Summer movie series: Get 'em while it's hot

Monday nights in August and Labor Day, it's Brit's summer movie series. The Nicollet Mall alehouse transforms its rooftop lawn into a greenspace screening room with UK-themed hits (and, to be truthful, near-misses). Movies start after dusk, like always, and they're free.

8/1 -- "Arthur" (the good 1981 one with Dudley Moore and John Gielgud)

8/8 -- Woody Allen's London-lensed Scarlett Johansson comedy/mystery/ghost story thing "Scoop"

8/15 -- Simon Pegg and Nick Frost give a stoner alien a ride in "Paul"

8/22 -- "The King's Speech" requires no introduction

8/29 -- "Robin Hood," the Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe version. Crowe's from New Zealand, but close enough

9/5 -- "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1," the hunting of the horcrux … horcruxes … horcruxi?

8/1 – Haley Bonar with Alfred Hitchcock's heat-wave chiller "Rear Window," starring James Steward as a sweltering wheelchair-bound photojournalist and icy blonde Grace Kelly as his high society girlfriend, two natural busybodies who stumble on a possible case of murder

8/8 – No Bird Sing with "1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse," a campy, late-career spy thriller from "Metropolis" maestro Fritz Lang, starring Goldfinger himself, Gert Frobe

8/15 – Buffalo Moon with "Blow Up," an existential whodunit starring David Hemming as an amoral 1960s fashion photographer

8/22 – Dark Dark Dark with "Spies," an espionage yarn from Lang's youthful silent-film phase, featuring a diabolical zillionaire eavesdropping on unsuspecting citizens (no, not Rupert Murdoch) and his antagonist, a suave secret agent whose street disguise makes him a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin

The Trylon Microcinema's monthlong Billy Wilder series isn't free ($8 per film or $25 for a five-film pass) but it's worth every nickel. Wilder is peerless in his ability to blend tension, comedy, pathos and romance. Note that some films screen at the Trylon in south Minneapolis, others at the Heights in Columbia Heights.

8/5-6-7 – "Sabrina" is a champagne cocktail of sophisticated romance, with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden as brothers and romantic rivals for Audrey Hepburn (7 & 9:15 Fri.-Sat, 4:45 & 7 Sun. Trylon)

8/7 –"The Seven Year Itch" gave us the iconic image of Marilyn Monroe's skirt billowing up above a subway vent; she plays a guileless temptress who strolls into the life of the inconveniently married Tom Ewell (7:30 Trylon)

8/12-13-14 – "One, Two, Three" is a prescient satire with James Cagney as a cold war soft drink exec determined to defeat communism with Coca-Cola (7 & 9:15 Fri.-Sat, 4:45 & 7 Sun. Trylon)

8/14 – "Double Indemnity" cowritten with Raymond Chandler, casts Fred MacMurray as a corrupt insurance man who helps rig an "accidental" death payoff on Barbara Stanwyck's husband (7:30 Heights)

8/19-20-21 – "The Fortune Cookie" stars Lemmon and Walter Matthau as partners in crime trying to collect a huge settlement over an accident involving a football superstar (7 & 9:30 Fri.-Sat, 4:30 & 7 Sun. Trylon)

8/26-27-28 – "Ace in the Hole" concerns a mine disaster story manipulated by cynical reporter Kirk Douglas to milk the tragedy for a Pulitzer (7 & 9:15 Fri.-Sat, 4:45 & 7 Sun. Trylon)

8/28 – "Sunset Boulevard" stars Holden as a sellout Hollywood screenwriter and silent star Gloria Swanson as the demented actress who ensnares him in her delusional plan for a comeback (7 & 9:15 Fri.-Sat, 4:45 & 7 Sun. Trylon)