Hello, and welcome to this week’s screening report! With the Cinematheque fall preview written, we’re one week away from the start of the season. We’re also just on the brink of three of the fall’s most impactful film festivals - successes at Venice, Telluride, and Toronto often translate to wider distribution deals and future awards potential. Again, not to harp on why festivals and awards matter even when they “never get it right,” but even moreso than critics’ reviews, awards help us understand which smaller films will be available for longer than a few select screenings.
However, for now, we’re still in the rush to push a wide slate of films out the door before the fall film festival kicks off in full swing. Our two critics’ darlings are Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma and Tony, which come from Mubi and A24 respectively and boast matching 95% RottenTomatoes aggregates coming into their wide release this weekend. Jane Schoenbrun’s newest mixes slasher reboots and queer comedy into a “new kind of remake,” and I heard several people declare the film the most exciting programming at Cannes this year. And Matt Johnson’s Tony seems to be basically 95% fiction, but still a pretty good food drama. The widest release is Insidious: Out of the Further, and with lukewarm reviews this may need to be a bounce back after their disastrous The Further You Fear roadshow, cancelled after just three or four showings for a planned six month tour. The Magic Faraway Tree, a fantasy film adaptation of the Enid Blyton novel, sounds like it skews quite young but is pleasant enough for a family film. Mutiny, starring Jason Statham, is getting weak reviews, with the more positive reception putting it at “batting at replacement.” Our other new releases largely lack reviews by wider critics or audiences.
Next weekend is a little more focused - there’s Ridley Scott’s post-apocalyptic action film The Dog Stars starring Jacob Elordi, Margaret Qualley, and Josh Brolin, a film that seems to be leaning more Black Hawk Down than The Last Duel in terms of action, as our widest release. Ketchup Entertainment has rescued Coyote vs. Acme after its infamous tax shelving scheme and so far is getting quite positive reviews. Finding Emily seems to be a hit college romance with U.K. critics, but we’ll see how it translates stateside. Idiots, the Coens-esque crime comedy starring Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson as the titular idiots, played a lukewarm opening at Sundance. And then there’s It Ends, a horror film about a “last night of summer” with No Exit, which struggled to find distribution after warm reception at Sundance 2025 and actually spent months available on Letterboxd’s video rental service before getting this new theatrical release. And Buddy, the mascot horror comedy film from Too Many Cooks creator Casper Kelly, gets its commercial release ahead of Kelly’s UW Cinematheque program this December.
And, yes, there’s the return of UW Cinematheque programming! Joe Swanberg’s The Sun Never Sets reunites Swanberg with collaborator Jake Johnson opposite the film’s star Dakota Johnson, a messy mumblecore romance about the return of an ex-boyfriend from one of the founders of the movement. There may be some survivorship bias, but The Sun Never Sets seems to have won back some skeptics after his prolific output in the early 2010s. Allegro Non Troppo, the Italian riposte to Fantasia, continues to very much hold my attention as it did this summer, and Jerry Lewis’s final film Smorgasbord (Cracking Up) I remember boasting some comparisons to very personal, bizarre films.
Among the other rep screenings, Kin-Dza-Dza! at MMOCA, Robocop at WUD Film, Bring it On at Flix, and Wild at Heart at Cinesthesia jump out the most. I won’t be worrying about linking the individual films in franchise retrospectives anymore. The decision may have been crystallized as I stared at eight wizard transphobia movies and the projected misery of linking them all individually became too great. Looking ahead to the weekend of September 4, we’ll see the premiere of Rose of Nevada at UW Cinematheque, By Any Means, and Fall 2: Deadpoint.
PLUG ZONE
-Rob Thomas reviews Nimrods, Our Hero Balthazar, Tony, and promotes some new films on streaming.
-James Kreul shares some closing notes on the MMoCA series and transitions to a new format for the screening report.
Want to see your film writing or short film here in The Horizon Line? Send a link to your work to horizonlinemadison@gmail.com.
THIS WEEK (8/20/2026-8/26/2026)
New Releases
-Insidious: Out of the Further - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-The Magic Faraway Tree - AMC, Marcus Point
-Mutiny - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Spa Weekend - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Hot Spot - AMC
-Irumudi - AMC
-Never Stop Chasing - AMC
-Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma - AMC, Marcus Point
-Tony - AMC, Flix Brewhouse
-40 Years of Fuckin’ Up - AMC, Marcus Point
-Coyote vs. Acme (Early Access Screening) - 1p 8/23 at AMC
-Idiots (Early Access Screening) - 8p 8/25 at AMC
-The Brink of War - AMC
-The End of Oak Street - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Minions & Monsters - AMC
-Moana - Marcus Point
-The Odyssey - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-One Night Only - AMC, Marcus Point
-Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-The Rivals of Amziah King - AMC, Marcus Point
-Spider-Man: Brand New Day - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Super Troopers 3 - AMC
-Toy Story 5 - Marcus Palace
-Vishwanath & Sons - Marcus Point
-The Wrong Girls - AMC
Repertory
-Kin-Dza-Dza! - 8:15p 8/20 at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
-La La Land - 7p 8/20, 12p 8/22 at Marcus Point
-The Breakfast Club - 6p 8/22 at Flix Brewhouse
-Donnie Darko - 12p 8/23 at Flix Brewhouse
-Robocop - 9p 8/24 at Memorial Union Terrace
-Bring It On - 6:45p 8/25 at Flix Brewhouse
-To the Arctic 3D - 10a 8/26 at AMC
-Wild at Heart - 6:30p 8/26 at Madison Central Library
-The Fast & The Furious - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
-Castle in the Sky - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
NEXT WEEK (8/27/2026-9/2/2026)
New Releases
-Buddy - Marcus Point
-Coyote vs. Acme - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Dog Stars - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Finding Emily - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Idiots - AMC, Marcus Point
-It Ends - AMC, Marcus Point
-Legend of the White Dragon - AMC
-The Sun Never Sets (Joe Swanberg in Person!) - 7p 8/27 at UW Cinematheque
-The Last Blossom - 4p 8/30, 7:30p 8/31 at Marcus Point
-Insidious: Out of the Further - AMC
Repertory
-Allegro Non Troppo - 7p 8/28 at UW Cinematheque
-Smorgasbord (Cracking Up) - 7p 8/29 at UW Cinematheque
-Harry Potter Series - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Terminator 2: Judgment Day - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
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