Special Screening

Frederick Wiseman's documentary La Danse portrays all aspects of the Paris Ballet Company behind the scenes.

Frederick Wiseman's documentary La Danse portrays all aspects of the Paris Ballet Company behind the scenes.

From the Paramount Theatre website: "Take a walk on the wild side with Radical Reels, the steepest, fastest films from the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Then ignite your passion for adventure, action and travel with the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour! Each night showcases award winning films about remote cultures, the world’s last great wild places, and the people who travel there. As always, a special tour host direct from Banff, Alberta will introduce the films." The event is a benefit for the Austin Parks Foundation.

From the Paramount Theatre website: "Take a walk on the wild side with Radical Reels, the steepest, fastest films from the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Then ignite your passion for adventure, action and travel with the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour! Each night showcases award winning films about remote cultures, the world’s last great wild places, and the people who travel there. As always, a special tour host direct from Banff, Alberta will introduce the films." The event is a benefit for the Austin Parks Foundation.

At SXSW 2009, Austin director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), pictured at right, attended a special screening of his first feature film, the 1969 movie Eggshells. He pointed out that it had not been shown in theaters since the late 1960s.

On Sunday night, the movie gets another rare theatrical showing, this time at Alamo Ritz. Watchmaker Films, which is restoring the film for a future DVD release, has partnered with Alamo Drafthouse to show the film. It's a very odd, surreal movie that offers a few glimpses of Austin in the late 1960s, mostly around the University of Texas campus. In addition, Alamo promises some unnamed "special guests" at the screening.

For more information, check out my article for Cinematical from SXSW 2009 about the fest's Eggshells screening. (I skipped The Hurt Locker to see it. I still don't regret this.)

Alamo Drafthouse at Lake Creek is showing all three of the Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell horror/comedy masterpieces (yeah, okay, "masterpieces" may be too strong, but ... shut up): The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness. Admission for the triple-feature is a ridiculously cheap $15. Groovy, baby.

Alamo Lake Creek is showing SXSW 2009 documentary 45365, which shows us one night in a small-town, following a number of residents in different walks of life. The documentary just won the Truer Than Fiction award, a new award established by Chaz and Roger Ebert, at the annual Independent Spirit Awards.

Local filmmaker Bob Ray (Hell on Wheels) is showing his latest film Total Badass for one night at Alamo South.

Admission is free for this screening of the 2008 music documentary Reformat the Planet, about 8-bit music. Alamo is hoping that you'll enjoy 8-bit music so much that you'll then head over to The Highball on March 16-17 for Datapop 3.0, a festival of live 8-bit music.

I love brunch at the Alamo and What's Up Doc? enough that I am very tempted to skip SXSW that afternoon and skip over to Alamo South for french toast and 70s screwball comedy. Madeline Kahn is unbelievably funny in this film, which was co-scripted by Buck Henry.