Movies This Week: Heavyweights, Truffaut, and Redneck Zombies

School is about to start, so the free summer movies for kids are winding down -- most programs have stopped except for Alamo, I believe. However, there are still some good free movies and other interesting events this week around Austin.

  • If you're reading this on Tuesday, there may still be time to head down to Hampton Library on Convict Hill Road for a free screening of Muppet Treasure Island at 6 pm. Tim Curry as Long John Silver rivals Johnny Depp as Captain Jack, I promise you.
  • Alamo Summer Movie Camp is showing Heavyweights this week, and you can still catch the movie on Wed. and Thurs. at 11 am at the South Lamar location. One of the writers on this summer-camp film was Judd Apatow, who wrote and directed Knocked Up. (More films after the jump.)
  • At the Paramount, the Summer Movie Classics series continues with a week of foreign-language films. You can see the Japanese film Kwaidan tonight or Wednesday, and a double-bill of Truffaut films, The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, on Thursday and Friday. And this weekend, you can choose from The Earrings of Madame De ... and The Seven Samurai.
  • We noted this already, but this week's Weird Wednesday screening will have a special guest. The movie is The Girls from Thunder Strip, and stuntman/actor/filmmaker Gary Kent, who has a role in the 1966 film, will attend the free midnight movie at Alamo on South Lamar. 
  • Alamo Lake Creek continues its Tromatic Thursdays series with the 1987 Troma film Redneck Zombies. I love the title. The free movie starts at 10 pm.
  • As Chris mentioned last week, The King of Kong opens Friday in Austin. This is a wonderfully funny movie -- I thought it was the most entertaining film I saw at SXSW this year. Alamo on South Lamar is not only showing the movie, but holding a Donkey Kong competition, and one of the subjects of the film, Steve Wiebe, will be at some of the Sunday screenings. If you need a frothy, funny summer movie, this is one to catch.

Muppet Treasure Island

MTI also has that bizarre "cabin fever" musical number that hearkens back to the weird experimental days of the Muppets '70s. Awesome stuff.