FILM

The Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks presents presents Big Screen Classics:  FULL METAL JACKET.

Like a rich Bordeaux from a good vintage, some films age well, delicately maturing and growing more sophisticated with each passing year. There is a wealth of cinematic gems out there, gathering dust in the annals of time. Enter Big Screen Classics - a place where we celebrate all of the accomplishments in movies over the past 100+ years.

Here you'll see the crème de la crème of old movie magic. Maybe it's a screwball comedy like The Thin Man. Perhaps there's a new print of the silent Battleship Potemkin that we're just dying to share with you. Or sometimes it's a lost masterpiece like Bill Murray's Nothing Last Forever. No matter if it's a celebrated sci-fi epic or a forgotten masterpiece from an obscure genius, they all show the same thing: movies used to be so good! This series honors the films of the past with rare 35mm screenings of the cinema's most priceless treasures. You'll always be amazed at the riches of cinema history at Big Screen Classics.

This series also encompasses our Digital Classics Series. The newest advancement in digital movie technology involves the painstaking restoration and preservation of classic films using computer technology. The films are then printed onto 4K or 2K digital drives, providing the clearest and brightest image possible using our state-of-the-art digital projectors. Whenever an archive or a studio announces a new digital restoration, we rush to bring it to the Alamo.

FULL METAL JACKET
Director Stanley Kubrick
Year 1987
Starring Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio
Rating R
Run Time 126min

Stanly Kubrick takes on Vietnam with results that are intriguingly humorous and ingenuously brutal. This isn’t your average war movie. This movie is insane, insane in only a captivating way that Kubrick could pull off. There can be no doubt in your mind having seen this film that as cliché as it can sound: “war is hell;” an absurd, tedious, bloody, wet-your-pants hell.

The performances here deserve to be revisited on the big screen. From Law and Order Criminal Intent’s Vincent D'Onofrio to real-life drill instructor R. Lee Ermey, the acting is perfectly matched with the directing – both are mesmerizing.

Experience this subversive and powerful American triumph July at the Alamo! (John Gross)