Estrada has a direct line to the big guy/girl, in The Divine Enforcer.

The early '90s brought us so many important milestones: fly girls droppin' mad booty shake beats, the tragic ending to the VHS vs. Beta battle, and a washed-up Erik Estrada, post CHiPs. If only we could remember where we buried all of those time capsules...

Oh, hell. What if I told you that you don't need to dig around your Junior High's track and field regions for a shot at reliving that era? Tonight's installment of Tuesday Night Trash at Texas Theatre celebrates it better than Tribe, black stockings with Doc Martins and Hypercolor, combined. This week's pick is the best priest-turned-vigilante flick of 1992: The Divine Enforcer. Staring a puffy Estrada as monsignor of an LA parish, TDE has got enough trashy early '90s juice to leave you gleefully chugging Zima seasoned with Jolly Ranchers. You'll see fly girls, overly choreographed fighting sequences and lots of second string bad guys with pony tails. This movie never made it to the theater, it also wasn't soiled by conversion to dvd, so you'll watch it the way god and Erik Estrada intended: the VHS tape.

It's the best of the worst, and it's all yours for the low low price of absolutely free. Because Avengers fever is still in full effect on Texas Theatre's big screen, tonight's Tuesday Night Trash will take place upstairs in the lounge. Don't worry, you can bring your bar cocktails with you, but due to its decade-plus discontinuation, you won't be able to bring Crystal Clear Pepsi. It all starts at 9ish.

Any excuse to enjoy an evening outdoors is welcome, but a free movie -- be it in a pool or lounging lazily on a patch of grass -- will always top the list. Tomorrow night launches AT&T Center's outdoor film series, and it's kicking off with a screening of The Truman Show. For those who RSVP, there are chairs. For those of you who just want to stretch out and picnic, there's your favorite blanket. In past years you had to fork over cash for bevies, which turns "awesome cool outdoor free movie night" into a few more dollars spent while chillin' in the Arts District. But wouldn't you know it, those folks love you so they changed the rules. Now you can bring your own booze! (Soft-sided coolers only, so don't be a jerk and ruin it for everyone by scraping that keg across the lawn.) You can also ransack your snack cave for takealongs, so pack up your tastiest basket and best cheap date and head over to Strauss Square (2403 Flora Street) for a night of moonbathing on the lawn. (Hand-holding is strongly encouraged.) The film starts at 8:30 p.m., but you should get there early to stake out a good cuddle spot.

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Warning: This editorial is rated NC-17 due to awesomeness and some brief mention of the word _____ (Editor's Note: Apologies, but this word has been removed to withhold the sanctity of this sinking blog. You may replace it with "poop," "farty fart pants" or "trouser eel.")

This week, the infamous Motion Picture Association of America slapped Killer Joe (from William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, The French Connection, and To Live and Die in L.A.) with the supposed cinematic scarlet letter - the dreaded NC-17 rating. Described as "a totally twisted deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story," the film tells the bloody tale of a killer (Matthew McConaughey) who befriends a young man (Emile Hirsch) who wants to murder his own mother.

To give you some context, it received the rating for "graphic disturbing content involving violence and sexuality, and a scene of brutality." Sounds like the feel-good movie of the year (not to mention my kind of movie!). However, LD Distribution decided to throw up a big middle finger at the MPAA by moving forward with the film's release on July 27th, displaying the rating as a badge of honor - a growing trend in Hollywood that goes against the traditional idea that studios must bow to the tyranny of the oppressive association (check out Kirby Dick's 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which coincidentally received an NC-17 rating, for more on this.)

But is NC-17 really the box office poison it's made out to be...or is does it work in the film's favor as a marketing tool for prurient curiosity? Here's five examples of the latter:

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CentralTrak keeps doing its damndest to educate you chillun, and tonight is the fifth of six Thursday night Texas film screenings in "the Cage" at 800 Exposition Ave. They're offering popcorn, cult celluloid and some serious nerdery -- in addition to a Q&A with John Slate, who portrayed a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist in Slacker, only to eventually move to Dallas ... to work as the city's archivist, handling the Kennedy files in real life. That's weirdly interesting enough on its own -- check out the two films that make this a date in indie heaven.

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Nobody took opera more seriously than Wagner, and no dork culture is more dedicated than hard-core Wagner fans. This is due largely to his famous Ring Cycle, a series of four operas seen as the most ambitious work any set of performers can execute. In the nerdiest of music circles, this series is shown back-to-back as a cult marathon phenomenon, one which only the most dedicated Wagner fan can stomach. The Met is screening the series in a more palatable installment fashion, where each opera, beginning tonight with Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), screens separately at select theaters throughout the country. Since nobody explains the Ring Cycle better than Anna Russell, we'll let her break it down for you.

Here's the schedule for when and where to watch the production:

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via Entertainment Weekly

Batman, perhaps stuck viewing his own film on his tiny iPad

There are four IMAX theaters in Dallas, if you include the Frisco AMC Stonebriar 24: the AMC Northpark 15, Cinemark 17, and the Museum of Nature and Science.

Quick background: IMAX film, which debuted in 1970, is 70 mm wide (about the size of a post card), and each frame has 15 perforations. With a true IMAX projector, the film is run through horizontally -- so audiences see the width of film in the height of the frame.

Of the four IMAX theaters, only one in Dallas, the Museum of Nature and Sciences, projects in the native 70 mm format. The other IMAX theaters in Dallas are using digital projectors, in a format often lovingly referred to as lieMAX. So, what's the difference between the 70mm and digital?

IMAX Digital typically uses two, side-by-side 2K Christie projectors. As Peter Sciretta, of Slash Film reported, the two digital projections are layered over each other, giving the film a super size. Here's our problem:

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Don't miss out on the new film by Asylum!

Being a huge Horror hound, not to mention Texas Frightmare Weekend veteran, my general advice would be to see and do everything! But obviously you only have limited time and one body (which hopefully stays unsevered throughout the three days) so allow me to help curate your TXFMW experience for you by picking out a few key things you won't want to skip out on.

The screenings!
A big part of what makes TXFMW special is you are privy to some of the latest films from some up and coming names in the genre along with a few retrospective screenings. This year gives us not only one but two epic battle royales: Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies, from The Asylum - that infamous production company that is famous for two things: pitting megathings against thingasauruses for SyFy and ripping off big Hollywood movies with considerably lower budget, direct to Redbox versions to confuse unassuming victims. While we won't get our chance to see the 16th President free the world from the slavery of vampires until later this summer, we can watch him go all beardy on some zombies this weekend. But that's not the showdown...we've seen Zombie Strippers (starring Freddy himself, Robert Englund) but we haven't seen Strippers VS Werewolves (also starring, you guessed it, Robert Englund). Hey, I can't make this stuff up!

Other flicks you'll want to check out are the retro-stylistic Father's Day from iconic grindhouse purveyors Troma Entertainment, 1986's Nail Gun Massacre (which Joe Bob Briggs called, "The best movie ever made in Seagoville, TX!"), the '80s influenced Nailbiter, the secret screening on Friday, not to mention the Shorts programming (make sure to check out Other, which looks particularly face melting). I probably shouldn't have to remind you but I will: these are not for the faint of heart or the faint of any body part for that matter.

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See it in 35mm at Texas Theatre

The 81-year-old Texas Theatre in Oak Cliff may be known historically as the movie house that Howard Hughes built or the scene where police found Lee Harvey Oswald holed up on that fateful day in November, but for the past two years it's been known as the place to go to see films that won't run anywhere else in Dallas. From indies to festival favorites to 35MM print screenings, the Texas Theatre - run by a group of Texas-based filmmakers known as Aviation Cinemas Inc. - has made a name for itself by shaking things up in the DFW film community and being anything but mainstream. So leave it to them to make good on their rebel reputation by carrying the biggest, most mainstream movie exploding on the screen this summer: The Avengers. Didn't see that coming, did you?

And it's a brilliant move if I must say so myself. Sure, you could flock to your neighborhood mall megaplex like everyone else this weekend. Or you could take the rare opportunity to see what is arguably the biggest movie of all time in arguably one of the most beautiful movie houses still standing in the US - really the only of its kind operating in the metroplex. It's a chance to return to form, when going to the movies was about not only the experience of what you saw but where you saw it. Not to mention support the worthy cause of the Texas Theatre and what it represents in our hometown film community. (Could someone get me a tissue? Because my heart is bleeding here.)

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Don't miss the panel for They Live; Roddy's gonna be there.

If you're a gore geek like me or even just the general lover of the Horror genre, you're going to want to clear your schedule because the Southwest's premier Horror event, Texas Frightmare Weekend, is about to jumpstart its chainsaw and rip through the DFW Hyatt Regency.

Every year, the three day event promises you the opportunity to not only see some of the latest, greatest fright flicks but also the chance to meet your horrific heroes with such legends as John Carpenter, George Romero, and Tobe Hooper having been in attendance. This year pallbears a Carrie retrospective (featuring Piper Laurie, Nancy Allen, P.J. Soles and Betty Buckley), a Q&A with the cast of The Walking Dead (hosted by yours truly), and much, much more!

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It happens every Tuesday night at Texas Theatre: The cinematic garbage disposal gets all jammed up. Some brave soul then must plunge his fist in to find the source of the rattle -- please don't flip the switch during this delicate time. The slimy disturbance could be anything -- a blouse-ripping Italian cop flick from the '70s, or a screwball '80s sex comedy -- the common thread being that these films will not go silently into that still night. They demand another screening or they will haunt your ass.

Tonight's edition of Tuesday Night Trash is Golden Queen's Commando, a lady-centric, kung-fu whacking, 1982 Choose Your Own Adventure of plotlines by exploitation master director Yen-ping Chu. By the film's end, its cast of gritty, grifting women have morphed from WWII prison inmates to horse-riding spaghetti western cowgirls, to low-budget Bond women. This film truly has it all. What's that? Rents due and you're left with twice-scavenged couch coins? Tuesday Night Trash is completely free, starts at 9 p.m., and has drink specials. Get it. Texas Theatre is located at 231 W. Jefferson Boulevard. Visit thetexastheatre.com.