Goddamn Brownies

Tonight was another installment of Dallas Cinemania's fine programming - One Eyed Jacks. This is a western starring Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, and the only film directed by Brando. I am not a big fan of westerns but I really want to support Eric, the guy behind the screenings, and I want to keep this happening every month. Luckily I did enjoy the film even if it is a bit long with a 141 minute running time.

Rio (Brando) and Longworth (Malden) are bank robbers who are surrounded by Rurales in Mexico and they only have one horse. Longworth goes to get another horse, but ends up leaving him to be captured and jailed so he can keep the two bags of gold. Five years later, Rio escapes and is on the hunt to find his old partner for some revenge only to find out he is now a sheriff in Monterrey, California.

For a film made in 1961 the print was not as bad as I expected after we were warned of some bad spots. There are plenty of slower parts that I think could have been cut, but at least the studio shortened the flick. Allegedly Brando's cut was about five hours long!

Dallas Cinemania has been bringing some great films to the area and has some good ones coming up - Shogun Assassin in May and Umberto Lenzi's sleaze film Paranoia in June. One of the things he has been trying to do to get butts in the seats is having a DJ performing before the film starts. In my opinion these are a waste of time and effort. The first one he had was before The Holy Mountain and they actually remixed music from the film. Last month and this month it has just been someone playing records. Yeah, that's cool I guess but too much effort when they could just make a playlist. For one, I was the only one in the theater while he was doing his thing until about the last five to ten minutes. People would start to walk in, look at the empty theater, look at the DJ, then walk back out. Second, this guy had full decks, a mixer, two huge speakers and a couple crates of records and he played for 30 minutes tops. If I were a DJ I don't think that would be worth my time. That is a lot of set-up and tear down for not very much exposure.

While on the subject of cool film things in the area, I just found out about another group who have had a couple of screenings and somehow I missed out on everything. They are called Horror Remix. Their goal is to take three films and edit out all of the boring story stuff and leave you with two hours of blood, boobs, gore and all the money shots of your favorite old horror flicks! Sweet, right? In the past they have done killer dolls films with clips from Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984), Ghosthouse (1988), Trilogy of Terror (1975) and PIN (1988); there was also a Christmas themed show with Iced (1988), Christmas Evil (1980) and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1988) with the awesome "Garbage Day" scene. The best thing about these screenings - THEY ARE FREE! So, make your way out to the Studio Movie Grill in Addison next Wednesday, April 29th, at 10pm for some good times with Death Rock Part 1. Check out their ad and trailer below and I hope to see you there.




Horror Remix Presents… DEATH ROCK from Edward John on Vimeo.