December 2008
Diary of a Butt-Numb-a-Thon Survivor, Part One
Once again, I survived the 24-hour-long movie marathon known as Butt-Numb-a-Thon, earlier this month. I wrote a lovely news-like article about BNAT for The Circuit, Variety's film-festival blog. If you want to find out which films were shown, that's the place to look. But there are some details that The Circuit readers probably would rather not know, or don't care about.
This year I decided to take notes on BNAT in diary form. Here are the scribbles from my notebook, with some enhancements. I'm also including photos -- you can't take photos at BNAT, so I used photos taken earlier that morning, or used stills from the movies shown.
11:00 am: Arrive at Alamo on South Lamar. The Alamo folks have set up a registration/pick up/standby area in one of the vacant stores on the other end of the strip mall. I get my badge and giant swag bags, then run back to the car to store everything. Back at the car, I grab a blanket roll and an extra sweater.
Slackerwood Podcast #6: Happy (Belated) Birthday, Alamo Ritz
In Slackerwood podcast #6, Chris and Jette meet at Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz with Alamo founder Tim League (pictured above), to commemorate and discuss the one-year anniversary of the Leagues' newest Alamo location. We discuss some local film news, such as the SXSW opening-night film announcement and the Austin Film Critics Association awards. Tim tells us about changes at Alamo in the past year, plans for the future, and the fate of the fried pork chop plate. We finish off with some info about holiday-related screenings at Alamo and elsewhere, including the totally holiday-unrelated but recommended Let the Right One In.
Tonight: Austin Underground Film Fest
If you're looking for something to do tonight that does not involve shopping, elves, eggnog, and that sort of thing, you might want to head over to Salvage Vanguard Theatre for the Austin Underground Film Festival (AUFF). You can get tickets at the door, and the event includes not only live music but about 30 short films from local and international filmmakers, including animator Don Hertzfeldt.
That Austin Girl recently interviewed AUFF founder Andy Gately about the fest and how it's changed in its three years. Gately's response on why you should go tonight: "Instead of popcorn we'll have falafels. We'll also be giving away free bongs, porn, massages, gift certificates, and Live Oak beer. And all of it's locally-made. Except the porn." Convinced yet?
Austin Film Critics Awards, from 'The Dark Knight' to 'Crawford'
The Austin Film Critics Association announced their 2008 awards today. The Dark Knight cleaned up with five awards, including Best Picture. Check out a list of all the awards after the jump.
The last award on the list is most relevant to this site: Best Austin Film went to David Modigliani's documentary Crawford, about the Texas town where President George W. Bush bought a ranch. Crawford premiered here in Austin this year at SXSW, and I interviewed Modigliani beforehand. I also reviewed the film for Cinematical. It's currently available to watch for free on Hulu, and also is on Netflix Watch Instantly.
Speaking of Austin and film festivals, I would venture to guess that if it weren't for Fantastic Fest, a lot of us might not have been exposed to films such as Timecrimes (winner of Best First Film) and Let the Right One In (winner of Best Foreign Language Film).
This is my first year as a member of Austin Film Critics Association, and the process was very exciting. I'm pleased that we picked such an interesting variety of movies, filmmakers and actors.
Slackerwood Podcast #5: Short and Sweet
In Slackerwood podcast #4, Jette and Chris catch up with current and upcoming Austin film events and screenings -- including some holiday movies -- and also reveal where they've been for the past month.