Film Series

The Paramount brings us a double-feature of two films from late in Alfred Hitchcock's career: Psycho, from 1960, and Frenzy, from 1972. If you have never seen the famous shower scene on the big screen, now's your chance.

Admission is free if you bought tickets to the stage production of The 39 Steps as part of the Paramount's 2010-11 season.

Casablanca (1942) (102 min/b&w) Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid. Directed by Michael Curtiz. We keep showin’ it, because you keep comin’ to see it! And why not? This perfect film is one of the movies’ most enduring romances, set against the backdrop of World War II. Bogart stars as a nightclub owner with a past, played by Ingrid Bergman, who’s married to a leader of the French underground resistance (Henreid).

• Regular Admission - $9
• Online Advance Admission - $7
• Purchase Flix-Tix (10 Admissions for $50)

Become a Film Fan & receive $4 off regular admission, free popcorn & reserved seating. Regular Admission tickets available day-of-show at the Paramount Theatre Box Office (713 Congress). Online tickets not available day of show.

MonkeyWrench Books is hosting a special screening of the 2007 documentary The Unforeseen, about Central Texas's water supply and the effects of development on Barton Springs. Filmmaker Laura Dunn will be available for a Q&A after the film. Admission is free.

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

The 1977 Japanese horror classic Hausu will play daily at Alamo Ritz for a week as part of the theater's Big Screen Classics series. As Alamo programmer Zack Carlson says, "This is your chance to prove that you've got what it takes to stand up to the most vibrant and compelling theatrical oddity Japan has ever unleashed."

This week's Weird Wednesday selection is shockingly non-exploitative: Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, adapted from Raymond Chandler by Leigh Brackett. A steal for a mere dollar. Still, we'll go to Lars for the play-by-play:

"Anyone who bought a ticket for THE LONG GOODBYE expecting a leisurely rehash of private-eye movie cliches was certainly disappointed and, I expect, outraged. This is not so much an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel (itself a challenge to the commercially expected norm); it's also a gloss and critique on the whole myth of the sardonic but not quite cynical investigator who makes reluctant swoops from his perch on the margin of society into the corrupt milieux of the criminal classes high and low. The great director Robert Altman is assisted by screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who had written the definitive Raymond Chandler adaptation 27 years earlier: THE BIG SLEEP. This would be among her last screen credits and it's a classic.

"In choosing his leading man, Altman made a characteristically perverse selection: Elliott Gould, who as a Jewish New Yorker could not help but seem an outsider in the classically constrained world of Chandler's LA. The period was also shifted to the contemporary '70s, though some anachronisms remain, not least Marlowe himself. Together, Altman, Brackett and Gould deconstruct, distend, disentangle and reentangle all the archetypal constructs of America's favorite detective. Like the very best adaptations, it dispenses with many of the events of the book but manages to retain the spirit. It's a savagely funny movie with support from Sterling Hayden, Henry Gibson, scandal figure Nina Van Pallandt and baseball player Jim Bouton. Years later THE BIG LEBOSWKI mined much of the same territory, and the two films are of a piece. Hugely, gigantically, unreservedly recommended."