5) PART 2, THE
DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE, THE
DEATH OF A UNICORN
DISNEY'S SNOW WHITE
DOG MAN
EMPURAAN (or L2: E.M.P.U.R.A.A.N.)
- Indian cinema, Malayalam-language. Screenings in Telugu also available. This intrigues me more now that it has sparked controversy for scenes that seemed to parallel the 2002 Gujarat riots. This offended right-wing groups who have accused the filmmakers of negatively portraying the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

FREAKY TALES
- Sneak peek at WUD Film on Tuesday, April 1, see above.
FRIEND, THE
- Indie drama starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. A novelist adopts a Great Dane that had belonged to a now deceased friend.
HELL OF A SUMMER
- A fresh take on an old saw: the slasher film set at a summer camp.
LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA, THE
MAD SQUARE
- Indian cinema, Telugu-language.
MICKEY 17
MINECRAFT MOVIE, A
- Two words. Minecraft. Movie. For style points, they added “A.”
NOVOCAINE
ONE OF THEM DAYS LAUGH-ALONG
- This screening is distinguished from the quiet, contemplative screenings of One of Them Days that you probably have already attended.
PADDINGTON IN PERU
PENGUIN LESSONS, THE
PRINCESS MONONOKE 4K (IMAX)
- It looks like the last IMAX screening is tonight, Monday March 31.
ROBINHOOD
- Indian cinema, Telugu-language. Limited screenings now that Sikandar is also playing.
SIKANDAR
- Indian cinema, Hindi-language. Salman Khan vehicle. Caught this Sunday, hope to write about it soon!
WOMAN IN THE YARD, THE
WORKING MAN, A

Marcus Point Cinema or Marcus Palace Cinema

ALTO KNIGHTS, THE
AMATEUR, THE
AUDREY'S CHILDREN
BLACK BAG
CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD
CHOSEN: LAST SUPPER PART 1, THE
CHOSEN: LAST SUPPER PART 2, THE
DEATH OF A UNICORN
DISNEY'S SNOW WHITE
GREASE
- Fan Faves series
HELL OF A SUMMER
LOCKED
MARCUS MYSTERY MOVIE (4/7)
MICKEY 17
MINECRAFT MOVIE, A
NATIONAL THEATRE: DOCTOR STRANGELOVE
NATIONAL THEATRE: FRANKENSTEIN
PADDINGTON IN PERU
PENGUIN LESSONS, THE
SCREAMBOAT
- In the same artistically ambitious tradition of Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), which was made after Pooh entered the public domain, Screamboat showcases the Steamboat Willie incarnation of Mickey Mouse, who terrorizes a group of hapless New Yorkers.