Late summer’s the time to head to Maine movie theaters
From left, Laura Dern, Joseph Mazzello and Sam Neill in a scene from the 1993 film "Jurassic Park." (Universal Pictures via AP)
Maine’s indie movie houses serve up some late-summer goodness this August, with local theaters reviving some timely classics, a Maine-centric festival, an enticing new big screen thriller from an indie darling, and—what the heck—the only giant dinosaur movie you ever really need.
‘The Ox-Bow Incident’
Wednesday and Saturday, Kinonik, 121 Cassidy Point Dr., Portland, kinonik.org
Those film-on-film preservationists/saints at Portland’s Kinonik have a knack for unearthing celluloid classics that hit our present-day sensibilities and crises with shocking force. William Wellman’s 1943 Western drama sees honest cowboy Henry Fonda (shades of “12 Angry Men”) caught in the midst of a town-wide fever of bloodlust when a trio of easily scapegoated “outsiders,” including a young Mexican man played by Anthony Quinn, are set to be hanged under dubious proof. Racism, paranoia, and trigger-happy “justice” all overpower any sense of truth and fairness as the unflinching film trudges toward its all-around tragic conclusion. An indictment of small-minded bigotry and the way fear and reactionary violence permeate the American psyche, Wellman sums up his reaction to these God-fearing, other-blaming, lynch-happy townsfolk in a line that still resonates through to today: “God better have mercy on you. You won’t get any from me.”
‘The End of Oak Street’
Opening everywhere, Friday.
It’s always a fascinating event when the director of a cult classic gets handed a big bucket of studio money. For “It Follows” filmmaker David Robert Mitchell, now is that time, as the indie auteur of one of the weirdest, scariest, most original horror flicks in recent memory enlists the likes of Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway for his first big budget summer would-be blockbuster. The film’s marketing sort of spoils what’s going on in this eerie, enticingly bananas tale of a typical suburban family who starts noticing some very weird stuff happening in their peaceful neighborhood, but I’ll just say that “It Follows” showed Mitchell fully capable of giving audiences (and me) the screaming heebie-jeebies, so here’s to his unique sensibilities surviving the true horror of test screenings, marketing research and (shudder) studio notes.
2026 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour
Sunday, Space, 538 Congress St., Portland, space538.org
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One admission price, six award-winning short films, 99 minutes. That’s the promise of this traveling showcase of the best shorts from this year’ prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Long a proving ground for the best up-and-coming filmmakers in the world, the Maine stop of this Sundance shorts festival provides an eclectic glimpse of the directors whose works you’re going to be lining up to watch for years to come.Titles included in this unpredictable night of short-form goodness include “Living With a Visionary,” “The Boys and the Bees,” “Crisis Actor,” “Marga an el DF,” “Sauna Sickness,” and “Pankaja.”
‘Jurassic Park’
Aug. 19, Nickelodeon Cinemas, 1 Temple St., Portland, patriotcinemas.com
Thanks to the Nick’s Wayback Wednesday series, you can see Stephen Spielberg’s big dinosaurs on the big screen where they belong. Pretty much the summer movie experience, and eons better than the increasingly dopey CGI sequels. (Bonus: no Chris Pratt!) Plus, there’s no better way to celebrate the movie legacy of all-time character actor treasure, the late Sam Neill than watching him, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Samuel L. Jackson, and other human-sized potential snacks as they flee from what are still some of the most impressively terrifying movie monsters ever put on film.
‘Do the Right Thing’
Aug. 21, PMA Films, 7 Congress Square, Portland, portlandmuseum.org/films
A scorching hot American summer brings already-simmering racial and cultural tensions to a head (sound familiar?) in Spike Lee’s still-towering, never-more-relevant 1989 classic. A stellar cast (Giancarlo Esposito, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Danny Aiello, John Turturro) people this tale of one eventful Brooklyn neighborhood day and night, where various characters’ pressure cooker relationships finally come to a head in a horribly revelatory American explosion. As a then-20-year-old, white college kid in Maine, I stumbled out of the (still-thriving) Eveningstar Cinema during the film’s initial run, slumped into a bench on the Brunswick common and wept at Lee’s searing, thrillingly entertaining, tragic portrait of America’s seemingly insoluble war with itself.
Vacationland Film Festival
Friday-Aug, 23, 205 Main St. Biddeford, vacationlandfilmfestival.com
It’s year three for this exciting new festival dedicated to showcasing shorts and features set and filmed in Maine and/or made by Mainers. For a three-day event, Vacationland packs in a dizzying array of Maine-centric choices, with daily film blocs celebrating everything from documentaries, drama, comedy, horror, sci-fi, and pretty much anything else you can think of, as long as it’s got that Maine flavor.
A single, reasonably priced festival pass is always the way to go ($100 bucks gets access to every film, event, and festival party), but even casual moviegoers will find something fresh and engaging each time you settle into Biddeford’s plush City Theater. As a bonus, the festival concludes with a sneak preview of the Cassidy Brothers new feature film, “Saving Black Bear” (co-starring Maine resident Xander Berkeley of “Candyman,” “The Walking Dead” and a thousand other things you’ve seen), a raucous mockumentary about the fictional rag-tag staff of Orono’s real-life Black Bear Cinemas as they rally around the local movie landmark as it faces imminent closure. (Also, make sure Maine’s excellent movie houses stay open—go out to the movies, people.)
Dennis Perkins is a freelance writer who lives in Auburn with his wife and his cat.
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