Film Series

Rated PG; 101min; Director:Richard Franklin (1981)
Alamo Website:  Jamie Lee Curtis needs to stop hitchhiking. In John Carpenter’s 1980 film THE FOG, she hops in a big rig immediately before ghost pirates infest a New England town. In the following year’s ROAD GAMES, she thumbs a ride from award-winning actor/trucker/megaspazz Stacy Keach as he’s tracking down a highway serial killer. The mysterious maniac has been leaving various girl parts all across the countryside, and Pat Quid (Keach) has taken it upon himself to rid the Australian outback of its criminal threat. What follows is an exceptionally bizarre cat-and-mouse story, with a seemingly coked-out Keach flooring it all the way to the closing credits. Roll out for an unstoppable outburst of back-stabbings, regular stabbings and some skull-whackin’ low budget vehicular mayhem! If a Hitchcock-obsessed caveman was given a movie camera, two famous actors, a bunch of cars, and a handful of suicidal stuntmen, this is the movie he’d make. (Zack)

Rated PG-13; 96min; Director:Ron Underwood (1990)
Alamo Website:  Yep. That TREMORS.  We strive to present you with unseen treaures and R-rated (!) obscurities, but sometimes it’s more important to grab what’s good and throw it onto the screen. TREMORS was the last great American monster movie, filled with hell-spawned wildness and family-friendly gore created before computers showed up to permanently poop the party. The plot: carnivorous subterranean man-eating beasts gobble up the townsfolk of Perfection, Nevada, chasing hobos up telephone poles and swallowing station wagons whole. Kevin Bacon battles the hideous giant worms with a gusto not seen since FOOTLOOSE. At his side is the incredible Fred Ward, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA’s Victor “Egg Chen” Wong and Reba McEntire and FAMILY TIES’ Michael Gross as gun-obsessed survivalists! Followed by three sequels and a TV series that are straight doodoo. (Zack)

Rated R; 82min; Director:Barry Rosen (1976)
Alamo Website:  The world’s greatest - and only - kung fu blaxploitation creature-horror explosion! This rousing exercise in 1970s male shirtlessness stars martial arts machine Warhawk Tanzania, a tough-as-nails/compelling-as-wood afro’ed enemy of injustice. Here, he’s “Luke,” a street-roving equalizer who tires of New York’s rampant gang scourge. What’s a frustrated vigilante to do? Why, import an ancient demon to clean up crime in the ‘hood, of course. Shockingly, this plan goes awry, and every gang member in the boroughs is soon on the front lines of the supernatural apocalypse. A masterpiece with no right to exist, GANG WARS offers much punching, kicking, deathing and a man with cartoon eyeballs painted on his eyelids. Featuring the best line of dialogue of 1976: “I’m catching static from some Chinese niggers, man!” (Zack)

Rated R; 93min; Director:Max Kalmanowicz (1980)
Alamo Website:  Terror Tuesday continues its ongoing educational series on The Evils of Reproduction with this monumentally offensive assault against pre-adolescence. A schoolbus full of singing children (booo) travels through a cloud of toxic nuclear gas (yaaay) but the kids survive (BOOO). Fortunately, their radioactive vaporbath has transformed them into wee annihilation machines who microwave their victims by giving them adorable hugs. After several local residents meet their crispy demises, it’s learned that the rampaging nippers can only be stopped if you cut off both of their hands. This discovery leads to a rich array of satisfying child mutilation scenes. Sure, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but if I have the opportunity to watch a toddler get dismembered, I’m not asking any questions. (Zack)

Rated R; 106min; Director:Walter Hill (1981)
Alamo Website:  A dozen weekend warriors on Army Reserves maneuvers in the Louisiana bayou fall into the bad graces of the local yokels. What follows is an intestine-blasting battle for survival as the armchair army men fire fully automatic training blanks at the most highly skilled, heavily armed, kill-crazy swampdwellers this side of the Pecos. Walter Hill made SOUTHERN COMFORT two years after his undisputed classic THE WARRIORS, and I submit that this right here is the superior film: DELIVERANCE + RAMBO injecting pure caffeine into its eyeballs. The last 10 minutes will have you dancing in your seat like a fetus on a hot skillet. Featuring an incredible cast including Powers Boothe (RED DAWN), Fred Ward, Keith Carradine and several other familiar Hollywood luminaries who don’t mind getting disemboweled, spiked, shot in the face, mangled by bear traps, blown to pieces and otherwise treated like meat slabs with targets on them. (Zack)

Rated NR; 82min; Director:Wayne Coyne (2008)
Alamo Website:  A special space-psychedelia-rock presentation for High for the Holidays! It's Christmastime, and the colonization of Mars is underway. When an oxygen generator and a gravity control pod malfunction, Major Syrtis and his team fear the worst. Syrtis also hallucinates about the birth of a baby, and many other strange things. Meanwhile, a compassionate alien superbeing (Lips frontman Coyne) arrives, inspiring and helping the isolated astronauts. Seven years in the making, CHRISTMAS ON MARS features original music by the Flaming Lips ("The greatest US band today" - The Guardian), with acting performances by all band members, and many others from their Oklahoma City-based team. Comedian Fred Armisen (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) and actor Adam Goldberg (DAZED AND CONFUSED) also appear, as do Isaac Brock of band Modest Mouse, and performer Steve Burns of the band Steve Burns and the Struggle (who had also appeared in children's television show BLUE'S CLUES!).

Rated NR; 112min; Director:Sam Dunn
Alamo Website:  FLIGHT 666 is a full length documentary film, about the first leg of the band's historic SOMEWHERE BACK IN TIME WORLD TOUR in February and March of 2008, considered to be the most ambitious and adventurous tour in rock history. The film is a revealing portrait of one of the world's most successful rock bands and an inspirational and often humorous account of the chaotic world of a band on tour around the stadiums of the world. Circumnavigating the globe in just 45 days, the band flew in a specially customized Boeing 757 airliner, piloted by lead singer Bruce Dickinson, with the entire tour crew and 12 tons of music and stage equipment on board, to 23 sold out stadium and arena shows in Asia, Australia and North, Central and South America. The band played in 13 countries, also landing in Azerbaijan and Papua New Guinea en route for fuel stops, traveling 50,000 miles (70,000 km) and performing to almost half a million fans - a schedule that was only made possible by having their own "magic carpet" which enabled them to go where they wanted with all the key elements of band, crew and equipment on board one plane, christened ED FORCE ONE.

Rated NR; 96min; Director:Les Blank (1973)
Alamo Website:  Music Monday celebrates the documentary genius of Les Blank with this pair of short docs covering the musical masterpieces of the American South!

HOT PEPPER is a thrilling portrait of Zydeco King Clifton Chenier, who combines the pulsating rhythms of Cajun dance music and black R&B with African overtones, belting out his irresistible music in the sweaty juke joints of South Louisiana.

DRY WOOD is a fascinating look at black Creole life in French Louisiana, held together by the wild, insistent music of Bois-Sec Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. As with all of Blank's films, the stories told are more palpably real and alive than anything else captured on camera. Do not miss

Rated G; 90min; Director:D.A. Pennebaker (1973)
Alamo Website:  The stunning chronicle of David Bowie’s final electrifying performance as Ziggy Stardust in 1973 at London’s Hammersmith Odeon Theater. This feature length film captures the aura surrounding one of the most unusual stars of the contemporary music scene. Framed by a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage, the bulk of this stunning document concerns the actual concert, notable as the final time that Bowie would perform under his alternate persona...an announcement that, at the time, led many fans to mistakenly believe Bowie was retiring altogether.

If you can't make this showing, check out the additional screening on Dec 9

Rated Unknown; 70min; Director:John Vizzusi (2008
Alamo Website:  The story of one of the most innovative musicians of the 20th Century. Don Ellis (1934-1978) fused together a mixture of jazz-classical-rock and his own version of world music long before anyone else had thought of doing it. He was the first to experiment with odd rhythms as well as introducing electronics into the world of jazz. His life, times and music is explored with interviews from musical giants such as bandleader Maynard Ferguson, Pulitzer winning composer Gunther Schuller as well as pianist Milcho Leviev. Rare footage of Ellis not seen in 30-40 years overwhelms the film as he attempts to take jazz to new heights and never look back. Strangely, his life story and musical genius has almost been completely forgotten. The unforgettable short life of one of the greatest musicians of all time is explored and a re-birth of the electrifying and magical sounds of Don Ellis is back for all to enjoy!