Friday night at the Alamo. Feels good to be a gangsta after work with cash in the pocket amid a film orgy weekend. Bethany is here with me again, prepared to brave the cinematic trio of sex and bullets. Tomorrow will be the final evening of QT III, an All Night Horror Marathon. I feel a little sad already. My friend from Ion Storm, Clay, shows up with his friend. We sit and watch the kitsch parade of TV ads and trailers. I order the pizza; I've waited long enough.

Quentin come out to cheers and applause; it's definitely Friday. He starts to go into his take on this trio of gangster films when a very drunk couple near the front row start yelling for him to "stop talking and show the movie." It's pretty clear they have no idea who Tarantino is, and wandered seemingly blitzed from a sixth street bar or two. Then the crowd gets a taste of Tarantino in action as he steps to the edge of the stage and says, "I think the audience would like you to shut the fuck up, alright?" The crowd applauds. The couple yell drunk shit out to him. Quentin, with a devil smile on his face, looks ready to leap onto them. He launches into a verbal bitch-slap on them instead to all our delights. A fascinating moment to see him handle and humble two obnoxious assholes. Like a good director should.

After that bit of excitement, the crowd is keyed for The Bonnie Parker Story, directed by William Witney. This little gem from 1958 is an AIP black and white odd re-telling of the Bonnie and Clyde legend that turns the 1930 robbers into 50's JD at the jukebox types. Dorothy Provine is the tough pretty face with a loaded machine gun she's not afraid to use. I enjoyed this one quite a bit and Provine's performance is something else. Here's a rare clip. The night's off to good start.

Next up is one I've always wanted to see, 1978's THE LADY IN RED (aka GUNS SIN AND BATHTUB GIN) directed by ALLIGATOR's Lewis Teague, written by John Sayles, another one of his terrific scripts for Roger Corman. Seriously, If this script had been picked up by a studio, they coulda put Jane Fonda in this. The story has a feminist perspective on John Dillinger's infamous woman who joined him in a life of big crime. She eventually who led the Feds to his final resting place, outside a Chicago movie theater.

Pamela Sue Martin turns in a gutsy performance and Robert Conrad is Dillinger, who is portrayed as surprisingly decent to his moll. Sayles weaves in some union and sexual politics and some nifty twists and turns. Even AIP vet Dick Miller shows up along with Robert Forster, as a gunman who turns out to be one of the Lady's benefactors. This was a crowd pleaser and one of the best films of the festival.

Around midnight, Tarantino came out to intro Walter Hill's LAST MAN STANDING. He was very enthused about the film and thought it was an overlooked classic. He passed on a personal message from Walter Hill thanking us and hoping we enjoy the film. The 1994 film is a remake of YOJIMBO, set in the dusty 30's, with Bruce Willis as the mysterious stranger who comes to a small crooked town to clean up. While there are a few exciting gun battles, I found LMS a little overwrought, too stoic and I didn't like Willis's on-the-nose narration: after we see a gangster mowed down by circle of machine-gun firing men, Willis says, "It was a massacre." Well, it didn't look like a speakeasy. But Hill knows how to stage and edit tight action scenes.

After the screening, I talk with Quentin and tell him that I thought the narration in LMS was like Ford's in BLADE RUNNER, explaining what you were seeing. Quentin swept his hand like an axe and said, "If you think the narration in this is like the narration in BLADE RUNNER, I think you are one-hundred percent, totally wrong." And he proceded to tell me why. Afterwards, Bethany told me she was jazzed watching me go toe to toe with Tarantino.

Another fun night at the Alamo. And only one left...