Fifty years of the Holy Grail, Blue Velvet, Strange Darling, and a visit from Joe Bob

The BSR May 2025 repertory movie roundup

Name: Cotter Interactive
Price range: $

Stephen Silver

Apr 30, 2025

Film/TV

4 minute read

Outdoors. Men dressed in knights armor, one has a sun with a mustache on the front, the other has a tree design — ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ celebrates 50 years. (Image courtesy of Shout Studios.)

The month of May is here, and with it comes some exciting older film offerings. These include the half-century anniversary of a comedy classic, a seminar on one of David Lynch’s best, and another showing of a cult film starring a local actor.

The highlights

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 50th Anniversary
Sunday, May 4
Wednesday, May 7
Various theaters and times (Fathom Events)

The 1975 comedic riff on the King Arthur legend, beloved and endlessly quoted by nerds for a half-century, marks its 50th anniversary at the end of April. You’ll have two chances to see old friends like Tim the Enchanter and the Knights Who Say Ni, as Fathom Events will host one-night-only showings, although on two nights, in early May.

Blue Velvet: Cinema Classics Seminar
Thursday, May 29, 6:30pm
Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 Lancaster Avenue, Bryn Mawr

The David Lynch tributes continue, as BMFI hosts a showing and discussion of Lynch’s 1986 film, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, and Isabella Rossellini. Like many of Lynch’s works, it’s a film about the dark side of classical Americana, this time beginning with a severed ear found in a small town.

Jacob Mazer, director of programs and education at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, will “frame the film within the contexts of the director’s oeuvre, Hollywood’s neo-noir boom, and Reagan-era nostalgia for the 1950s,” as well as the question of why there have to be men like Frank.

Strange Darling
Friday, May 9, 7pm
Film Society Center, 1412 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia

Just a few months ago, actor and West Chester native Kyle Gallner appeared at a screening of Dinner in America, the 2020 film that didn’t make much of a splash at the time, but has since emerged as a cult hit.

Now, Gallner is back for a Q&A following a showing of Strange Darling, director JT Mollner’s disturbing but thrilling serial killer film that first hit the festival circuit in 2023 before its release last year. It will screen in 35mm, as one of the last big events before the Film Center shuts down for renovations this summer.

Joe Bob’s Indoor Drive-In Geek-Out: The Cockeyed World of Russ Meyer: Vixen and Super-Vixens
Saturday, May 31, 7pm
Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge Street, Phoenixville

Joe Bob Briggs returns to the Colonial for a double-feature of the work of the famed schlock filmmaker Russ Meyer. The two films are 1968’s Vixen and 1975’s Super-Vixens, the latter of which is described as “sort of a sexy version of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.” Briggs will host intros and Q&As for both films, as well as meet-and-greets before and after the program.