Remember how disappointed I was on Memorial Day weekend because I couldn’t find anything to see in theaters? I wonder if Somebody Up There (you know, in the projection booth) took pity on me, because Austin has truly an embarrassment of movie riches this week. I wish I could take the whole week off work and catch Double Indemnity and the Preston Sturges double feature and Casuistry: How to Kill a Cat and American Beer and … wow. I have a four-day weekend and it is not enough.
This will be a difficult week for me because I have to accept the fact that I can’t see all the movies I want. I have to go to work and go to the gym and see my boyfriend somewhere other than a dark theater and clean the garage and taunt the cat. The rule of thumb lately has been that the movies I can’t see on DVD take precedence over the ones I can, with the exception of The Wild Bunch, just because. (That movie really needs a better DVD release, by the way.) Also, I already bought tickets in advance for various films at Alamo, and I can’t see more than one movie at a time.
I suppose I should be happy that no one has invited my boyfriend and me to any July 4 picnics or barbecues or other festive gatherings this weekend, because now I can make more time to watch movies and write about movies and read film weblogs and recover from movie-induced migraines.
New movies in Austin this week:
Mysterious Skin—Gregg Araki’s latest film. I don’t know much about Araki apart from what I read in Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes (which wasn’t complimentary, but which wasn’t up-to-date either) but his films do appear to be an acquired taste.
Rebound—Poor Martin Lawrence. Here he is stuck in a second-rate Bad News Bears ripoff, just weeks away from the remake of said film.
Rize—Documentary about extreme dancing, including krumping and clowning. I feel so old. I have no idea what any of that means.
Saving Face—A Chinese-American mother and daughter have to learn how to deal with each other’s sexual proclivities. (I never get to use the word “proclivities” and I guess it just slipped out. Oops.) Sounds more amusing than sentimental.
War of the Worlds—The reviews are mostly positive and it sounds like an ideal summer movie but I cannot bear to look at Tom Cruise, so I’m keeping away. My guess is that even though others feel the same way I do, this movie will clean up over the holiday weekend.
Notable events/revivals in Austin:
Tickets go on sale at 5 pm Friday (July 1) for the July 9 Horrorthon event at Alamo Downtown. Six horror films in a row will be shown and Alamo is advertising that no one will be allowed to leave early without a death certificate (very William Castle). Co-sponsored by Ain’t It Cool News, so I guess it’s a kind of mini-Butt-Numb-A-Thon. A semi-numb-a-thon? All kinds of surprises are planned, and it will probably sell out quickly. I considered going, but then I remembered that I don’t like most horror movies unless they’re funny, like Re-Animator or Evil Dead 2.
American Beer—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Sun. 7/3 and next Sunday 7/10. Admission price includes tastings of 15 microbrewed beers. Mmmmm. Beeeeer.
Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Tues-Wed. 7/5-6. Controversial documentary about a group of guys in Canada who decided that for the sake of Art, they would … well, kill a cat and videotape it. The documentary doesn’t show or condone the awful footage or cruelty to animals, but focuses on the controversy surrounding this event.
Double Indemnity—Playing at the Paramount on Wed-Thurs. 7/6-7 as part of a double feature with The Postman Always Rings Twice (urgh). Let’s see, if I parked halfway between the Paramount and Alamo Downtown on Thursday, and I ran right over to the Paramount after the Buster Keaton movies … or maybe if I got to work really early on Wednesday and then slipped out early to work out and ate in the car on the way to the theater …
Double Indemnity isn’t available on DVD in the US (rights issues) but it’s being released on DVD in the UK on July 11. And I have a multiregion DVD player now. Much easier than trying to squeeze this movie into my schedule this week.
Ghostbusters—Playing at Alamo Lake Creek at midnight on Fri-Sat. 7/1-2. I bet this is a fabulous movie to watch with a lively midnight-movie crowd. Too bad I’m too much of a wimp to stay up that late. Why can’t sleep be optional?
The Lady Eve—Playing at the Paramount Sun. 7/3 and Tues. 7/5 as part of a double feature with The Palm Beach Story. Now that’s a great double feature, my two favorite Preston Sturges movies. I’m sorry I’m not going, but I have The Palm Beach Story on DVD and I saw The Lady Eve at UT last year with Anthony Lane.
Man with the Screaming Brain—Playing at Alamo South on Tues. 7/5 with director Bruce Campbell in attendance. This is Mr. Campbell’s first time directing a feature film. He also will be signing his new book, Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way (the title of which I cannot type or read without giggling). Early screenings are sold out but the midnight show still has tickets available. Yes, we have tickets. I bought them about 10 minutes after they went on sale. You had to ask?
Meet Me in St. Louis—Playing at the Paramount Sat-Sun. 7/2-3 as part of a double feature with Yankee Doodle Dandy. I like this movie a lot, but it’s always seemed more like a Christmas movie to me. I’ve heard the DVD released last year is a gorgeous transfer and I’d like to rent it at some point (it’s probably in our Netflix queue along with 220 other movies).
The Milky Way—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Tues. 7/5 as part of the Essential Cinema: Shattering the Narrative series from Austin Film Society. A Luis Bunuel film I haven’t ever seen, and which isn’t on DVD. Sounds interesting if you don’t have other plans already (sadly, I have).
The Palm Beach Story—Playing at the Paramount Sun. 7/3 and Tues. 7/5 as part of a double feature with The Lady Eve. I have the DVD and I have been trying to convince my boyfriend to watch it with me. The Ale and Quail Club! The Weinie King! The, um, dress that Claudette Colbert wears to breakfast on the train! The Princess Centimilla and her sidekick Toto! And let’s not forget that bizarre sequence over the opening credits. Certainly it is the weirdest screwball comedy I know (and arguably the last of the Thirties-style romantic comedies).
Best line from that movie: “Nothing is permanent in this world … except Roosevelt.”
The Philadelphia Story—Playing at the Paramount Fri-Sat. 7/1-2 as part of a double feature with Woman of the Year. I adore this movie but I just bought the DVD, which is an incredibly good transfer, and I don’t think this movie gains much in a theater. Wish they’d picked Pat and Mike to show with it instead of Woman of the Year, though.
Sherlock Jr. and Cops—Playing at Alamo Downtown on Thurs. 7/7 with live music accompaniment from the White Ghost Shivers. I’m going, although my boyfriend declined because he felt we are seeing too many movies next week. I may possibly like Buster Keaton even more than Harold Lloyd (I am quite fond of The General, which I also saw at Alamo with a great accompaniment from Guy Forsyth.)
Viva Les Amis—Playing at Alamo Downtown Thurs. 7/7. Possibly your last chance to see this documentary about the late lamented off-Drag cafe and its colorful group of employees and regulars.
The Wild Bunch—Playing at Alamo Downtown Fri-Sun. 7/1-3. Admission price to the Friday screening includes a “Southwestern feast” (which features splotches of red to match the movie … hee)and Rachael Ray will be there taping one of her TV shows. You can get the special dinner on Saturday and Sunday too, but it’s optional. I think we’re going on Sunday. Just once, on Sunday.
In the next week, I am going to see The Wild Bunch, The Man with the Screaming Brain (with Bruce Campbell in attendance), the Buster Keaton movies, but not Double Indemnity unless I go completely wacko. We still have Hoop Dreams to watch on DVD, too. I am not discussing the movie review backlog except to note that I have seen Batman Begins and hope to write about it soon.
Also, this may be the last Movies This Week in its current incarnation (see previous entry). I’ll let you know what happens. Believe it or not, I actually cut the Austin Screenings section of this entry to include only the movies I liked or wanted to see … and you can see that it’s still pretty long. Austin is wonderful that way.
Mysterious Skin is very different from Araki’s previous films, so I wouldn’t necessarily pre-judge it based on them. It’s very good and I plan to recommend it highly to everyone I know in Pittsburgh as soon as it comes here. (Though to be fair, I do like his previous films too. Just in a totally different way.)
Fametracker calls Araki’s films “pretention-a-thons”. Myself, I’ve only seen The Living End, and man, is the guy-on-guy action in that movie pretty hot.
I’m pretty sure that “Viva Les Amis” is included on the recent Slacker DVD.
Double bills like “Double Indemnity” and “Postman Always Rings Twice” piss me off. The pairing is obvious, but only on a superficial level (“noir, based on James M. Cain books”). Beyond the superficialities, I don’t believe the pairing works. I don’t see how this would be an enjoyable combination.
Not to mention, one of them is a truly great movie, and the other is an overrated overwraught melodramatic turd.
I don’t think I’d want to see two similar noir movies together: I’d prefer one with a twist. For example, Double Indemnity and the Coens’ tribute to Cain, The Man Who Wasn’t There, would be a fun double feature.
You know what would be even more fun (if a tad obvious)? Chinatown and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Why doesn’t anyone ever pair up those two?
Don: I read the description of the Slacker DVD from the Criterion site, which says the DVD includes a “ten-minute trailer for a documentary about the landmark Austin cafe, Les Amis, which served as location for several scenes in Slacker.”
I saw Sherlock Jr. on TCM recently and almost wrote privately to you to rave about it, but I got caught up in the rest of my week. The stunts, of course, are great, as one would expect from Keaton, but what blew me away was the special effects — typical now with CGI, but truly impressive opticals for 1924.