I just wanted to share my Alamo Drafthouse and QT Last Grindhouse experience with you Harry and if you wish to use it on the site feel free. It maybe a tad long but it’s a real perspective into a first time visitor to Austin and all it offers. I read your write up on the QT Last Night Event and saw where you posted this in the Talkback :
Nearly every single time I go to a Drafthouse event, there's someone that's traveled to Austin that's only ever read about it. They've got this goofy, HOLY SHIT THIS PLACE ROCKS, smile and sometimes... just sometimes... they end up moving here.
Well that person was I this week Harry. On Monday the 7th I was in Roanoke VA reading about the Drafthouse from afar as I do from time to time. How I came to know of the Drafthouse was from all the reporting on your site which I have been reading for as long as I can remember. I read about the QT Grindhouse at the Alamo Event and just said Fuck it! If I can get a ticket, I’m coming. I was able to get tickets for the Sex Comedies Night and the Redneck Night. I would have gotten tickets for Sunday too but work back home wouldn’t allow it.
After I got my tickets, I used my handy, dandy credit card and booked a flight and Hotel the Hyatt Regency (over by that crazy ass Bat Bridge) and the next day Tues. the 8th I was on a plane heading to Austin TX for the first time. The first thing I did after getting into the hotel was walk across the crazy ass bat bridge and head up a few blocks to the Drafthouse(thank you google maps). When I saw it from the outside, I was in awe. What wonders laid inside? I saw the cool Jaws poster in the upper corner of the building and my geekness was in full swing. It wasn’t open yet so I walked up to the Texas Chili Parlor to get my Grindhouse thrill fix.
As I walked in, I noticed the place right away having watched Grindhouse one night twice back to back it felt like I had walked right into the movie. I proceeded over to the bar and set at right about in the area where Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike set. I then ordered a plate of nacho chips and began shoveling them in my mouth in a messy fashion as Stunt Man Mike had done in the movie. I glanced over to the corner table a few times at some fine young ladies as I slopped down the nacho goodness. You have to put this in prospective because the day before I was sitting in my apartment thinking about seeing Spider-Man 3 for the fourth time and I didn’t even like it very much and now I'm here in Austin at the Texas Chili Parlor pretending to be Stunt Man Mike for some shits and giggles. Oh and damn good nacho chips by the way.
I bummed around the city meeting some very friendly people for a few hours when I finally made it back to the Alamo Drafthouse. I don’t think it was actually open but the door was so I walked in and went up the steps and saw a beer vendor standing there. The first conversation I had at the Drafthouse was with a Beer Vendor how cool is that. I peered around a bit and went downstairs and came across a couple of people in the T-shirt shop and asked them if this was the place for the QT event which they confirmed. The rest of Tuesday I spent checking out the Capitol and the Imax Theater oh and learning about the Crazy Ass Bat Bridge.750,000,000 freakin Bats under the Congress bridge and 1.5 million at its peek. Anyway I went on the Bat Cruise cause I’m a sucker for bats....fuck me. I swear I didn’t write that as a pun.
Okay Wed the 9th I did the whole 6th street party area thing and listened to some live bands. But then something great happened. It began to pour down rain. I was on foot and running for cover and somehow without evening trying I ended up taking cover under the Alamo Canopy. It was as if the Alamo was calling out to me. That’s when I saw a midnight movie was coming on within the next hour called COPKILLERS. Let me just say when I walked into the theater. It wasn’t very big and it’s not the most impressive layout. But what I could sense were the love and passion for film the place held. It seemed as if it was assembled out of love. A man took the stage and began talking about the movie and giving us background info on the film we were about to see. Never had I experienced that in a movie theater. Usually it’s some theater manager saying turn off your cell phones and points out the Exist doors. But this guy was telling us how it was made by the guy behind Flesh Gordon during the making of Flesh Gordon on the side. How cool is that to have a walking talking IMDB in the form of a cool movie geek setting up the movie?
When Copkillers finally came on, I bit into my Royale with cheese and for the first time I truly began to understand what I have been reading on this site for years. The feeling you get while being in a room full of people just like you watching movies and geeking out having a blast is electrifying. Feeling free to laugh and clap and not be the only one in the theater doing it was liberating. For the first time I did not have to hold back my Film Watching Chubby. At this point I got that goofy, HOLY SHIT THIS PLACE ROCKS smile you were referring to in that talkback. I could not stop smiling and this was not me in a theater watching a QT event...this was just me soaking wet on a Weird Wednesday watching a movie called Copkillers in a strange town in a room full of strangers who all seemed like good friends having the Fucking Time of My Life!!! I would actually think about coming to Austin to live just to go to Weird Wed movies.
I won’t spend too much time on going into the QT Sex Comedies because it’s already been touched on. But It was strange seeing a director you grew up idolizing in front of you. That faded pretty fast though when slowly I stopped seeing Quentin the writer director and actor and I saw Quentin the film geek, Quentin the guy like you, the guy like me, the guy like the people I watched Copkillers with the night before, the guy like all of the readers on the site. A lot of people seem to be bagging on him lately (that’s talkback for ya) But I got the genuine feeling of love this guy has for movies. The same passion people read this site has when they get excited about movies and scoops. It is that ultimate love for all things movies that unite us even if we disagree on the quality. Listening to Quentin talk I could easily tell I was just seeing the tip of the iceberg on how far he could really geek out.
As far as the movies themselves I got the goofy grin again and it was just as it was with Copkillers. A room full of people having the time of their lives watching movies many of us would never have the chance to see or ever come across. I was there alone but quickly made friends with those who set around me. SEX ON THE RUN came on and I will never look at Tony Curtis the same again. Lucky bastard seemed to be having as much fun as we were watching it. The much talked about Nun lesbian scene that Quentin named his second favorite were as hot as he built it up to be and just as funny. Now I have to seek out AMUCK and BLOOD SPLATTERED BRIDE. To me the big part of the Alamo Drafthouse is about spreading the word. I heard and saw trailers to more films Id never heard of and would love to see. I just wish I could have remembered all of the titles.
The Second Feature SEX WITH A SMILE was equally entertaining as SEX ON THE RUN.
The Best segment was easily the Bodyguard with Marty Feldman. The only movie I remember him from was Young Frankenstein and Yellowbeard. The best way to describe Marty in this movie is picture Peter Sellers playing a doctor delivering a baby by a chick that had gotten tag teamed raped by Chaplin and Buster Keaton. He was that damn funny and it really made the whole night worthwhile with that segment alone. .My favorite segment though came with the last movie.
The last feature THE OLDEST PROFESSION had a caveman segment that reminded me of the movie Caveman with Ringo Starr and very hot, hot, hot, Racquel Welch segment. But it was the last segment in the movie the one directed by GODARD called ANTICIPATION that really blew me away. It wasn’t actually all that funny but just cool as fuck. It was a look at prostitution in the future. One scene had a man removing some girls clothing with a wrench. It had a very strong Brave New World feel. It touched on themes of what we really desire and need. Is it physical or mental loving we need? It explores this in a unique way. I highly recommend seeking it out.
Last Night At the Alamo GrindHouse Night Two....REDNECKS!
You would think after spending Wed Night and 7 hours on Thur. at the Alamo Grindhouse the high would start to wear off?..... Think again! This place is like crack my friends. I think they must have put the YAYO in my Royale with cheese that first night. Night two I made more new friends and exchanged emails. Quentin was behind me laughing at one point getting ready to take the stage for the first time that evening. He was no longer the dude that made Pulp Fiction he was the dude that was getting ready to tell me about HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY
Listening to him talk about the first time he saw HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY and the history of the movie and movies like this was informative as well as entertaining. He told us about how many local movies were made and then only some select prints would be made. These prints would travel from town to town of a year or two playing to small crowds. Each town would get heavy advertisements the week the movie would play. This got me thinking. Could you image if Spider-Man 3 had only 6 prints and had to travel from town to town and you never heard of it till it was advertised the week it showed?!
FILM One: HOT SUMMER IN BAREFOOT COUNTY
An undercover cop is sent into Barefoot County to bust some local moon shiners who happen to be hot white trash chicks. Throw in two classically great bumbling cops, the Sheriff with a huge black beard that reads comics and his deputy that could give Barny Fife a run for his money. Actually the deputy is a cross of Barny and Enos from The Dukes of Hazard. Oh and lets not forget the bully Culley Joe. His name I’ll never forget because before the movie came on Quentin told a great story about how the character Culley was such a shit head he and his friends would call each other that to diss on each other. But when he told us to watch out for the character he told us his name was Huey. The whole movie everyone was watching for this Huey guy Quentin mentioned but of course was assuming it was Culley Joe since he was such a shit head. After the movie was off he took the stage and made a funny joke about how he fucked up and it was Culley not Huey. Barefoot has one of the greatest crashes I’ve seen. A car gets ran off the road for some redneck afternoon sport. The car seems to slowly lose control and it lightly crashes into a pole and the driver does the worst looking head hitting the stirring wheel stunt which causes him to be knocked out. It was so fake looking that the audience erupted into cheers and claps. The next shot he had blood on his head and believe me it would have been more realistic if they had used a ketchup pack. This caused another eruption of laughter. This movie has every thing you would expect from a redneck movie. There was so much to love about the movie, the Shot Gun wedding, Nympho Barn Sluts, and skinny dipping babes.
FILM Number Two REDNECK MILLER
REDNECK MILLER is a bad ass mother fucker. He has a cool truck, a cool motorcycle, he’s a DJ, he has a beer in his hand at all times, and he bangs all the babes. This movie has Movie Drinking game written all over it. The plot is one of mistaken identity when someone uses Millers Motorcycle to steal from a local gangster. The gangsters go after Miller and the game is on. At one point Miller gets his bike stolen and he demands to have it returned. The camera shot lingers as he pauses and says slowly Un-MO-LES-TED. If you ever see the movie, you will understand what a classic moment it really is with a sweet pay off in the end. As cool as that is, REDNECK MILLER has entered into one of my favorite lines of dialogue ever. It takes place after an attempted rape.
Rachel: You were going to let them rape me!
Redneck Miller: Baby, you can take a lot of lovin', but I can only get killed once.
The gangster after Miller gets as much, a focus as Miller himself and his scenes was some of the funniest in the movie. A neat thing to notice is Miller seems to always have a beer in hand and the gangster always seems to be smoking or lighting a cigar. Lastly the one thing Redneck Miller taught me is if a girl has a flat tire change it. If she offers to give you money forgetta bout it...barter for that Tang!
Film Number Three
IN HOT PURSUIT also as Quentin told us it is known as Polk County Pot Plane
Pothead Rednecks hauling dope on planes and tractor trailers while getting chased over and over. Pretty simple plot and it’s a pretty bad movie. But thankfully its one of those so bad its fun. The acting is awful but the stunts and chases are exciting. Especially if you put it in the perspective of low budget do it yourself film making. At one point a tractor trailer drives through a house being hauled down the road. Sure maybe not that big a deal for a Michael Bay movie but for these guys it was amazing to see them pull it off. A car chase was particularly cool when our two pothead heros hit a mans car and knock his door off and the guy joins in pursuit for a bit. In between the numerous chases we pause for some pot smoking and some long scenes of guys loading drugs into trailers. The movie never over stays its welcome its stays bad throughout yet it never fails to entertain. The final scene came to a close and everyone erupted into clapping.
It was truly an experience I will not forget. The city of Austin was a great place to visit and seems like a great place to live. I know now as I sit in VA once again I am having Alamo Drafthouse withdraw. If anyone ever has a chance to go and experience the Alamo (downtown or the soon to open Ritz) you will see why people rave so much over it. It truly is a unique atmosphere. It’s a place to go and celebrate movies with people who love to celebrate movies. It is not an elite crowd like some have accused it of being. Everyone there was very nice. I found the entire city to be a very nice place full of diversity. I can’t wait to fly back soon and do it again.
If you use this you can call me Donnie Drunko....if you don’t you can still call me Donnie Drunko!
