Dallas moviegoers have a lot of options. From first-run theaters to independent art houses and repertory cinemas, from dine-ins to drive-ins, we’ve got it all covered. Every month, it’s possible to see classic films and those off-the-beaten-path flicks as they were meant to be seen: On the big screen. Just to prove the preceding two sentences, we’ve rounded up some of the best screenings and movie events around town this April.
Drag yourself away from the siren song of your home “media streaming devices” — that just sounds antiseptic and awful — and get to a theater this month. Great movies deserve better than a laptop monitor and a buffering Netflix connection.
The Dallas International Film Festival (April 14-24) and the USA Film Festival (April 20-24) are both–somewhat awkwardly–at the Angelika Film Center this month. We’ll have more on each festival later, but for now, you can peruse DIFF’s full schedule here, and you will be able to find USA’s full schedule somewhere over here once it is announced. (A couple highlights of the DIFF lineup: the Sundance hit Other People and Werner Herzog’s new documentary about the internet and the information revolution, Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World.)
This month, we’ve also got a series of Texas Frightmare Weekend horror movie screenings–one featuring a Q&A with George A. Romero, the granddaddy of all zombie movie directors–and, for the Texas Theatre’s 85th anniversary, a faithful replication of the theater’s 1930 opening program.
Miscellaneous
- The Majestic Theatre celebrates its 95th(!) birthday with an April 9 screening of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We love that the Majestic is showing movies again (The Graduate is on deck for May, Big Trouble in Little China in June), and all praises due to the good people at the Majestic and Aviation Cinemas (the Texas Theatre) for making it happen.
- Finalists in the 24 Hour Video Race will see their films screened at the Angelika on April 11.
- The Magnolia Theatre continues to reel out the classics every Tuesday night. This month, we’re partial to Marilyn Monroe and The Seven Year Itch on April 26.
- The Inwood’s midnight movie series boasts screenings of the legendary anime Akira on April 8 and 9, and Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles on April 15 and 16.
The Texas Theatre
- It’s Alejandro Jodorowsky weekend at the Texas Theatre, with 35 mm screenings of two of the director’s surreal masterpieces. El Topo, the violent and wonderfully weird Western whose psychedelic mysticism has inspired everybody from John Lennon to Dallas’ own Erykah Badu, is up on April 8. Its spiritual companion, The Holy Mountain, is showing April 9. You can also choose to utterly detach from reality for four-plus hours and buckle in for the double feature on Sunday, April 10.
- CineWilde, the LGBTQ monthly film series, presents the Julie Andrews-starring musical Victor Victoria on April 15.
- The Texas Theatre celebrates its 85th(!) anniversary by replicating its opening night entertainment: “16mm movietone news reel, a 16mm Mickey Mouse cartoon, announcements, and the feature Parlor, Bedroom & Bath on 35mm, featuring Buster Keaton.” Tickets are available at the 1930 price of 35 cents.
- The Masque of the Red Death, the 1964 adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story starring Vincent Price as the bloodthirsty Prince Prospero, screens April 23. Dallas Neo-Classical Ballet will perform its own adaptation of the Poe story–one of his best, with plague, Satan, and a spooky costumed ball–before the movie. You can see the ballet by itself at the Majestic on April 7.
- The Texas Theatre and Alamo Drafthouse (see below) are splitting up some special programming to coincide with Texas Frightmare Weekend, the big horror convention in town the weekend of the 29th. An April 28 screening of The Warriors with a Q&A featuring cast members James Remar and Michael Beck is followed by the Quentin Tarantino-written, Robert Rodriguez-directed From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, the pulpy vampire action-horror flick.
- Go here for the rest of this month’s shows at the Texas Theatre.
The Alamo Drafthouse (Dallas and Richardson)
- Alamo’s downtown outpost has a couple of killer Texas Frightmare Weekend screenings on April 28. George A. Romero, the zombie movie director, will be on hand for a Q&A and a screening of Day of the Dead. In a room nearby, Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich will take questions along with a screening of Scream.
- Other than The Godfather: Part II, what sequel has best matched the quality of the classic film it succeeds? The answer is Aliens, the James Cameron Marines-in-space follow-up to Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi horror movie. Catch the Alien-Aliens double feature on April 26.
- Go here for the rest of this month’s shows at the Alamo Drafthouse’s Richardson and Dallas locations.
