Presented on 35mm! 50th Anniversary Screening!
Neon Dreams goes grindhouse as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sam Peckinpah's booze-soaked neo-western fever dream, Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. Presented on a rare and appropriately grimy 35mm print.
Warren Oates stars as "Bennie", an American drunk living in Mexico, beaten down by life and wallowing away in the mistakes of his past. When he catches wind that local crime lord "El Jeffe" has offered a $1 million bounty for the head of Alfredo Garcia—a gigolo Bennie knows is already dead and buried—he seizes the opportunity to cash in and make something of his life. What follows is a deranged road trip through the sweltering heat of Mexico's criminal underworld, with a decapitated head in a burlap sack riding shotgun.
Curiously semi-autobiographical—Peckinpah based Bennie on himself; a man who had collapsed into self-destruction and alcoholism toward the end of his career, and would commonly say "I can't direct when I'm sober". The unhinged lunacy surrounding Peckinpah's mental state shines through in every frame and, despite being torn apart by repulsed critics in 1974, Peckinpah considers it to be the only one of his films released exactly as he intended. Reappriased by cult audiences and championed by filmmakers such as David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, and Takeshi Kitano, it has gained a reputation as one of the most brutal, nihilistic, and strangely satisfying thrillers ever committed to celluloid. Simply put—Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia must be seen to be believed. There is nothing else like it.
This screening and others are made possible thanks to our wonderful sponsor Hollywood Suite.