- OMG, did you know that you can almost abbreviate Tango & Cash as Trash! I mean, it’d technically be “tash,” but that’s close enough. I mention this because The Alamo Drafthouse is serving up some great trash at their Summer Junk Food Marathon on Saturday Aug. 12. You get Tango & Cash (or Tash, as the hip kiddos are callin’ it), Speed and Die Hard With a Vengeance, which is the second best Die Hard, when it’s not racist. If you go, you get a T-shirt, a special junk food menu and can hear from the folks at the Junkfood Cinema podcast out of Austin. If I didn’t have your interest with “special junk food menu” then what good is even having this column?
- All of that is great but still can’t touch the nards of a wolfman, as on Friday Aug. 18, some of the cast from The Monster Squad will be at The Alamo Drafthouse to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the first movie I ever rented on VHS. I mean, they’re probably not celebrating the day I rented it from the glorious store “Beer, Cheese, Wine, Video” in Madison, Wisconsin in 1987 but are commemorating the movie’s release in theaters in August of that year. There are shows at 7 pm and 8 pm, with meet & greets and Q&As for both shows. That’s good & fun and neat & awesome. That movie is a national treasure too, unlike National Treasure 2, which is a disgrace.
- On Thursday, Aug. 3 at 7 pm, Film Streams is presenting a one-time screening of Floyd Norman: An Animated Life that will be followed by a Q&A with Floyd Norman…who I’m guessing had an animated life… The first African-American animator at Disney, Norman worked on Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and The Jungle Book. If he doesn’t call on me during the Q&A, please ask him if Gurgi from The Black Cauldron is real and if I can have him and why they kept using that bear from Robin Hood in all the Disney movies in the 60s and 70s. Personally, I don’t like exerting myself in the month of August because of flop sweat and general apathy. But Film Streams has two more screenings of note: On Tuesday, Aug. 15 at 7 pm, they are holding a special screening of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette with Joslyn Art Museum. This will coincide with Joslyn’s exhibition “Bijoux Parisiens: French Jewelry from the Petit Palais, Paris.” The screening will be followed by a short presentation about the real Marie Antoinette. Thankfully, no one in contemporary America can relate to a ruler who would tweet something as ignorant as “Let them eat cake.” On Tuesday, Aug. 22, Film Streams is partnering with Outlook Nebraska and Radio Talking Book Service for a one-time screening of Notes on Blindness, with a panel discussion to follow. The film takes a creative approach to the documentary, which follows the life of writer and theologian John Hull, who became totally blind. Thankfully, no one in contemporary America can relate to feeling like they are surrounded by darkness.
- Also, who would have thought that Film Streams would be the one to finally announce the start of the revolution? That is to say, their new repertory series Gender Revolt!: A Celebration of Queer Cinema runs Aug. 26 – Sept. 27 in collaboration with UNO’s Women’s and Gender Studies Program, with support by Sam Walker. Among the amazing films included in the collection are two of my absolute, all-time favorites: Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Pariah. In fact, on Sept. 19, from 6-9 pm at Muglife Coffee (2452 Harney St), the Nebraska Writer’s Collective is sponsoring a Gender Revolt! Poetry Slam and Open Mic Night in advance of the Pariah screening. Hit up filmstreams.org for show times. That’s an order, dammit. The films in this series are a window and a gateway. They are breathless and brilliant and demand to be watched. By me. Specifically demanded by me.
Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly podcast, catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 on Fridays at around 7:40 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 on Wednesdays and follow him on Twitter.