Burt Lancaster. Lee Marvin. Robert Ryan. Woody Strode. Jack Palance. Ralph Bellamy. Claudia Cardinale. An incredible line-up was utilized to the fullest degree possible (117 degrees in the desert heat) in Richard Brooks’s The Professionals. It’s a stellar men-on-a-mission story where a group with 100 proof women, 90 proof whiskey and 14 carat gold on its mind gets rounded up to save a young wife from the marauder that’s taken her across the border into Mexico.

I braved the wilds of Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse in order to get pummeled Inglorious Basterds and 5 other fantastic, fireball-laden, violently satisfying films that left my blood-lust quenched and me questioning whether or not I’d lost my sanity before or after the marathon began.