START TREKKIN’: LIVE IMPROVISED STAR TREK
Tues, Feb 9 at the Alamo Ritz
Advance tickets available here

J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” was one of the top grossing films of 2009. Now, see THE highest-grossing-improvised-parody-of-the-tv-show-that-inspired-that-movie of 2009!

“Start Trekkin”, produced by the Hideout Theatre, played to a near sold-out house last fall at the Alamo South Lamar, so now they’re bringing their completely improvised parody of the classic tv show to the Alamo Ritz.

Based on audience suggestions, the show’s comedic cast will boldly create a never-before-seen space epic set in the original Star Trek universe, preceded by a series of interactive improv games and scenes – including live improvised dubbing of classic Star Trek tv clips and 60s era commercials!

Win a chance for tickets to upcoming Hideout Theatre shows by coming in costume, or trying out your best Kirk impersonation.

You’ll be stunned by… authentic music and sound effects! fake rocks and cheap-looking sets! thinly veiled social allegory!

The final frontier will never be the same.

Noooooo, not that Twilight, silly! This one.

What you see to the left is a hop garden in Washington State’s Yakima Valley. By the end of the growing season the plants will have climbed all the way to the top of those strings and will be loaded with hop cones ready for adding flavour, aroma and bitterness to our favourite adult beverage. And this time we have not one keg but two! Happy Happy Joy Joy.

Whether or not you’ve heard of it before, if you’re a beer lover the Yakima Valley is a place close to your heart. It accounts for more than three quarters of US hop production, including (but not limited to) Willamette, Cascade, Columbus and Nugget.

Yakima Twilight from the Victory Brewing Company of Pennsylvania is a difficult one to pin down, style-wise. I’ve heard it described as an American strong ale, a dark IPA and a dark double IPA.  Aside from the differences in alcohol content, those three styles can, broadly-speaking, describe the same beer. Plenty of hops (both flavouring and bittering), plenty of malt character, plenty for the discerning beer drinker to enjoy.

The brewers at Victory have used five types of imported malt ranging from medium to dark roast, and four varieties of whole-flower hops from the Yakima Valley to brew this beer.  Look for piney, citrusy hop aromas along with malty caramel flavours and hints of dark fruit. Perhaps a little chocolate too? If you’re a fan of Arrogant Bastard this one will probably be to your liking.

For the next Badass Beer we’ll be leaving the shores of the American continent in terms of style, but staying here as far as production is concerned.

Jim Hughes, Head Beer Nerd, Alamo South Lamar
“If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink… I’d spend it on drink.” ~ Sir Henry Rawlinson

PS. I hear from the Victory beer blog that the last of this year’s Yakima Twilight has shipped.

PPS. In case you think the subject line seems familiar, it’s The Platters.

The Action Pack presents
COOL AS ICE in HeckleVision
your texted heckles appear on screen under the movie!
Sun, Feb 7, 9:30pm at the Alamo Ritz
Advance tickets available here

I was only fourteen years old when this “hip hop” remake of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE featuring Vanilla Ice in the James Dean role hit theaters, but even though as a card carrying white suburbanite I was of course a proud owner of To The Extreme and knew all of the words to “Ice Ice Baby,” I was still disappointed by how horrible COOL AS ICE was. But that was then.

Looking back on it with fresh eyes now, though? I can see this film for the crowning cinematic achievement it always was. I could never adequately describe the experience of watching this magical gem with a crowd in a darkened theater, but do yourself a favor and head over to YouTube to check out the romantic montage.

SO.

GOOD.

Because of course you can’t start to fall in love with someone from a different cultural upbringing without running around inside a suburban home construction site! Duh!

Vanilla’s hair alone is worth the price of admission to this one, but of course this is a HeckleVision show, so we’ll be projecting your texted heckles up onto the screen, too. You might want to write a couple of zingers ahead of time, because it’s going to be tough to be funnier than the dialog in the movie: “Yeah, whackhead tried to play baseball with my homeboy’s bike!” (Henri Mazza)

Ever since we caught THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD at SXSW last year, we’ve been keeping an eye on it to give it the full, big screen theatrical treatment it deserves.  Well, we can give our eyes a rest now because it opens this Friday at the Ritz!

Not only is this film a comedy riot, but it also has the power to incite riots- like turning over cars, shopkeepers on roofs with sniper rifles, flaming effigies riots!  Somehow, the humble culture-jamming duo known collectively as The Yes Men managed to raise their little self-funded pet project into the international limelight, establishing themselves as the definitive fearless avengers against corporate greed and excess.  And how these two aren’t in jail is CRAZY!  They defrauded Dow Chemical of 2 billion in stock in ONE DAY!

Alright, spoiler alert: The Yes Men don’t actually fix the world.  But what they accomplish is a huge step in the right direction.  Their courageous, seemingly illegal, potentially deadly and always hysterical methods of exposing “the truth” will leave everybody ready to join the revolution.  Maybe we already knew things needed to change, but the Yes Men show us why.

This is the funniest civic duty of the year, don’t miss it.  Get you tickets here.

The Action Pack presents the
MOULIN ROUGE SING-ALONG
Wednesdays Feb 3, 10 & 17 at the Alamo Village
Thursdays Feb 4, 11 & 18 at the Alamo Ritz
Advance tix for Village shows here, and tickets for Ritz shows here!

MOULIN ROUGE has been one of the Action Pack’s longest running Sing-Alongs, and for good reason. No matter how many times we experience the story of Christian and his sparkling diamond, we never fail to get chills when they harmonize together in “Come What May” or to get a little lump in our throat when we sing-along to Christian’s “Whyyyy dooesss my HEART CRY??”

We’ve added full runs of most of our shows to the Village’s regular programming schedule now, and MOULIN ROUGE is no different. Join us Wednesdays at that theater or come down for our regular residency on Thursdays at the Alamo Ritz for confetti, can can dancing, green fairies, hat tossing and more.

The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. And that’s really a lesson best learned in a theater full of fans. (Henri Mazza)

Every year at about this time, the Academy of Arts and Sciences announces their nominations for the Oscars. This is a troubling time for film fans, as they see that their favorite movies may not get the big nod, or the best performances do not get put forward for lack of Academic backbone.

For this year, of course, the Academy accidentally looked over Nicolas Cage’s performance in BAD LIEUTENANT. No big deal. It was only one of the greatest performance in the past 100 years. I’m sure that the announcers this morning simply forget to read off his name. Right?

Anyway, we’ll make the best with what we have. And the nominees this year are pretty good. A lot of the nominated films are still playing in our theatres. Of the nominees, we’ve still got:

9 for Avatar
6 for Up in the Air
3 for Crazy Heart
2 for Sherlock Holmes
2 for The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
1 for A Single Man
1 for Lovely Bones

Not too bad. Be sure to see them while they’re still hot and buzzing. We’ve also got some special plans in the works for the Best Picture Nominees. Stay tuned for news about that.

Also, be sure to come to our Red Carpet Bashes at the Ritz or Village theatres, and the Red Carpet Feast at Lamar.

And the rest of the nominees are:

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

* Penelope Cruz, “Nine”
* Vera Farmiga, “Up in the Air”
* Maggie Gyllenhall, “Crazy Heart”
* Anna Kendrick, “Up in the Air”
* Mo’Nique, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

* Matt Damon, “Invictus”
* Woody Harrleson, “The Messenger”
* Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”
* Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”
* Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”

BEST ACTRESS

* Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”
* Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
* Carey Mulligan, “An Education”
* Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
* Meryl Streep, “Julie and Julia”

BEST ACTOR

* Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
* George Clooney, “Up in the Air”
* Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
* Morgan Freeman, “Invictus”
* Jeremey Renner, “The Hurt Locker”

BEST DIRECTOR

* James Cameron, “Avatar”
* Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”
* Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
* Lee Daniels, “Precious”
* Jason Reitman, “Up in the Air”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

* Mark Boal, “The Hurt Locker”
* Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”
* Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
* Joel and Ethan Coen, “A Serious Man”
* Pete Docter, Bob Petersom and Tom McCarthy, “Up”

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

* Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, “District 9″
* Nick Hornby, “An Education”
* Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, “In the Loop”
* Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious”
* Jason Retiman and Sheldon Turner, “Up in the Air”

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

* “Coraline”
* “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”
* “The Princess and the Frog”
* “The Secret of Kells”
* “Up”

BEST PICTURE

* “Avatar”
* “The Blind Side”
* “District 9″
* “An Education”
* “The Hurt Locker”
* “Inglourious Basterds”
* “Precious”
* “A Serious Man”
* “Up”
* “Up in the Air”

ART DIRECTION

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics), Art Direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro, Set Decoration: Caroline Smith
* “Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Art Direction: John Myhre, Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
* “Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood, Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
* “The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Art Direction: Patrice Vermette, Set Decoration: Maggie Gray

CINEMATOGRPAHY

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Mauro Fiore
* “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.), Bruno Delbonnel
* “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Barry Ackroyd
* “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Robert Richardson
* “The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics), Christian Berger

COSTUME DESIGN

* “Bright Star” (Apparition), Janet Patterson
* “Coco before Chanel” (Sony Pictures Classics), Catherine Leterrier
* “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics), Monique Prudhomme
* “Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Colleen Atwood
* “The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Sandy Powell

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

* “Burma VJ” (Oscilloscope Laboratories), A Magic Hour Films Production, Anders østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller
* “The Cove” (Roadside Attractions), An Oceanic Preservation Society Production, Nominees to be determined
* “Food, Inc.” (Magnolia Pictures), A Robert Kenner Films Production, Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein
* “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers”, A Kovno Communications Production, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith
* “Which Way Home”, A Mr. Mudd Production, Rebecca Cammisa

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

* “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan, Province”, A Downtown Community Television Center Production, Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill
* “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”, A Just Media Production, Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher
* “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant”, A Community Media Production, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
* “Music by Prudence”, An iThemba Production, Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett
* “Rabbit à la Berlin” (Deckert Distribution), An MS Films Production, Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

BEST FILM EDITING

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron
* “District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing), Julian Clarke
* “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
* “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Sally Menke
* “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate), Joe Klotz

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

* “Ajami” (Kino International), An Inosan Production, Israel
* “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haddock Films Production, Argentina
* “The Milk of Sorrow”, A Wanda Visión/Oberon Cinematogrà /Vela Production, Peru
* “Un Prophète” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Why Not/Page 114/Chic Films Production, France
* “The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics), An X Filme Creative Pool/Wega Film/Les Films du Losange/Lucky Red Production, Germany

BEST MAKEUP

* “Il Divo” (MPI Media Group through Music Box), Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano
* “Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow
* “The Young Victoria” (Apparition), Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), James Horner
* “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox), Alexandre Desplat
* “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders
* “Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.), Hans Zimmer
* “Up” (Walt Disney), Michael Giacchino

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

* “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney), Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney), Music and Lyric by Randy Newman
* “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36″ (Sony Pictures Classics), Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyric by Frank Thomas
* “Take It All” from “Nine” (The Weinstein Company), Music and Lyric by Maury Yeston
* “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)” from “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

* “French Roast” , A Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films Production, Fabrice O. Joubert
* “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Brown Bag Films), A Brown Bag Films Production, Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell
* “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)”, A Kandor Graphics and Green Moon Production, Javier Recio Gracia
* “Logorama” (Autour de Minuit), An Autour de Minuit Production, Nicolas Schmerkin
* “A Matter of Loaf and Death” (Aardman Animations), An Aardman Animations Production, Nick Park

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT

* “The Door” (Network Ireland Television), An Octagon Films Production, Juanita Wilson and James Flynn
* “Instead of Abracadabra”, (The Swedish Film Institute), A Directörn & Fabrikörn Production, Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström
* “Kavi”, A Gregg Helvey Production, Gregg Helvey
* “Miracle Fish”, (Premium Films), A Druid Films Production, Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey
* “The New Tenants”, A Park Pictures and M & M Production, Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

BEST SOUND EDITING

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle
* “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Paul N.J. Ottosson
* “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Wylie Stateman
* “Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin
* “Up” (Walt Disney), Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

BEST SOUND MIXING

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson
* “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment), Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett
* “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company), Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano
* “Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin
* “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro, Distributed by Paramount), Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

* “Avatar” (20th Century Fox), Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones
* “District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing) , Dan Kaufman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros and Matt Aitken
* “Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment), Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh and Burt Dalton

‘Double’ and ‘Imperial’, for instance. They both mean the same thing – take a particular style of beer and feed it steroids. That’s what Rogue have done with their ‘XS’ (Xtra Special) series of beers, and I’m very pleased to have laid my hands on a keg of XS I2PA Imperial IPA.

A little education first.

During the heyday of the British Empire it was lamented (by those serving Queen and Country in places with exotic names such as Chittagong, Bangalore and Calcutta) that most beers didn’t do too well on the journey from Great Britain to India. They couldn’t stand up to several months at sea in the tropical heat. What arrived in India was hardly drinkable so brewers devised a way around this. They took an ordinary pale ale and upped both the hop and alcohol content to create a more robust beer. It was named India Pale Ale, or IPA, and became a beer style all of its own. Incidentally, this is why most beers called ‘Export’ are stronger than the stuff you get at home – they had to be able to deal with the journey overseas, and although shipping beer around the world these days is a lot more forgiving, usually taking place in in large container ships and often under refrigeration, the description has stuck.

Having built this up as a beer with spherical objects, I2PA is remarkably easy for the style. Rogue has fine tuned the balance between malt and hops to give it a smooth flavour and a bitterness that doesn’t hit you straight away. If you’re a hop-bomb aficionado you might even think it a little ho-hum until a few seconds after it slides down your throat… then you get that incredible finish that comes from the Saaz, Cascade and Northwest Golding hops.  Don’t let it lull you into false sense of security though – the 9.2%ABV will smack you right between the eyes if you’re not careful.

Until next time (which probably won’t be too long in this instance)…

Jim Hughes, Head Beer Nerd, Alamo South Lamar
“If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink… I’d spend it on drink.” ~ Sir Henry Rawlinson

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is your one chance to see the most fearless duo in cinema history face off in a battle of the ages. That’s right, yes sir, it’s the gruesome twosome, the horrifying pair that stalk the night in search of everything wicked: lusting for blood, for power, for revenge, but most of all, for blood!

Oh yes, for one night only the two most terrifying, electrifying, murder-minded monsters are going to appear together on stage and screen for a night of blood-curdling, bone-shaking, pant-soiling screams!

Are you tough enough to face these ghouls in the dark, danger-defying Ritz theatre? Oh you think so, hero? Just wait until you’re face to face with the Monster, a creature mixed up and sewn together from the parts of dead bodies from the cemetery and brought to life through the power of lightning! Wait until you can smell the raw meat dangling from the teeth of the largest, most lawless, lowdown, lustful, lousy, lecherous, lurching lycanthrope!

You’ll be howling and running through the aisles when you see Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolfman. You don’t want to be near him when the moon is full and the clock strikes midnight. Something changes in him…something real bad…

You’ll also want to flee from Bela Lugosi as The Monster. He looks harmless, well, from a distance. But up close you see the scars, the ghastly body that God himself did not create. A crime against nature, this grisly beast has the brain of a criminal madman!

Will you be strong enough to make it through this most horrid, frightful event? Will you have to look away in terror?

Tuesday 2/2 at the Ritz, 7:00pm.
Get your tickets now…if you dare!

Thanks to all the Fantastic Fest 2010 badge holders who wrote in for a reserved seat to see the free advance screening of Fantastic Fest fav DISTRICT 13: ULTIMATUM this coming Monday @ the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar!

We actually still have a few seats left for you guys, so if you’re a Fantastic Fest badge holder and haven’t written in yet and still want to see the show, email brad@originalalamo.com with “PARKOUR FOR THE COURSE” in the subject line.  We’ll contact you directly if we can fit you in!

Everyone else, there’s still some “Admit 2″ passes floating around town!  Most of the theater will be filled by those, first come, first seated, so find one and come on down on Monday.  In addition, if you didn’t get one, but REALLY can’t wait to see this eye-bursting action explosion, we always have a stand-by line and are always able to get some very excited die-hards in the door!

Here’s the list, if you’re on it you must claim your ticket no later than 7pm on Monday, February 1 @ The Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar to guarantee your seats.  The show starts at 7:30p.

Glass, Geoffrey +1

DeLeón-Serratos, Jesús +1

Archip, Dana +1

Bailey, Robin +1

Bate, William +1

Dailey, Matthew +1

De Leon, JC +1

Gargano, Michelle +1

Gleason, Jeff +1

Harkins Eakins, Lecia +1

Hidalgo, James +1

Jeffress, Jamie +1

Johnson, Sven +1

Lambert, Robert +1

Locklear, Nathan +1

Mackey, Kristopher +1

Mackey, Tisha +1

McInroy, Chris +1

Miller, Jonathan +1

Mills, Austin  +1

Osmon, John  +1

Ramirez, Nick +1

Rath, Robert +1

Reese, Dshanya +1

Romero, Celia C +1

Strait, Eddie +1

Taylor, Kent +1

Tindle, Jeffrey +1

Wages, John +1

Williams, Kevin +1

For more info about Fantastic Fest, please visit www.fantasticfest.com