It was UNBELIEVABLE how many people threw their hat in for this screening. Now, I have to ask… is it because it’s a free movie? or is it because you know HANCOCK is going to kick major ass? Little from column A, little from column B? Well, the answer should be the major ass kicking, because HANCOCK IS GOING TO KICK MAJOR ASS. Much thanks to Harry Knowles and the AICN crew for making this screening possible.

Below is a list of the folks who are on the list for tonight’s show, but these folks MUST claim their ticket by no later than 11:30PM tonight! So, if you are one of the people who just barely missed the HANCOCK train, come on down to South Lamar for what could be a very pleasant surprise. Because once 11:30PM rolls around, all unclaimed tickets will go to the most patientiest, most hard-core HANCOCK and/or Will Smith and/or Jason Bateman fan in the lobby. Always – every single time we do these things – at least a quarter of the people don’t show.

Also, this list only includes the name of the person who sent in the email. It does not include the number of guests included with the rsvp, nor does it differentiate Fantastic Fest Badge-Holders from non. The list they will have at the ticket counter DOES include these things, so don’t think you can be sneaking in extra people!

OK, here goes:

Abdala, Gus
Aldape, Adrian
Allen, John
Anderson, Lyrea
Barry, John
Beasley, Steph
Bromley, Matthew
Budd, Eric
Burgevin, Nik
Cavazos, Chris
Cerda, Debie
Chamness, Rob
Charles, Adam
Chiullan, Moises
Couch, Andy
Craig, John
Culp, Austin
de Jong, Dick
de la Rosa, Emit
de Leon, JC
Defalco, William
DePasqual, Victor
English, Marc
Faulkner, Wesley
Fisher, Jason
Gandersman, Paul
Getchell, Wayne
Gonzales, Troy
Gonzalez, Ray
Greene, Matt
Guerrero, Nixon
Hadley, Bryan
Hagins, Emily
Hagins, Megan
Harrod, Anna
Henney, Chris
Herman, Katherine
Hogberg, Johnathon
Jeffress, Jamie
Johnson, Josh
Johnson, Sven
Jones, Gordon
Kennedy, Heather
Khan, Iftikar
Kyle, Laura
Lambert, Robert
Lane, Brent
Leins, Jeff
Leipzeiger, Brett
Lin, Jackson
Lindsay, Aaron
Little, Rob
Locklear, Nathan
Manning, Q
Manor, Steffan
Mark Wensel
McDaniel, Ryan
McNiell, Stephanie
Miller, Johnathan
Moore, Gregg
Morgan, Kristofer Aaron
Mosley, Ryan
Mullen, Luke
Nguyen, Khanh T.
Phillips, Dion
Potter, Brian
Prendergast, Vincent
Reese, Neil
Rosales, Paul
Rosas, Rita
Rosiles, Michael
Ryan, Ian
Salazar, Antonio
Salisbury, Brian
Schofield, Mike
Self, Brad
Shepard, Roger
Smith, Matt
Tidmore, Travis
Timmis, Heather
Torres, Kathryn
Tyner, Ty
Varenhorst, Andrew
Vianes, Allen
Wheeler, Colin
Williams, Brandon
Wilson, Greg
Woodcock, Gary
Worthington, John
Young, James

HANCOCK opens at South Lamar and Village on Tuesday, July 1st.

Thanks everyone for writing in!

That’s right. We have tickets on sale for the Thursday July 17 Midnight and opening weekend shows of THE DARK KNIGHT on sale at the Ritz, Village and South Lamar theaters.

Hollywood made one of its best decisions ever when it gave Christopher Nolan the keys to the Batmobile in 2005. Welsh-American-Psycho Christian Bale is just the ticket as the Dark Knight – who is again a lean, tormented, driven avenger and not some guy who looks like one of Madonna’s backup dancers.

BATMAN BEGINS was exactly what we needed. The savage and hallucinatory battle of Man v. Self and Bat v. Scarecrow changed the dynamic of the whole series and made us extra excited about Nolan’s flight plan for the new DARK KNIGHT. On top of it all there’s the late Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker as a grotesque grease-painted bastard with a serious grudge.

So yes, we’re excited. Really, REALLY excited. We will have menu specials, drinks and an equally kickass preshow that you can enjoy whether you’re a comic-book hoarding uberfan or just a casual moviegoer.

Plus, tickets for July 18th’s Ultimate Dark Knight Adventure will go on sale next Wednesday July 2 at 3pm. There will be a big bus trip out to Bracken Cave, an extravagant Bruce Wayne-style feast and more high flying adventures with your host Henri.

Sure, we love the movies that “professionals” make, what with their infinite budgets, indefinite production schedules and legions of interns and craft services people, but nothing beats the rare and frenetic fervor of the so-called amateurs.

This is why we love Filmmaking Frenzy. It offers up a chance for any Tom, Dick or Harriett with access to a video camera, an email address and the slightest shred of determination the opportunity to present their personal pygmy-opus to a supportive audience of like-minded folks. And usually big big prizes are waiting at the end, which helps to flame the fervor into a full-on fever. The kind of fever you can only feed with healthy doses of caffeine and blind optimism. Sometimes it falls flat, sure, but more often than not it’s genuinely impressive stuff and always entertaining. And it’s filled to the brim with ideas, performances and techniques you will not find floating in ANY studio jello-mold.

We are proud to announce the DFEST edition of BPM (Beats per minute), a 48 hour filmmaking competition. At 7:00 PM on July 11, teams will be given MP3s of two songs from artists performing at DFEST. This signals the beginning of the competition. Immediately, you and your team start scrambling: listening to the song, decoding the lyrics, making the shot list, borrowing and stealing guitars, wigs – whatever it takes to make the most entertaining video of them all. Teams have 48 hours to complete a music video and upload it to www.filmmakingfrenzy.com. The top 40 videos will be shown in the Red Bull Beats Per Minute tent inside Main Stage grounds at DFest throughout the weekend.

The winning video will be premiered at the Main Stage during DFEST weekend, plus four members of the winning team will be sent to Red Bull Soap Box on Oct. 25th in Denver (!) at Red Rocks!! The prize includes flight for four and hotel for four (Oct. 24 & 25). Team members will get full media access to Red Bull Soap Box AND rights to film the event!

By the way, I’m from Denver. It’s great. Red Rocks is spectacular. If you’ve never been then dust off your over-sized novelty directors’ megaphones and do a little research on gold prospecting and micro-brewing and get ready to have a good time.

I hope every single one of you who reads this will sign up to compete, and I hope 85% of you win. To the other 15%, maybe you should have spent more time caring about fun and filmmaking and less time at the craft services table.

Last Thursday I had the distinct privilege of co-hosting what was surely the finest 90 minutes of entertainment any human being can bear without exploding, the BRAD NEELY ANIMATION SHOWCASE. We have two more shows with the genius humorist, animator and musician. Today (Monday) and Thursday June 26. If you click here right now, you can still get tickets to either show. Both are within a couple of dozen tickets of selling out so do it now.

Even though he was never a UT student, Brad Neely snuck his Creased Comics panels into the Texas student paper for a year before they busted him. Now he has returned to the scene of the crime for a friendly interview about his animation work, comics and shows at the Alamo Ritz this week.

The Austinist interview goes even deeper, with Neely’s ruminations about our first president and more.

Finally, the Chronicle has a loose, extremely funny discussion with Neely in which he throws down the gauntlet to British children everywhere.

The preview reel for Alamo specialty shows this July is here and ready. You can wait until the next time you come into the theater, or you can see it here:

July’s Alamo Previews from Henri Mazza on Vimeo.

Last week, the Daily Texan sent their columnist Andrew O’Connor down to the Ritz to check out the MONSTER ROCK Sing-Along. Caitlin was our host for that week’s show, and she guided him through the world of teased hair and codpieces like an expert.

The best part about this article, though, and why you should really read it, is that it isn’t just about the show and full of sentences describing the antics on stage or the videos on screen. No, Andrew went way further than that and actually spends his column inches teaching the kids how to rock out with their cocks out (and teasing the indie rock kids, which is always a good laugh).

Some highlights from the article:
“A true cock rocker doesn’t know what a sleeve is other than a musk-blocking impediment. Ladies love that musk.“

“When we wanna ‘Slip It In’ a la Whitesnake or rave about how ‘the looser the waistband/ the deeper the quicksand,’ we’re trying to make you feel beautiful.“

Check out the full article here, and get tickets to next week’s MONSTER ROCK show here.

It’s probably bad business sense to promote events at other venues on a Friday night, but I happen to be a big fan of both Graham Reynolds’ music and Luke Savisky’s indescribable “Film Actions.” I just caught wind that the Harry Ransom Center is pairing both gentlemen for a free outdoor event, live music by Graham Reynolds serving as the accompaniment for Luke Saviskys film projections.

The attached photo is from Luke Savisky’s projections which were done as part of First Night a couple of years ago. The photo doesn’t do it justice, but he was projecting a collage of images against the 12 story wall of the Radisson Hotel set to the music of Stars of the Lid.

You can learn more about his body of work in this old article from the Austin Chronicle. As for Graham, check out his official site here.

The show starts at 9:00 PM at the Harry Ransom Center on campus. Admission is free and Luke will be projecting against the northeast corner of the building and the glass windows of the center. I’ll be there, and I hope to see you there. If not, please come watch a movie at the Alamo.

I know it’s getting redundant, and I’m sorry. But can I just say *one* more time how much I completely love summer in Austin? You can spend the entire day swimming and lounging by water (hopefully in the shade), then come out to the best movie theater in the world for an evening of incredible entertainment, then spend the latenight lounging in one of sooo many pubs and bars and homes of drink specials talking about everything you saw. And with this week’s line up, there will be plenty to talk about.

FEATURED SHOWS & EVENTS AT THE ALAMO RITZ THEATRE

- BRAD NEELY Live In Person -
: Alamo Ritz : June 19, 23 & 26 :

Back in 2001, Brad Neely became a local celebrity when the Daily Texan began running his self-published “Creased Comics” without realizing he was never actually a student. His irreverent, crudely drawn single-panel gems were always good for a quick mindgasm, but it wasn’t until he put his pen to internet-based animated cartoons that Neely would attract the whole nation to his charmingly disfigured approach. Everybody sing it with me, “Washington, Washington. Six Foot Twenty, Fucking Killing For Fun…”

- MASTER PANCAKE mocks GOLDFINGER -
: Alamo Ritz : Fri & Sat, June 20 & 21 :

The name’s Pancake. Master Pancake. This June, in honor of the Alamo’s newly acquired liquor license, Master Pancake Theater devalues GOLDFINGER (1964), the movie that made “Shaken, not Stirred” a household phrase and single-handedly popularized vodka martinis in the United States for years to come.

- the MONSTER ROCK Sing-Along -
: Alamo Ritz : Thursdays, June 19 & 26 :

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this show will DESTROY YOUR FACE. Consider it the sequel to our annual LOVE BITES Power Ballad Sing-Along; the MONSTER ROCK Sing-Along has several of those same rockers, but this time their amps are plugged in. Plus, we’ve added bands that never got pussy enough to sing a ballad and couldn’t help rocking out ALL THE TIME. Expect a lot of explosions, girls in bikinis, and men wearing three inches of make up under their rocking perms.

- THE BIG LEBOWSKI with White Russians -
: Alamo Ritz : June 24 & 25 :

The Coen Brothers have described THE BIG LEBOWSKI as their Raymond Chandler story, and it contains all the trappings of the author’s hardboiled mystery novels, including the alcohol. Secondly, as a bowling-themed comedy, liquor is a given. Finally and most importantly, THE BIG LEBOWSKI is the ultimate movie for White Russian fans. The Dude fuels his detective work with numerous helpings the sweet drink, which he often refers to as “Caucasians.” As long as there is ‘half and half’ dripping from his mustache, the Dude abides.”

- the LADIES OF THE 80s SING-ALONG -
: Alamo Ritz : Sun, June 22 :

Heh. It’s been awhile since we’ve done the LADIES OF THE 80s show, but when Cynthia Widner with Girls Rock Camp Austin asked us to do a special one night only show to help them raise some money and awareness for their excellent source of grooming the Ladies of the 2010’s music, we were only too happy to help out. The show is super fun, and the cause is super good. And if 99 red balloons happen to fly by, we promise not to start World War III.

- the WAYNE’S WORLD Quote-Along -
: Alamo Ritz : Sun, June 22 :

You will definitely end up feeling kind of funny, like when you used to climb the rope in gym class. Schwing! We’re not worthy! Word on the street is that we’ll even have some official Wayne’s World hats for lucky audience members at the show. Bonus points if you can accept one in Cantonese. Party on. Excellent!

FEATURED EVENTS AT THE ALAMO SOUTH LAMAR

- GET SMART -
: Alamo South Lamar : Opens Fri, June 20 :

This film has a pedigree unlike any other summer comedy this year! With Carell leading the pack, this film also features A-listers James Caan, Alan Arkin and Bill Murray! Plus, it was directed by Peter Segal, who also directed TOMMY BOY! And, if that weren’t enough, it’s got Prada-wearing princess Anne Hathaway as Maxwell’s competent counterpart Agent 99, and “The Rock” himself, Dwayne Johnson, as Agent 23, who recently showed us his well-toned comedy chops with his impressive performance in SOUTHLAND TALES.

- WALL-E -
: Alamo South Lamar : Opens Midnight on Thurs, June 26 :

In the world of CG animation, Pixar has only itself to out-do, and WALL-E looks like they’ve once again outdone themselves. 700 years in the future, the curious trash-compacting robot Wall-E cleans up the abandoned planet Earth before taking off on an interstellar adventure to discover the meaning of life. Tim League saw this last weekend, and in his blog entry on the Alamo website, his main gist was, “This may very well be my favorite Pixar film of all time.” And from Mr. League, that’s totally saying a lot.

FEATURED EVENTS AT THE ALAMO VILLAGE:

- PARENTS AFTERNOON OUT -
: Alamo Village : Saturday : 2:30 :

If finding a babysitter makes it difficult for you to come to the movies, The Alamo Drafthouse Village has a deal for you! Every third Saturday of the month, you can see one of our regularly featured afternoon movies without calling around town looking for someone to watch your children, thanks to our friends at Body Business.

Last weekend I had the thrill of heading up to the Ft. Worth Stockyards for the first ever Red Bull X-Fighters to be held on American soil. If you aren’t familiar with it, X-Fighters is a single elimination battle between the best freestyle motorcross jumpers in the world. They turned the stockyards into the most insane freestyle jump course in history and had the riders launch from the bullriding chutes. Watch the trailer for a taste of the action or you can check out photos from the event on our Flickr page. When I was growing up I thought that Evel Knievel was the most insane freak on the planet for what he did. These guys are only about 21 years old and make Evel (may he rest in peace) look like a shrinking violet. No joke, you must see this stuff to believe it, and see it you will on our giant movie screen this Sunday.

We’re hosting an official Red Bull watch party of the TV broadcast premiere of X-Fighters at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. The broadcast starts at Sunday, June 22 at 2:30 PM, admission is free.

The show is amazing, and I hope you guys can make it out. The Red Bull hospitality team will be on hand with goodies for the attendees.

If you are a fan of the Alamo Drafthosue Facebook page, please RSVP on our show page there so we can estimate how many folks are coming. You may want to join that group anyhow, that’s where you will find out about the latest Alamo Drafthouse news, events and free screening offers!