Movies This Week: Horrorfest, King Corn, and Blazing Saddles

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It's a movie-rific week, let me tell you. I don't know if it has something to do with the week before Thanksgiving or if everyone is simply in a movie-watching frame of mind, or what. Anyway, there's a wide variety of stuff going on, some of which is highlighted in the list below.

  • After Dark Horrorfest is taking place at Rega­l Metropolitan this week. Eight horror films are being screened, usually 1-2 per day through Nov. 18.
  • This week, Alamo Ritz is showing the documentary King Corn, which premiered at SXSW this year. The theater is also screening Michael Clayton and The Darjeeling Limited daily.
  • Austin Cinematheque is showing Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 film The Passenger on Monday night at the Texas Union Theater. Admission is free.
  • If you're a Star Trek fan, don't forget the Tuesday night screenings of The Menagerie at theaters around town.
  • If you're not a Star Trek fan, the Austin Film Society series Torn from the Motherland: Films from the African Diaspora series continues on Tuesday nights at Alamo on South Lamar. This week's selection is the 1995 film Black Dju.
  • A special screening of the documentary By Invitation Only will take place Wednesday night at 7:30 in the CMA auditorium (the building next to the formerly rusty-ish one at Guadalupe and Dean Keeton). Director Rebecca Snedecker will attend; so far as I can tell, admission is free. (It's about New Orleans debutantes so I'm hoping to be there.) 
  • On the other hand, it's also tempting to go to this month's AFS Documentary Tour film on Wednesday night at Alamo Ritz: Los Angeles Plays Itself, a look at the ways in which Hollywood movies have depicted the city of Los Angeles. I may need to flip a coin or draw straws.
  • I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole quote-along thing, although I really ought to go to one myself so I can find out definitively how it works, and how well it works (and then tell you). Or you could go to the Blazing Saddles Quote-Along at Alamo Ritz on Thursday night and then let me know. I hope that quoting actual spoken dialogue (or songs) is the only mimicking of Blazing Saddles that will be going on, if you understand me.
  • And Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D is still playing at Galaxy Highland, although it's not Halloween or Christmas at this time. Say hi to Jack and Sally for me.