Hey folks, welcome back to Little Big Screen: On the Big, Big Screen, where film columnist Benjamin McElroy recommends five screenings happening at Iowa’s independent movie theaters. Keep scrolling for the full list of this month’s big screenings.
The Puppet Masters (1994)
Directed by Stuart Orme
Iowa is ground zero for this invasion of B-team Body Snatchers. The hive of gross little stingray guys is headquartered inside Des Moines City Hall. The building looks nothing like the real thing — the exterior was shot in Fresno, California — but that doesn’t mean this movie is “technically set” in Iowa. All the crazy helicopter stuff that follows was actually filmed above Des Moines. Donald Sutherland’s stunt double almost crashes into 801 Grand! Also, Keith David does say “Des Moines” in that voice of his.
FilmScene, Iowa City, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 10 p.m.
Blue Moon (2025)
Directed by Richard Linklater
You’re going to click play on that trailer and see Ethan Hawke making a choice. (The hairstyle seems true enough to the man he’s playing, Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, for the record.) But I’m not worried about a Bradley Cooper/Leonard Bernstein lost-in-the-sauce debacle for a couple reasons: 1) I finally watched The Black Phone. Hawke’s paunchy kidnapper, The Grabber, singlehandedly stopped me from turning it off any time one of the kids spoke. 2) Come on, we’re talking about Hawke and Linklater here.
Fleur Cinema, Des Moines, Thursday, Nov. 6, 3:40 p.m.
The Kneeling Goddess (1947)
Directed by Roberto Gavaldón
I haven’t gotten around to un-liking The Summit on Facebook since graduating far too long ago, and so I had to recently see a poster advertising $2.00 You Call Its. This represented such a staggering amount of inflation that I started thinking about dying. If you can believe it, going to see the new Manuel Álvarez Bravo photography exhibition at the Des Moines Art Center is, somehow, cheaper than getting a single vodka Sprite in either 2025 or 2015. The exhibition’s curator, Laura Burkhalter, is also bringing The Kneeling Goddess, a gorgeous-looking Mexican melodrama that Bravo worked on, to The Varsity. After her introduction to The Night of the Hunter a couple months ago, I’ll watch whatever she tells me to.
The Varsity Cinema, Des Moines, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m., presented with the Des Moines Art Center
Mystic Pizza (1988) and The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Directed by Donald Petrie, Amy Holden Jones
The Slumber Party Massacre was featured alongside Drop Dead Gorgeous and Heathers in Little Big Screen’s Diablo-Coded programming for the 15th anniversary of Jennifer’s Body, so you already know this double feature had me Google Mapsing the drive from Des Moines to Rock Island. The fact that Amy Holden Jones went on to write a Julia Roberts rom-com a few years after directing a poke-you-in-the-eye slasher should clue you in to what you can expect from both films.
Rozz-Tox, Rock Island, Friday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m.
The Player (1992)
Directed by Robert Altman
I got a kick out of Apple’s The Studio. But even before the show won too many Emmy Awards, egregiously beating out The Rehearsal in multiple categories, I was bothered by its soft, squishy underbelly of sentimentality. This is probably entirely due to the existence of The Player, a much better showbiz satire both because it’s a movie about movies, and most importantly, it’s not a low-key love letter to the Hollywood system. It’s slimy and mean — a death threat from the start.
FilmScene, Iowa City, Saturday, Nov. 15, 10 p.m.
