Film Series

May 13: Cananea (1976) – Directed by Marcela Fernández Violante 

Part of the Mexican Revolution Films of 70s co-presented by the Harry Ransom center, running May 6-27 in the Charles Nelson Prothro Theater. All films are in Spanish with English Subtitles. Admission is Free.

Four rare features by influential directors critically exploring the Mexican Revolution and other national realities. Films include  El prinicipio (The Beginning) directed by Gonzalo Martínez Ortega (5/6), Cananea directed by Marcela Fernández Violante (5/13), La casta divina (The Divine Caste) directed by Julián Pastor (5/20), Cuartelazo (Mutiny) directed by Alberto Isaac (5/27).

May 20: La casta divina (The Divine Caste, 1976) – Directed by Julián Pastor 

Part of the Mexican Revolution Films of 70s co-presented by the Harry Ransom center, running May 6-27 in the Charles Nelson Prothro Theater. All films are in Spanish with English Subtitles. Admission is Free.

Four rare features by influential directors critically exploring the Mexican Revolution and other national realities. Films include  El prinicipio (The Beginning) directed by Gonzalo Martínez Ortega (5/6), Cananea directed by Marcela Fernández Violante (5/13), La casta divina (The Divine Caste) directed by Julián Pastor (5/20), Cuartelazo (Mutiny) directed by Alberto Isaac (5/27).

May 27: Cuartelazo (Mutiny, 1976) – Directed by Alberto Isaac 

Part of the Mexican Revolution Films of 70s co-presented by the Harry Ransom center, running May 6-27 in the Charles Nelson Prothro Theater. All films are in Spanish with English Subtitles. Admission is Free.

Four rare features by influential directors critically exploring the Mexican Revolution and other national realities. Films include  El prinicipio (The Beginning) directed by Gonzalo Martínez Ortega (5/6), Cananea directed by Marcela Fernández Violante (5/13), La casta divina (The Divine Caste) directed by Julián Pastor (5/20), Cuartelazo (Mutiny) directed by Alberto Isaac (5/27).

This week's free screening from Austin Cinematheque is a 35mm print of the 1955 Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy Artists and Models. The cast also includes Shirley Maclaine and Anita Ekberg.

Screen Door Film and the UT Doc Center's Texas Cinema Series continues this month with the 2009 documentary Sunshine, from local filmmaker Karen Skloss. The film is a personal look at family relationships -- Skloss, who was adopted, meets her biological mother and at the same time examines her relationship with her own daughter.

The documentary will be preceded by the short film Conversation from Marianela Vega.

After the film, you're invited to discuss it with the following panel:

Karen Skloss – Director, Sunshine
Megan Gilbride – Producer, Sunshine
Anne Kay – Marywood Children and Family Services
Sarah Wheat – Planned Parenthood Texas Capitol Region
Moderated by Janet Staiger – William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication, University of Texas

Admission is free. If you miss this screening, you can catch Sunshine again on Tuesday, May 4 at 9 pm on KLRU-TV.

See the 1985 film Commando, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong, complete with  live pyrotechnics in the theater and other surprises.

See the 1985 film Commando, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong, complete with  live pyrotechnics in the theater and other surprises.

This month's free kung-fu movie at Alamo Village is the 1978 film The Tattoo Connection (E yu tou hei sha xing), starring Jim Kelly. Here's the Alamo blurb:

"Jim Kelly (BLACK BELT JONES) stars as a CIA agent who goes to Hong Kong to retrieve a stolen diamond in this fast-moving, crude, badly dubbed action trash movie. It doesn't make much sense (if you're into movies that make sense), but it has all the tactile pleasures of those movies we now identify with the grindhouse era. There's a lot of fighting; a great, thumping soundtrack of pilfered American funk and Euro jams; tons of gratuitous nudity; cheap suits; genuinely dangerous car action and tattoos - lots of tattoos. Kelly acts about as cool as is possible under the ridiculous circumstances. When this movie was first released in the US, the cheeba-smoking hustlers in the all-night Times Square theaters must have had a ball with it. We're not too sophisticated to enjoy it too. How about you?"

This week's Terror Tuesday selection is the 1986 film Neon Maniacs. Admission is $1, or $2 if you buy online in advance. Let's see what TT programmer Zack Carlson has to say:

"A hive of disfigured mutants emerge from beneath the Golden Gate bridge to kill at will. This forgotten film is an incredibly senseless and bizarre excuse for teen slaughter, and that's just fine. No origin or explanation is given for the creatures, each of which is a misshapen variation on a basic theme: there's a hirsute neanderthal, a gruesome surgeon, a lumbering samurai and even a leather daddy biker beast who chain-drags a mohawked teen behind his cycle when the monsters invade a high school dance. The titular maniacs seem to share a common mind and have highlighter-green blood. Shuffling among their ranks is a dwarven cycloptic dinosaur that kills with a metal hook. Aimless, inspired bullshit that was released in the Philippines as 'EVIL DEAD WARRIORS' for absolutely no goddamn reason. PLUS!: Look at the director's last name. How embarrassing."

Oh, boy! Austin Cinematheque is showing a 35mm print of one of my favorite films, the 1941 comedy Ball of Fire, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. Directed by Howard Hawks from a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, this film is about a group of eight dusty professors trying to finish an encyclopedia when their life is disrupted by a showgirl on the lam. Practically every character actor from the early 1940s is in the film, too.

Admission is free! Don't miss this movie, it is simply delightful.