Over the past few years, writer/director Judd Apatow (THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, KNOCKED UP) has shown that nothing- not even losing your virginity or the miracle of childbirth- is sacred. About his third film behind the camera, he says, “I’m trying to make a very serious movie that is twice as funny as my other movies. Wish me luck!”

Apatow directs Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann in a story of a famous comedian who has a near-death experience. Featuring appearances by Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana, Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald and RZA.

Happy Hour Shows: Monday thru Friday shows that begin between 5pm and 6pm are Happy Hour Shows! We’ll have $2 Tecate and Lone Star, $3.99 frozen margaritas, $1 off wells, $2 small popcorn and discounted theater admission. The Alamo Ritz: your new happy hour bar

Directorial debut from the writer of SAW IV, FEAST, SAW V, FEAST 2: SLOPPY SECONDS, SAW VI & FEAST 3!

“This movie rocks.”

Tim League, Fantastic Fest

This is one of those movies that would have played Fantastic Fest
had the timing worked out. Horror at it’s finest. Rage-fueled, high-impact psychotic celluloid. The kind of movie you’ll grab the arm of the stranger next to you to hang on for dear life, apologize after the movie then realize you two have actually have a lot in common and spend the rest of your life together. Because you’re too afraid to be alone. Go through all the motions- birthday parties, anniversaries, raise a family just because THE COLLECTOR freaked you out that much. For reals.

The story of a handyman and ex-con named Arkin, who aims to repay a debt to his ex-wife by robbing his new employer’s country home. Unfortunately for Arkin, a far worse enemy has already laid claim to the property – and the family. As the seconds tick down to midnight, Arkin becomes a reluctant hero trapped by a masked “Collector” in a maze of lethal invention – the Spanish Inquisition as imagined by Rube Goldberg – while trying to rescue the very family he came to rob.

Tickets to this event will go on sale Thursday, July 30th at Noon! You’ve been warned.

Just announced! Quentin Tarantino will hand deliver a print of INGLORIOUS BASTERDS to kick off Cinemapocalypse! Then follow it up with two “influence” screenings he programs! The rest stays secret, but this thing’s gonna
be HUGE.

It’s been a while since we had an all night movie marathon. Sure, Ain’t It Cool News has their legendary BUTTNUMBATHON every year, but that’s a tough ticket to get for the average Joe. So Alamo Founder Tim League has decided to brew a pot of coffee, call up his Hollywood friends for some hot advance screenings, raid the vaults of obsessed film collector associates and put on an ALL NIGHT MOVIE MARATHON designed to Kill The Audience with a relentless barrage of cinematic blowtorchery. Maybe you’ve been to an all night movie marathon or two in your time. You think you know how good it can get. Well let me tell you something: You don’t know shit, little man. Because if there’s one
guy who knows movies and parties, it’s Tim League. So if he puts on an all-night movie party you probably want to keep that calendar clear.

We can’t tell you the names of any of the top secret Skull Hammers we have in store for you but if you’re the kind of movie maniac who buys your Fantastic Fest badge the instant it goes on sale; who loses sleep watching sick films at Terror Tuesday and Weird Wednesday; who keeps an Alamo guide in every room of your house – this one’s for you. And if this thing’s a success – that is, if we actually vaporize a portion of the audience with the general unstoppableness of CINEMAPOCALYPSE, we’re going to make it an annual event.

Important information!
From noon CST Thursday, July 30 to noon CST July 31, tickets can only be purchased by 2009 Fantastic Fest badge holders and Austin Film Society members. Tickets for a simultaneous VIP screening of the film will be available to Austin Film Society members on Wednesday, July 29 at 10 AM. If you are not a badge holder or film society member, DO NOT BUY TICKETS. Go HERE for more information!

Well how about it – ready to EXPLODE?

The Austin Film Society, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Ain’t It Cool News and SXSW are pleased to present the World Premiere of Miramax Films’ EXTRACT, a new film by Mike Judge starring Jason Bateman, on August 18 at The Paramount Theater (713 Congress Avenue). Judge and Bateman will attend the  screening,
which is a benefit for the Texas Filmmakers’ Production Fund.

EXTRACT is the latest comedy from writer/director and Austinite Mike Judge (OFFICE SPACE, KING OF THE HILL, IDIOCRACY). Joel, played by Jason Bateman (JUNO, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), is one step away from selling his flavor extract factory and retiring to easy street when a freak workplace accident sets in motion a series of disasters that puts his business and personal life in jeopardy. The film also stars Kristen Wiig (SNL, GHOST TOWN), Mila Kunis (FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL) and Ben Affleck (HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU). Miramax Films will open this film nationwide on September 4th, 2009.

Ain’t It Cool News, Fantastic Fest and SXSW will conduct ticket giveaways via their websites - must be a 2010 SXSW or Fantastic Fest badge holder to win. Remaining tickets will be available through the Austin Film Society. AFS members will be able to purchase tickets during a preview window starting Tuesday, July 28th at Noon at www.austinfilm.org.

Tickets for the general public will go on sale at Noon on Monday, August 3rd through GetTix (866-443-8849), gettix.net or The Paramount Theatre box office.

Pricing as follows:
$100 VIP seating and official after-party with Judge and Bateman
$30 (Mezzanine) and $17 (Upper Balcony) for the screening including a Q&A

How to win tickets from Fantastic Fest!
Fantastic Fest has been allocated a small number of ticket pairs to this event. To win tickets, visit the Fantastic Fest Facebook Page and RSVP to win. Winners will be announced on Monday, August 10 at noon CST on the Fantastic Fest Facebook Page and on the Fantastic Fest blog. You must be a 2010 SXSW or 2009 Fantastic Fest badge holder to win tickets.

Brand new 35mm film print!!!

This is the movie that defines why we love doing these Big Screen
Sci-Fi classics at the Alamo. At home, ALIEN is still a fine movie and
worth a few good jolts, but on a big screen it is unquestionably one of the most nerve-wrackingly fun experiences you’ll ever have. The use of massive, cluttered, lived-in sets and utterly brilliant widescreen photography creates a unique vision of horror that only the theatrical experience can do justice to, while the superb Jerry Goldsmith score creates nonstop fear and dread that turns ALIEN into as much of an
audio nightmare as it is a visual one. So many of the film’s classic moments that you know and love take on a terrifying immediacy on the big screen, while the creature itself has never appeared more frightening than it will here. We’re running a brand new print of the
original theatrical version for its 30th anniversary, so you’ll never have seen ALIEN looking or sounding this good before. (Matthew Kiernan)

Return to the thrilling days of yore, when Kevin Costner was box-office gold and Bryan Adams wrote stirring cinematic prom ballads, as Master Pancake Theater skewers the worst Robin Hood adaptation ever: ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES!

Costner plays Robin Hood, a man on a quest to find his missing British accent, and Morgan Freeman is – surprise! – his Magical Black Helping Figure. Together they team up to fight the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman channeling equal parts Hans Gruber and Wile E. Coyote). Director Kevin Reynolds (WATERWORLD) adds visual flair with the pointless yet nauseating P.O.V. technique of Arrow-Cam. You won’t want to miss a single merry minute as Master Pancake buckles the swash out Sherwood and makes much ado about Notting. (John)

Master Pancake Theater is proudly sponsored by KERBEY LANE CAFE!

Hey folks, don’t forget to vote for the Alamo’s in-house movie mockers, Master Pancake Theater, in this year’s Austin Chronicle “Best of Austin” poll. If you’ve enjoyed at least one of their shows over the past year (The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, The X-mas Show, Jurassic Park and many more) please give them a vote for best “Comedian/Comedy Troup” in the “Arts & Entertainment” section of the poll. Last year the Pancake boys tied for first place in the poll. This year they’re looking to break ahead of the pack and claim the #1 spot all by themselves. VOTE BEST OF AUSTIN NOW!

Presented by the Austin Gay & Lesbian International Film Festival.

With your host Rebecca Havermeyer!

“Don’t break the rules. Change them.”

Joshua wants nothing more than to join his Catholic school’s
cheerleading squad. His aspirations fluster his mother, perplex the
Mother Superior, and inspire his gay neighbor, Charlie. Together, they discover that sometimes all it takes to figure things out is a deep breath and the perfect cheer.

For more information, please visit www.agliff.org

FROM THE PRODUCER OF SUPER HAPPY FUN MONKEY BASH

Now with 50% more harry Egipt! Over the years we’ve become
hardcore video junkies, connoisseurs of the strangest and most extreme video oddities we can lay our paws on. And some of the best clips we’ve found have been television commercials from other countries. Before we realized what happened it became our latest obsession, as if we needed another one. So in order to feed the monkey we’ve scoured the planet looking for the greatest, weirdest, most offensive and adrenaline-charged commercials in the world. The result is a kind of
large-scale psychoanalysis of Planet Earth. If commercials are the dreams of a culture, we’re seriously worried about Latvia. And all the spicy food they eat down in Argentina has driven the kinky sex content of their commercials into overdrive. There’s not much we can do for Japan now, except try to make sure it doesn’t pose a threat to itself or others. And North Korea… tragic. As we plowed through the mountains of tapes and DVDs the total picture that evolved is of a planet on the brink of madness, sex obsessed, image conscious to the point of mania and very very thirsty.

This compilation features over 140 ads, from all over the globe, from the bizarre, the sublime, the sexual, the low-brow to the truly inexplicable. Also look for commercials directed by the likes of David Lynch, Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and more!

Tickets to this event will go on sale Friday, July 31st at noon. Mark your calendars!

May I please first direct your attention to the picture on this page? Is that Academy-Award winning actress Meryl Streep playing
culinary legend Julia Child? Yes it is. And it is good.

Director Nora Ephron (SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, MIXED NUTS) brings us this big screen adaptation of two different books- Julie Powell’s
bestselling memoir Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, and Julia Child’s memoir My Life in France. Powell (played in the film by Amy Adams, otherwise known as Meryl Streep: The Next Generation) embarks on a year-long culinary quest to
cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The film intertwines the lives of the two women who, though separated by time and space, are both at loose ends…until they discover that with the right combination of passion, fearlessness and butter, anything is possible.

For this special Food & Film event, enjoy an exquisite five-course French feast prepared by the extraordinary Alamo chefs! Check back soon for the menu.

Megarare screening of a new 35mm print!

“Whatever THE DIRTY DOZEN did,” screamed the ads, “they do it dirtier!” THE DIRTY DOZEN may have spawned several dozen imitators, but few were as much fun (or as outright looney) as this glorious action epic. One of the last of the numerous Italian WWII films, BASTARDS doesn’t really care about being anything other than big entertainment, and Castellari and crew prove that they knew how to deliver as well as any big Hollywood production of the era. Also known as DEADLY MISSION and G.I. BRO, the film stars Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson as inmates on their way to the stockade when their convoy is hit by Nazi fire, setting them and the other prisoners free but also putting them behind enemy lines.
They end up back in service to help execute a deadly secret mission to kill a lot of Nazis. A hell of a lot of Nazis. Of course, there’s another movie with a similar title that’s opening at the Alamo on August 22, but no doubt the people behind that one would encourage you
to see this one first and this is a rare opportunity to see it in a BEAUTIFUL NEW 35mm PRINT courtesy of our friends at Severin Films. (Matthew Kiernan)

FREE SCREENINGS!

This hilarious and poignant BBC series is about to get a big-screen make-over called IN THE LOOP which opens at the Village on August 14. To celebrate the release, we’re going back to the brilliant source material for a few special screenings. Hey, American television, watch and learn.

This BAFTA-winning series follows the inner-workings of the fictitious Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship (DoSAC) in London. It’s crude, unnerving and funny as hell. That’s all you need to know for now. Come.

The Downtown Austin Alliance is one of the producer/creators of the EMMY Award winning television series DOWNTOWN. Years ago, when our little home on Colorado St. still existed, before the Alamo S. Lamar was even a theater, DOWNTOWN did a feature on Tim & Karrie League and their Alamo Drafthouse baby. That clip is now available online at DowntownAustinTV.org, so if you’re feeling a bit nostalgic and wanna see if you’re in the video, check it out HERE!

In 1984 Rob Reiner created a film that documented the comeback tour of one of the loudest bands of all time: Spinal Tap. Even though the film was clearly a documentary, it has come to our attention that many people still think of the film as a work of fiction and that some of you may believe that Spinal Tap isn’t even a real band…

To those haters I ask:
Do they have songs? Yes.
Have they appeared on national television? Yes.

So Spinal Tap is a real band, this is a real rockumentary, and we know almost every line of dialogue in it. We’re going to subtitle our favorite lines karaoke-style for the audience anyway, and we’ll provide inflatable guitars and every amp in the building will be turned up to 11 the entire time because tonight we will rock you tonight, all night.
(Henri)

Alamo Quote-Alongs on Facebook

Okay, I’ll admit it: when they played We Are the Champions as the last song last dance of my senior year in high school and all the
seniors made a big circle the middle of the dance floor as we linked up arm-in-arm and swayed, I got teary-eyed. And that summer as we drove around from 7-11 to a coffee shop to some party at a kid’s house with a pool and a trampoline, my friends and I listened to Bohemian Rhapsody and pretended like we were in WAYNE’S WORLD.

Why am I confessing to all this? Crying in high school and imitating WAYNE’S WORLD isn’t cool at all. But then, that’s the thing about Queen – as pioneers of arena rock, their hits have a way of making you feel cool no matter what you’re doing, I’m listening to We Will Rock You as I’m writing this, so I feel invincible.

This is one of our favorite Sing-Along shows to do, partly because we painstakingly took the time to edit live performances and videos together with scenes from some of the movies that have made generous use of Queen songs in the soundtrack, and partly because we like coming up with new prop ideas every time we do it. But mostly it’s because people tend to get dressed up, and we LOVE having an army of Freddie Mercurys come up to the stage to show off their mustaches and microphone poles.
(Henri)

Alamo Sing-Alongs on Facebook

This summer, the Alamo Drafthouse will give kids and parents a chance to take a relaxing break with Free Movies every week at the Alamo South Lamar and Village. Movies screen at 11 AM.

Seating is on a first come first served basis so be there early for the best seats.

THE PRINCESS BRIDE plays at South Lamar this week!

If you’re a fan of any type of entertainment, then you already know and love this
smirkingly magical contemporary fairytale. The film has become a favorite across the world with fans of all ages. The heroic Westley battles Prince Humperdinck for the love of Buttercup, aided by a vengeful swordsman and a supersized soft-hearted bruiser. Along the way, they’ll face torture, flaming swamps, giant rats and even more outrageous developments. A perfect blend of comedy, adventure and romance, with top-notch performances by Cary Elwes, Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal and Andre the Giant!

HAPPY FEET plays at the Village this week!
Visit HERE for details!

Last year’s Fantastic Fest bumper contest was such a raging success, we simply cannot wait to get moving on the 2009 edition. The runner up film I LOVE YOU JEAN CLAUDE was featured on G4’s Attack of the Show and subsequently went on to become something of a viral video sensation. The winning film REPORT CARD by HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN auteur Jason Eisner still brings a smile to my face with each viewing.

The 2009 competition is very much like last year’s contest, but the
theme is more narrow in focus. The short still needs to be no longer than 30 seconds long, has to feature a child under the age of 18 in some way, shape or manner, and the last line of your video has to end with the word “fantastic.” The refinement this year is that each film must contain…. a monster. Other than that, we want to see anything and everything you can come up with.

The top Fantastic Fest 2009 Frenzy videos we get will be screened in front of an unsuspecting audience during Fantastic Fest (September 24-October 1). Each of those audiences will include visiting filmmakers from around the world, press from the likes of IFC TV, G4, Fangoria, Film Threat, Spout, Ain’t It Cool News, Variety, and USA Today, plus a legion of the most devoted and intelligent genre film fans on the planet.

If that isn’t enough for you, there will be other prizes as well:

Our top ten favorite films, as picked by the Fantastic Fest programming staff, will each win $100 Alamo prize packs that can be redeemed anytime for movies, merchandise, food or drinks.And the number one film as picked by the voting members of the Filmmaking Frenzy community will receive two VIP badges to this year’s Fantastic Fest – badges that will allow you to meet and mingle with the stars of Fantastic Fest. These badges sold out before the end of Fantastic Fest 2008, but we held a couple just for you.  If you are a filmmaker outside of Austin who can’t make it in for Fantastic Fest, you can swap out the goodies above for $250 cash. But you should really just find a way to get here if you win, because it’ll be soooo worth it.

We here at the Alamo love the internet. It’s got all sorts of cool things on it! Sometimes we want to share that stuff with you! Also, we like to let you know when shows are on sale, surprise screenings, and about general fun things that we do. Follow us to get up-to-date and instantaneous Alamo news (and general personal information about our fantastic Programming Dept.). All the cool kids are doing it!

Tim League: @TimAlamo (Founder/Owner)

Henri Mazza: @HenriMazza (Creative Director/Programmer)

Lars Nilsen: @LarsAlamo (Programmer/Weird Weds Coordinator)

Brad Parrett: @AlamoBrad (Programmer/Booking)

Caitlin Stevens: @CaitlinEStevens (Programmer/Promotions)

Alamo Drafthouse information: @Drafthouse
Fantastic Fest information: @FantasticFest
MondoTees information: @MondoNews

Wanna know what you absolutely can’t miss in the next couple months? Hate the feel of paper in your hands? Well we got something for you! Check out our July/August Alamo Guide in PDF form. We worked long and hard on it. And there’s like, a million things in here that are going to be a-ma-zing. Check it out online and download a PDF of the July August Guide right here!

Whether it’s a company outing or a get-together with friends, forget standing in line to buy tickets or waiting outside for everyone in your group to arrive! Instead, rent your very own private theater – let us handle the details and sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

When renting a private theater to watch a new release movie you can also request custom pre-show entertainment, have a short presentation if you’d like, make announcements, select your own menus and much more! Private theater rentals are available at any time, and for groups of all sizes!