The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, June 15-21
Last Night at the Alamo (1983)
Directed by Eagle Pennell
Colorful characters spout colorful curse words in Eagle Pennell’s ashy black-and-white second feature. “Rat-tailed piece of shit” rolls right off the tongue. Set in and around a Houston bar, the Alamo, Last Night is a series of arrivals and confrontations. A skeletal thing nicknamed Ichabod drags around his bickering girlfriend. Two young women, strangers in a strange land, mingle with the regulars. A married man gripes about his marital issues to everyone within earshot. A dandy decked in a cowboy hat, dress shirt, jeans, and boots, strides into the bar, coming off as a bit too snooty. These are the characters that make the Alamo a hive of activity. You can see why Richard Linklater caught the filmmaking bug after watching Pennell’s work. He creates memorable, wacky characters with oversized personalities. The film’s working-class stiffs and barflies down beer after beer, making a last hurrah of the Alamo. The next day, developers will demolish it, erecting fancy high-rise apartments in its place. Yankee capital wins again. Tanner Tafelski (June 21, 8pm as part of BAMcinemaFest; intro and Q&A with Austin Chronicle and SXSW cofounder Louis Black, executive producer of this new restoration)
