See New Times picks for the film screenings in September that you aren't going to want to miss, and check the local listings and showtimes at miaminewtimes.com/miami/movietimes.
Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut at Coral Gables Art Cinema
No living American director qualifies better for the title of "living legend" than Francis Ford Coppola. The 85-year-old has been using that towering legacy to promote his new film, Megalopolis. (We'll get to that one in a minute.) The most recent trailer for the upcoming epic featured quotes from historical reviews lambasting his most famous, now-classic films like The Godfather and Bram Stoker's Dracula, which were later revealed to have been completely fabricated. Whoops! In any case, Coral Gables Art Cinema is celebrating the new film by screening Coppola classics from the director's '70s heyday. It already screened a new 4K restoration of 1974's The Conversation on Labor Day, but on Thursday, September 26, it will play the "final cut" of Apocalypse Now.Our Take
Few directors can weave genius from chaos like Coppola, but Apocalypse Now still holds the unofficial record for the most troubled production in cinema. As the director himself famously said when the film screened at Cannes in 1979, "My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam. It's what it was really like." He means that literally: Martin Sheen had a heart attack on set. The Philippine Army kept absconding with the helicopters the crew had borrowed to fight actual Communist insurgents. Marlon Brando showed up overweight and hadn't learned his lines. Cost overruns, difficult actors, and a literal typhoon were just a few of the issues encountered. Somehow, Coppola wrangled the film into a showable form, which has been continuously revised and re-edited over the years into various versions, including this 40th anniversary "final cut." Whatever form it takes, this Vietnam-set take on Heart of Darkness remains one of the most extraordinary, iconic films ever made, a psychedelic war odyssey full of sequences that have entered pop culture lore – the "Ride of the Valkyries" helicopter attack, the murder of Colonel Kurtz set to the Doors' "The End," and so much more. 9:15 p.m. Thursday, September 26, at Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; 786-472-2249; gablescinema.com. Tickets cost $10 to $11.75.Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
He's back, baby! Thirty-six years after their comedy spooktacular, Tim Burton and Michael Keaton bring the undead icon Betelgeuse back to life with a belated sequel. Winona Ryder returns as recovering goth girl Lydia, now a mom nurturing a rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega. Returning to the long-abandoned haunted house from the original film, Astrid is the one who ends up releasing Keaton's petulant poltergeist from the underworld, and chaos ensues as they try to put him back. This is Burton's first feature since his 2019 live-action remake of Dumbo, although he did direct Ortega as Wednesday Addams in a few episodes of the Netflix series Wednesday. Monica Bellucci, Willem Dafoe, Justin Theroux, and Danny DeVito fill out the cast, with Catherine O'Hara returning from the original film as Lydia's mom. Opens Friday, September 6.The Front Room
Another racially themed horror movie in the mold of Get Out, this thriller released by A24 is the debut film from Max and Sam Eggers, brothers of The Lighthouse and The Northman director Robert Eggers. Starring 2000s R&B star Brandy, the film follows Belinda, a Black woman and expectant mother forced to accommodate her white husband's elderly stepmother. Older relatives are always tricky, but Solange, played by Kathryn Hunter, is no mere monster-in-law — in fact, there's something downright kkklanish about her. Opens Friday, September 6.![Still from the documentary The Gleaners and I](https://media2.miaminewtimes.com/mia/imager/u/blog/21193418/gleaners_and_i.jpg?cb=1725474458)
Agnes Varda's documentary The Gleaners and I screens at Cosford Cinema on September 8.
Janus Films photo
The Gleaners and I, Black Narcissus, and One False Move at Cosford Cinema
Make sure your Sundays are clear for the rest of the year — you'll probably spend them at the Cosford Cinema. The on-campus movie house at the University of Miami just unveiled an astonishingly great lineup of repertory screenings as part of their "Sundays at the U with Movies" series. The best part: They're all free for UM students and only $5 for everyone else. The series started on August 25 with Challengers director Luca Guadagnino's early film I Am Love. French new wave trailblazer Agnes Varda's documentary The Gleaners and I, about the director's time with modern-day scavengers, will screen on September 8. Black Narcissus, a classic adventure-drama from Powell and Pressburger about a group of British nuns living in isolation on a Himalayan mountaintop, will show on September 15. Finally, screening on September 22 is the '90s neo-noir One False Move, directed by Carl Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress) and starring Bill Paxton as a small-town cop with skeletons in the closet brought on to investigate a big-time interstate murder case with the LAPD. Throughout September, at Bill Cosford Cinema, 5030 Brunson Dr., Memorial Building Ste. 225, Coral Gables; 305-284-9838; cosfordcinema.com. Admission is free for UM students; tickets cost $5 for everyone else.![Still from The Matrix](https://media2.miaminewtimes.com/mia/imager/u/blog/21193437/matrix_still.jpg?cb=1725474458)
Fathom Events is celebrating the 25th anniversary of The Matrix with screenings on September 19 and 22.
Fathom Events photo