If you like having a good time, your life has just been improved by 10,000%.

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE! are the bona fide internet sensation video collective responsible for some of history’s most intriguing viral videos. From the yoga farmer teaching kids to stretch (creepily) to Cat Massage (just what you’d think), these guys are mining the VHS universe for all the best – and worst – bits. This isn’t some youtube compilation party. Every video is original, fantastic and fucked up beyond belief. A truly haunting look into America’s freakish past!!

Their daily postings of genuinely ridiculous videos and out-of-context movie scenes ripped from old VHS releases have been hailed by MTV, Fox, Time, BoingBoing, Buzzfeed, WFMU, Videogum, Best Week Ever, The Soup, and Jezebel, while the CBC deemed it simply “The best site ever.” But what separates EIT from the rest has to be their live show. The group will personally take you by the collective hands on a journey that asks: What if THE NEVERENDING STORY, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN and that weird sex cult scene from EYES WIDE SHUT all got together and made a baby? Now multiply that by a thousand and you’re still nowhere near the feeling of pleasure it brings. Your face will probably melt off, so come prepared with an extra face…

Tickets to this once-in-a-lifetime brain-fryer are CHEAP! Get ‘em HERE!

AND… while you’re at it, gird your loins for next Wednesday’s completely insane VIVA VHS!, a life-mangling celebration of the most impossibly outrageous slivers of VHS impossibility, all lost in the Great VHS/DVD War until now, where they’ll be uncovered in a blazing lazer tornado of ridiculously powerful entertainment! Don’t believe it? BELIEVE IT.

Cheap-as-dirt VIVA VHS tickets are HERE!

Do you like music, dancing, entertainment and/or fun? Well, GOOD NEWS! Soul Music Maniac #1 Peter Lucas will be flying in from Seattle for two very special shows at The Ritz!

First up is Sunday’s SOUL ON SCREEN!:

There’s nothing quite like the moves, grooves, fashions and passions of ’60s Soul music. By popular demand, guest curator Peter Lucas returns to hosts an all-star Soul celebration featuring the best of his classic and rare performance footage. James Brown, Joe Tex, Lee Dorsey, Etta James, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Ike & Tina Turner will all be doing their thing up on the big screen. Of course, clapping, singing and dancing are encouraged. If you’ve missed any of our previous Soul Nites, or if you’ve been jonesin’ to see some gems again, then this special screening is a must!

Tickets HERE!

Next, on Music Monday, we’ll be seeing the ALL NEW collection SOUL NITE 3:

It’s an all-new selection of vintage footage! This time, host Peter Lucas focuses on performances of the late-’60s and early-’70s, when music was merging and new forms of funky were born. Don’t miss Sly & The Family Stone, Ike & Tina Turner, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and many others up on the big screen and cranked up loud. You know the deal: it’s the funkiest good time you’ll have in a movie theater, and that is a stone cold guarantee!

Tickets are only 2 BUCKS HERE!

See you there, unless you’re a joyless John Denver fan!!

The picture to the left has nothing to do with anything released in the last ten years, but it is from a movie.

Here in the Alamo programming office, movies are a big deal. We each watch approximately 215 movies per day, seven days a week, no holidays.

It’s a tough job…especially when it comes time to narrow down our favorites at the end of each year. It’s even more difficult to figure out what the best 20 films were in the past decade. But we do it all for you.

The lists below represent the most powerful and/or entertaining films of 2009, plus the finest we’ve seen since Y2K destroyed civilization. Take a look, disagree, get furious and attack us on the street.

WARNING: We’ve got switchblades.

* * * * * *

TIM LEAGUE

1) MOTHER -
I saw MOTHER at Cannes this year and it blew me out of the water. First with THE HOST and now again, Bong Joon Ho proves that he can regularly produce a “total package” movie with great characters, subtle comedy and innovative story all beautifully intertwined with effective genre elements. He’s one of my favorite directors working today and I will see everything he makes. MOTHER should be hitting theaters in early 2010 and I will throw a tantrum if we can’t get it at the Alamo.

2) ANTICHRIST -
I also saw ANTICHRIST at Cannes. We later played it at Fantastic Fest and then released it at the Alamo. At the now infamous Cannes premiere, about 200 people left halfway through the film. At the final credits, half of the audience was standing and cheering, the other half was shouting expletives about Von Trier’s mother. That’s the kind of reaction that will almost always catapult a film to my personal Top Ten.

3) BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -
Zack and Lars were the big champions of this film and I’m 100% on that bandwagon too. Breakdancing ghosts, lucky crack pipes and my favorite Nicolas Cage screen performance EVER (and that includes heavy-hitters MOONSTRUCK and RAISING ARIZONA, mind you). More movies need to combine the creative powers of cocaine, Herzog, Cage and reptiles.

4) LOVE EXPOSURE -
Sion Sono’s 4.5 hour epic deftly swirls tales of Christian guilt, peek-a-panty photography, religious cults and the plot to control the world. Sono is a amazingly creative and daring filmmaker and certainly one to watch. He makes his English language debut in 2010 with a Black-Metal-themed drama shot in Norway starring that sparkly-faced TWILIGHT vampire (Robert Pattinson).

5) A TOWN CALLED PANIC -
I’ve now watched A TOWN CALLED PANIC three times, which is a rarity for me. The manic energy and bizarre surrealism brings a gigantic smile to my face every time. PANIC opens at Alamo South Lamar at the end of January and I can’t wait for a fourth tab of the candy-coated Belgian acid.

6) INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS -
Half subtitled and nearly 3 hours long, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS was poised to be a disastrous death-blow to Quentin Tarantino’s career. Stripping away his cultural reference crutches and pop-music cues, however, he was able to truly flex his powerful writing and directing chops. Fun enough for the fanboys and artful enough for the stuffier critics, Tarantino scored a direct hit with a very wide audience. If Christoph Waltz doesn’t win best supporting actor at the Oscars, I’m gonna have to start carving forehead swastikas on the Academy members.

7) MOON -
Duncan Jones’ (David Bowie’s son!!!) debut feature knocked my socks off with a subtle, smart, haunting and touching film. This movie feels every bit the sci-fi classic as 2001, and I hope people are watching this in equal measure 30 years from now.

8 ) WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE -
A lot of older folks and a hell of a lot of kids didn’t really care for the depressing tone of WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, but I fell for it completely. The visual world was obviously a stunner, but what was more amazing for me was how Spike Jonze crafted a poignant backstory for my childhood favorite antihero Max and expanded on subtle themes lurking behind the surface of Maurice Sendak’s meager 140 WORD text. Three months later and I’m still musing on this film, ergo it makes the Top Ten.

9) DISTRICT 9 -
For me, DISTRICT 9 came out of nowhere. I knew nothing about it and frankly was a little concerned that it would be a giant turd when I went in cold to the AICN sponsored sneak preview screening. I was dead wrong. On a micro-budget for a movie of this scale, director Neill Blomkamp built an incredible mythology/universe of brutish drone aliens who find themselves stranded in the slums of Johanasburg. The story was phenomenal and kept me guessing until the final scenes, the acting performance by Wikus Van De Merwe is worthy of Academy Award consideration. Even more unexpectedly, however, in amidst the social commentary and drama was some truly freaky Nigerian cannibalism voodoo and some of the best exploding torsos since STREET TRASH. With MOON, STAR TREK (probably my #11 film) and DISTRICT 9, 2009 was a phenomenal year for sci-fi.

10) CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE -
I can’t tell you how happy I was to see this on Austin’s daily news critic Chris Garcia’s 2009 top 10 list. He called it “Stupid, obnoxious, indefensible. An orgy of psychotic movie love bordering on the avant-garde” and I concur 100%. This movie and BAD LIEUTENANT are the rightful heirs to the exploitation legends of the 1970s. I’m happy to have my quality “trash” cinema back with an unexpected layer of emotional heft (in the case of BAD LIEUTENANT) and reckless depravity (in the case of CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE). Viva 2009!

Tim’s Top 20 of the Decade:
1) The Wrestler
2) Let the Right One In
3) Pan’s Labyrinth
4) There Will Be Blood
5) Adam’s Apples
6) The Good, The Bad and the Weird
7) Mother
8 ) Oldboy/Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (I can’t decide!)
9) Antichrist
10) The Host
11) Martyrs
12) Ex-Drummer
13) Children of Men
14) No Country For Old Men
15) Bad Lieutenant
16) Dai Nippon Jin
17) Spirited Away
18) Kung Fu Hustle
19) Audition
20) Borat

* * * * * *

LARS NILSEN

(listed in no particular order)

A TOWN CALLED PANIC -
Totally ingenious construction of sound, color, movement and some of the best-timed gags I’ve seen in an animated film since Chuck Jones walked the earth. At Fantastic Fest I saw it with two different audiences and they were both weeping with laughter. So watch it with an audience for the full effect. Opens at the Alamo South Lamar on January 15.

MORPHINE -
Unbearably depressing story of a dope-addicted doctor in a remote, snowbound Russian hospital during the Russian Revolution. Has the scope and fatalistic humor of a big Russian novel. With some of the most shocking blood and gore ever presented (supposedly real), all part of the doctor’s usual daily routine.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX -
I agree with my colleague Brad that this movie almost makes you want to have kids just to take them to this movie. Intensively designed and visually airtight in the Anderson manner (there’s not a paisley cravat out of place), it gets its vitality from the great cast of voice actors. Tough to beat George Clooney as the poster-fox of self-confidence and Meryl Streep is brilliant again (yawn)… a national treasure… zzzzz…

ANVIL -
Not the place most of us would have looked for an uplifting, inspirational story but here it is. It’s about the music but it’s also about how as we grow older, life tends to boil down to the things that really matter. The Eastern European tour is one of the saddest, funniest things I’ve ever seen.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS -
Not perfect, true. But there’s some great acting here, and not just from Cristoph Waltz. Even Brad Pitt does some great “star acting” (not exactly the same as acting-acting). And I’m a sucker for the “film-as-weapon” climax.

WORLD’S GREATEST DAD -
Who would have thought that Bobcat Goldthwait, of all people, would become an important filmmaker? This movie says volumes about our culture’s odd cross-streams of fame and death. Goldthwait really does express some new ideas here, which actually doesn’t happen in many films. He may prove to be the film satirist we richly deserve. And Robin Williams is great again, in a sympathetic/unsympathetic role.

COLLAPSE -
Just one guy, sitting in a room without a lot of light, proving empirically that we’re all doomed. I can’t reconstruct his argument, but it has something to do with oil depletion and credit. And it’s really bad. We’re so fucked. I brooded about it for days after seeing it. This is definitely the scariest movie I saw all year. Playing at the Ritz on January 10 and 11.

WE LIVE IN PUBLIC -
Documentary about an insufferable billionaire artist-manque who created a hugely expensive art project in Manhattan where dozens of volunteers lived in an electronic panopticon with no privacy at all and a huge arsenal of weapons in the basement. Not surprisingly, the cops broke it up as a suspected Y2K cult and the would-be conceptual artist started a website with his wife called “We Live In Public,” where viewers could watch every second of their domestic life. At the same time, he loses all his money in the tech-stock bust and goes completely insane. On camera. Pretty fascinating.

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -
The first time I saw this, I was totally overjoyed at how unhinged the whole thing was. It was like a fairly conventional jazz orchestra with a wild soloist who takes over, playing insane, inventive chorus after chorus, until the rest of the band starts getting weird too. The second time I saw it, I looked at the shape of Cage’s performance and admired the overall conception of the character by the actor and his director Werner Herzog. The third time I thought, “Hey, I want to see this a fourth time.” For me, this was the movie of the year and I seriously think Nicolas Cage should get the Oscar for it.

BEST WORST MOVIE -
What could have been a facile DVD extra about an amazing no-budget horror film called TROLL 2 becomes much more as we get to know the star of the film, a dentist named George Hardy. He’s the beating heart of this movie. As the film is rediscovered, he’s thrust into a (fairly dim) spotlight along with the other members of the cast and crew. The other unforgettable character is the irascible director of TROLL 2, Claudio Fragasso, who’s not down with everyone talking about how bad the movie is. BEST WORST MOVIE was directed by Michael Stephenson, who played the young lead in TROLL 2.

LARS’ 14 FAVORITE FILMS OF THE TWO THOUSANDS:
BAD LIEUTENANT
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
BATTLE ROYALE
CRIPS AND BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA
KILL BILL
COCAINE COWBOYS
BLACK BOOK
KING OF KONG
NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
DANGEROUS MEN
HELL’S FEVER (because I’m glad a movie like this can still get made)

* * * * * *

HENRI MAZZA

Okay, so to start with, there are a lot of movies that are going to be on my Favorite Movies I’ve Rented in 2010 list but I haven’t seen and can’t even consider for my list. Many of those movies are on lots of other Top Ten lists online right now, so you can assume that once I see these critically acclaimed films they’ll push off a few of the ones I’m listing here. But yeah, I haven’t seen A SERIOUS MAN, THE ROAD, MOON, THE HURT LOCKER, FANTASTIC MR. FOX, ANVIL, THE COVE, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER or MADEA GOES TO JAIL. I know, I shouldn’t stop myself from enjoying all that amazingness, and I promise to rent them all and check them out just as soon as JERSEY SHORE is over and I have some free time with my TV again.

As for my Top Ten movies of the year, one more caveat – these are my Top Ten movie experiences in the theater. No rentals allowed.

10) TERMINATOR SALVATION -
Hell yeah, that movie sucks. But I had my first D-Box experience to that shit storm, and before the credits rolled I was convinced that it was actually good. Then I thought about it and realized how many parts of it I hated. But still… D-Box for that was amazing. D-Box for THE FINAL DESTINATION soured me on the whole D-Box thing, though, because at one point they wanted me to feel like I was a floating piece of paper, and that’s just dumb.

9) THIS IS IT -
Even if I wasn’t in charge of the Action Pack Sing-Along shows at the theater, Michael Jackson’s death last year would have hit me hard, like it hit most of us who grew up with MTV. THIS IS IT captured everything I loved about him but also showed the side that I always wished would go away. The full portrait and realistic look at the process of putting his show together let me wish I could have see him live and also say goodbye to the part of me that died with him.

8 ) ADVENTURELAND -
Man I hate Bella, but ADVENTURELAND made me like Kristen Stewart enough to put up with seeing her on every magazine cover for the next three years.

7) JULIE & JULIA -
I have no idea if this movie is legitimately any good or not. Trish Eichelberger’s feast doped me up so much that I was in heaven for the full two hours, though.

6) THE HANGOVER -
I have no idea if this movie is legitimately funny or not. But from now on I’m having a shot of Jager before every crazy comedy I see.

5) STAR TREK -
Usually I get to know a little bit about the big surprises Tim is planning before they hit the screen, but even when the WRATH OF KHAN print got bubbly the same way we used to burn film for Spike and Mike intros and it became clear to me that something was up, I had NO IDEA that Leonard Nimoy was going to walk in and bring the full print of the new movie. It was impossible not to love that movie if you watched it with that crowd of super fans. I’m still iffy about J.J. Abrams in general, though. I’ll tell you why 46 hours earlier and destroy the tension of you asking me about it.

4) 2012 -
Yeah, that’s right; I went there. Because John Cusack OUTRUNS AN EARTHQUAKE IN A LIMOUSINE.

3) UP IN THE AIR -
I can’t wait until that’s playing on airplanes and leads to a huge surge in membership to the Mile High Club. And did you know that most of the interviews with people being laid off were people actually being fired? Because damn that made those scenes more intense to watch.

2) UP -
The guy behind me started openly sobbing during the aging montage in a way that made me wonder if we needed to enact a No Crying Too Loud rule at the theater. At first it annoyed me, but then it sucked me in. Now I think maybe TV dramas should have had a sobbing track back when sitcoms had a laugh track.

1) ZOMBIELAND -
Yes! Zombies were fun again! I would never have believed it if you’d told me that back in 2006. Also, according to Entertainment Weekly, watching that premiere with us at Fantastic Fest was also one of Woody Harrelson’s two favorite moments of his entire year. Awesome!

Of course, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS was great as well. It would totally be on this list if Brad Pitt had at any time outrun some sort of natural disaster while driving a limo.

* * * * * *

ZACK CARLSON

10) HUMAN CENTIPEDE: FIRST SEQUENCE -
Yep, this is the movie where three people are sewn together front-to-back, lips-to-rump. But the incredible thing about it is that there’s nothing gory or gratuitous about it. The mad scientist lead is played in overdrive by the truly terrifying Dieter Laser, and writer/director/producer Tom Six provided one of the most hilarious Q&A’s I’ve ever seen at Fantastic Fest. The man seemed completely unconcerned with the potentially offensive content of the film and instead became extremely excited to inform us that “all the surgical processes in the film were 100% medically accurate!” Also, his next film is the sequel that will feature a human centipede FOUR TIMES THE SIZE of the one in this film.Lastly, Tom Six dresses like a Miami Vice druglord. What a wildman!

9) GIT GOB (short) -
So it’s only 2.5 minutes long, but this semi-two-dimensional short was the funniest movie of the year. Admittedly, I still haven’t seen A TOWN CALLED PANIC yet. But I’m just sayin’, if you want to see a lil’ brown guy mistake a hole in the ground for his hat, then this is a good movie for you to watch.

8 ) HOUSE OF THE DEVIL -
Horror-fueled filmmaking young’n Ti West really did a number on the audience with this incredibly legit ’80s genre homage. It’s not just that he captured the aesthetic of the era…Mr. West also thumbs his nose at the public’s current lack of attention span and unwinds his terror tale at Mrs. Butterworth speed, which makes the payoff all the more effective. Even more impressive was the performance from towering character actor Tom Noonan.

7) THAT EVENING SUN -
This was a fairly simple story of a cantankerous Southern man (Hal Holbrook) at war with his alcoholic garbage dump of a neighbor. It featured some of the best dialogue I’ve seen in years and the SXSW audience seemed to eat it up. Afterwards, screen legend Holbrook peed at the urinal next to me. That dude is really tall! I did not look at his penis.

6) STAR TREK -
I liked this movie.

5) WORLD’S GREATEST DAD -
Bobcat Goldthwait — who looks a lot like Billy Wilder these days — wrote and directed this vicious, heartless, brutal comedy that somehow gave me hope for humanity. Everything shitty about mankind (and that’s a lot) gets punched right in the guts by the script. If you hate people (and who doesn’t?), this movie is your bible.

4) BEST WORST MOVIE -
Few movies are more entertaining as 1990’s perfect wreck TROLL 2. This documentary on the people involved in that film’s production is as enjoyable as its subject, but in the complete opposite way. Smart, hilarious, human, deeply genuine.

3) THE HORSEMAN -
A beautiful, sad, simply shot Australian revenge movie. TENDER MERCIES meets Paul Schrader’s HARDCORE. Not a wasted second, and a truly perfect performance from the impotent, middle-aged lead.

2) ANVIL! –
Since I’m not religious and I hate my mother, few things matter more to me than Friendship and Heavy Metal. This documentary is an unflinching testament to both, as the two founding members of unpaid Canadian rock institution Anvil struggle to find their place in the world. It’s a heartbreaker at points, and most people I know who saw it cry at least once. Not me, though. I listen to Manowar. I probably don’t even have tear ducts.

1) BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -
“‘Til the breakaDAWWWN!!” See every other movie-lover’s Top Ten of 2009 list. If you don’t like this movie, you’re just taking up space. Please lay down and go to sleep forever.

Zack’s Top 20 of the Decade:
20) THE HORSEMAN (2009)
19) PUNISHER WAR ZONE (2008) – Seriously.
18) POOTIE TANG (2001)
17) I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW (2008) – An objective documentary on two mentally ill people obsessed with former pop sensation Tiffany. One of them has chosen to alter his gender to be more like his idol, the other has severe Asperger’s syndrome. Enjoy their wild night in Las Vegas.
16) TAXIDERMIA (2006) – This unclassifiable Hungarian film was the most ambitious independent movie I saw all decade. Somehow combines giant cats, competitive eating and bestiality without ever feeling zany.
15) TEARS OF THE BLACK TIGER (2000) – The most beautiful, violent gay spaghetti Western in Thai cinema history.
14) DREAMER: INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY (2005) – The best family-friendly drama in decades. Kurt Russell will make you cry. No shit.
13) ROCKY BALBOA (2006)
12) ANVIL! (2009)
11) THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (2001) – Kind of embarrassed to include this one now that Mr. Anderson has chosen expensive clothing over solid storytelling, but there’s no denying I saw it seven times on the big screen when it was released.
10) Werner Herzog’s BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009) — tied with — Herzog’s GRIZZLY MAN (2005)
9) TALK TO HER (2002)
8 ) MAN WITHOUT A PAST (2002) – Finnish genius Aki Kaurismaki’s last great movie. He says he’s going to stop making films now and “maybe open a taxi company.”
7) IT IS FINE…EVERYTHING IS FINE (2007) – Crispin Glover’s weird-for-weird’s-sake schtick is shattered by this staggering work of real live goddamn genius. Everyone should watch this, unless they don’t like seeing the genitals of the severely disabled.
6) BIRTH (2004) – Incredible to the max, Nicole Kidman or not. Really an incredible attack on the pathetic nature of human need and longing.
5) KUNG FU HUSTLE (2004)
4) THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (2001) – The best ghost story made in my lifetime. Waaaaay more chilling and beautiful than PAN’S LABYRINTH.
3) THE KING OF KONG (2007) – Mandatory documentary viewing.
2) NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)
1) LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) – Get me some CGI-cat remover and this shit will be 100% perfect.

* * * * * *

BRAD PARRETT

Top 10 Of 2009:

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -
Most fun I’ve had since my seventh birthday party, which also involved guns and iguanas.

A SERIOUS MAN -
The last shot is beautiful and terrifying, just like the two hours prior.

IN THE LOOP -
Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult.

THE HANGOVER -
Laughed harder than any other movie this year. That’s gotta be worth something.

ANTICHRIST -
Atmospheric masterpiece.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX -
Just so mother-cussing good.

WORLD’S GREATEST DAD -
Bobcat Goldthwait slammed my funnybone against the most genuinely disturbing story of the year.

DISTRICT 9 -
Shit, man, shit.

BRONSON -
Thomas Hardy’s performance lifts an otherwise terrestrial movie to great heights.

SYMBOL -
Not released in the US…counting it anyway. Mexican wrestler story meets Japanese-man-trapped-in-white-space-with-tiny-angel-penis-levers in the best way imaginable. From the director of BIG MAN JAPAN.

Brad’s Best of Decade:
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
BRICK
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
MATCH POINT
GRIZZLY MAN
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
THE ARISTOCRATS
AMERICAN PSYCHO
MULHOLLAND DR.
SPIRITED AWAY
I AM A SEX ADDICT
PUNCH DRUNK LOVE
KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
CLOSER
POOTIE TANG
DISTRICT 9
Ang Lee’s HULK
THE INCREDIBLES

* * * * * *

DANIEL METZ

THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE -
One of three films by Soderbergh to be released in 2009, this modest gem surprised me. The story, about a high-class prostitute having boyfriend troubles in 2008 New York, is weak but got some buzz because lead actress Sasha Grey is actually a star of pornographic films. The real treasures of this film, however, are the cinematic elements that make it a surreal adventure of time and space. There is so much subtly in expression and in narrative economy that the film exists in a vacuum of time, passing through and around and past all moments of understanding. At about the halfway point, I realized that I had no idea how long I had been watching, and I didn’t really care either; this is true cinema, a movie that puts its fingers into your brain and never lets go.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC -
A joyful and imaginative animated film from Belgium that captured my heart at an 11 AM screening at Fantastic Fest. The film is creative and wacky and demonstrates the wit and the life that all films aspire to have. It is clear that this is a true labor of love, and that is all that matters.

OBSERVE AND REPORT -
An awkward and brutal feature by the most important comedy director working today, Jody Hill. Its hilarious sequences of terror and discomfort are matched by horrifying images of violent fighting so beautifully choreographed that you sometimes mistake it for a 1950s musical.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE -
Finally, a children’s film that isn’t condescending, dull and full of cheap jokes. Coming in the midst of an cycle of auteur-made children’s films, this is sure to be the most imaginative, visually striking and, frankly, adult.

MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE -
A collaboration of two of the greatest cinema artists of our time, Werner Herzog and David Lynch, that tempers madness with weirdness into a beautiful story of a man whose mind is lost. A brilliant use of digital photography that proved to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that this shift to HD video cameras won’t be all bad.

A SINGLE MAN -
First-time filmmaker Tom Ford has crafted a unique love story with the precision and aesthetic eye that made him one of the most famous fashion designers of the past century. Every suit, accessory, piece of furniture and body in this film is breathtaking to view. All of this glamour creates a strange, nearly surreal feeling for the film; it is steeped in surface pleasures, but underneath these delights is a horrifying sadness.

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS -
There’s a reason this is on almost every one of our lists this year. Nicolas Cage. I don’t even need to say more.

WHATEVER WORKS -
Woody Allen’s most mature work to date deals with the same themes he has been working through since the middle 1970s. Here, in a loose remake of his ANNIE HALL, Allen’s surrogate, played by Larry David, is shown for the repulsive and vile misantrhope that Allen has been sugar coating with charming anxiety for his entire career. He must be making great progress in analysis lately.

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL -
Jim Jarmusch has decided to drop all pretenses of plot and to focus entirely on the calm and careful capturing of beautiful images and beautiful meetings. It works well here, and it proves that purely visual filmmaking is still alive. While I wish he would return to his earlier filmmaking style, I am willing to support his further experiments in cinematography.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER -
Another ANNIE HALL remake rocked the summer indie world with a little help from the ever-charming Zooey Deschanel. While her beautiful punim (look it up, gentiles) pleased every skinny kid in town, it was the film’s generally light treatment of the rules of the cinema that made this film great. A series of cinematic experiments (the musical number, expectation vs. reality split screen, tangential ordering of scenes, etc.) made this truly a contemporary revisioning of Allen’s greatest film. It also featured the greatest Han Solo joke thus far in the 21st century. One comment, though: stop wearing tennis shoes with suits and ties. It looks stupid.

DANIEL’S 20 Films of the 2000s:
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK
THE DEVIL’S REJECTS
A TOWN CALLED PANIC
THE ROOM
ONCE
ANTICHRIST
ELEPHANT
ME, YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
ADAPTATION
VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA
PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDER
FROWNLAND
THE FOOT FIST WAY
THERE WILL BE BLOOD
I HEART HUCKABEES
VANILLA SKY

* * * * * *

…If your eyes haven’t fallen out yet, feel free to enjoy our picks from 2008, 2007 and 2006!

As you may have heard, James “Blockbuster Machine” Cameron recently pooled the most ambitious scientists in the movie industry and spent $4,000,000,000,000,000,000,012 to create an alternate 3-D universe unlike anything in history. Apparently, the crew actually developed entirely new technology in this pursuit. Everyone who’s seen completed samples of this unstoppable sci-fi experience has apparently felt themselves slip into a parallel dimension.

Well, for those of you who want to truly immerse yourself in these alien worlds, the Alamo will be presenting Cameron’s transgalactic vision in brand new, top-of-the-line 4k digital 3-D at both our Village and South Lamar locations, beginning with our midnight premiere screenings on Thurs, Dec 17!

Get those Village tickets here or your South Lamar tickets here!!

Our second annual New Year’s celebration of classic cinema, cocktails and cuisine at The Ritz!!

2008’s screening of AFTER THE THIN MAN was a true extravaganza, bringing together an incredible drinking/dining experience with one of the greatest film’s of Hollywood’s golden era. This year, we’re stepping it up with the flat-out greatest New Year’s film in the world: Billy Wilder’s 1960 masterpiece THE APARTMENT, a brilliantly written, fast-paced, heartbreakingly hilarious adventure of a poor schlub (a young, bumbling Jack Lemmon) who just can’t steer things right to fall into the good graces of the most wonderful woman in town (a young, unbelievably charming Shirley MacLaine). In his way are an innumerable number of comic obstacles, including the great Fred MacMurray and Ray Walston as self-serving high-rollers content to kick dirt in the face of anyone who crosses them.

It’s a gorgeously shot, perfectly constructed, fun-as-hell monument to filmmaking at its very best (in AFI’s Top 100 films!), and we’re pleased to bring it to you along with a very special menu with drink pairings to ring in the new decade, all prepared by our chefs John Bullington and Elijah Horgan, with accompanying beverages masterminded by bar wizard Amy Patton (drink list pending):

First course:
Club Sandwich (don’t forget to remove the toothpick)
Layers of smoked pheasant, jamon serrano, Pure Luck chevre, arugula, organic plum tomatoes and truffle aioli on ficelle

Second course:
Lobster Rickshaw Boy
Sweet and sour lobster with Maitake dumpling

Third course:
Victim’s Chicken Noodle Soup
Organic chicken with ginger noodles with local organic spring vegetables in saffron consomme

Fourth course:
Garlic and valpolicella braised lamb shank atop spaghetti in a fresh tomato sauce with gremolada

Dessert course:
Strawberry chocolate fruitcake with champagne sabayon and Lemmon cookie crumble

The Alamo New Year’s event of the decade! Tickets on sale HERE on Friday Dec 4 at 3:00 PM! It’ll be the best ticket in town…fun-wise!!

Ho. Ly. Smokes.

We’ll admit, we were initially merely amused at the prospect of the new BAD LIEUTENANT film. Mid-career action convert Nicolas Cage starring in a film from German renaissance wildman Werner Herzog? Sure, we’ll watch that. An advance screening rolled around about a week ago and the programmers gathered together to give the movie a fair viewing.

Two hours later, our faces were obliterated. It’s no joke: BAD LIEUTENANT is the BEST FILM OF 2009. I swear on my granny. It’s a perfectly assembled, harrowing, hilarious, one-of-a-kind film, and deserves to be seen by everyone between the ages of 16 and 3000. Nicolas Cage does things that no actor has ever done in a movie. Herzog takes chances that pay off without fail. There are invisible iguanas and breakdancing ghosts. And it all ties together in a tight, completely linear storyline. That’s some kinda miracle and these guys did it.

It’s everything you could want on a screen, and we’re not even the only ones who think so. Take a look at some of these rave reviews from normally respectable sources:

“An original, offbeat and rewarding cop story with Nicolas Cage in great form.” – Hollywood Reporter

“Here, Nicolas Cage is a fearless actor. He doesn’t care if you think he goes over the top…he will crawl to the top hand over hand with bleeding fingernails. ” – Roger Ebert

“Like a jumpy, coke-fueled Pied Piper, Cage takes viewers to the very precipice of depraved self-abasement, while preserving just enough self-conscious humor to keep from tumbling in.” – Washington Post

“A vividly acted and directed movie that stretches the boundaries of its genre and keeps you in its ever-unpredictable grip throughout.” -BoxOffice

…These are just the tip of the iceberg. This Nicolas Cage crime movie is the most outrageous, entertaining night at the movies you’ll have until the actual Mayan apocalypse.

Believe it.

Check out the show page HERE!

Stunning black metal documentary UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US opens Friday!
Controversial, beautiful mindwrecker ANTICHRIST opens Friday too!

This weekend, The Alamo Ritz will unveil two of the most masterfully made and potentially disturbing films of the decade!

Lars Von Trier’s ANTICHRIST has already cemented a reputation for crowd-pleasing and stomach-turning from ONE SINGLE SCREENING at Fantastic Fest ‘09. It is explicit, it is challenging, it is grotesque, it has been called offensive, misogynistic and dangerous…but it has also been called a masterpiece and perhaps the Danish auteur’s finest work.

Charlotte Gainsbourg (who won best Actress for the role at Cannes) and Willem Defoe star as an unnamed couple seeking comfort in their country home after the sudden death of their child. While in their forest retreat, as summed up by the unofficial slogan of Fantastic fest ‘09, “chaos reigns.”

ANTICHRIST tickets are HERE!

On the all-too-real side of the coin, UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is a feature length documentary chronicling the story of black metal. Part music scene and part cultural uprising, black metal rose to worldwide notoriety in the mid-’90s when a rash of suicides, murders and church burnings accompanied the explosive artistic growth and output of a music scene that would forever redefine what heavy metal is and what it stands for to other musicians, artists and music fans worldwide.

To capture this on film, directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell moved to Norway and lived with the musicians for several years, building relationships that allowed them to create a surprisingly intimate portrait of this violent, but ultimately misunderstood, movement. The result is a poignant, moving story that’s as much about the idea that reality is composed of whatever the most people believe, regardless of what’s actually true, as it is about a music scene that blazed a path of murder and arson across the northern sky. Featuring: Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, Varg Vikernes, Jan Axel “Hellhammer” Blomberg, Kjetil “Frost” Haraldstad, Ivar Bjornson, Abbath and Demonaz Doom Occulta, Kris “Garm” Rygg, Bjarne Melgaard, Harmony Korine and more.

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US tickets are HERE!

FUN FUN FUN fest presents
LET THEM KNOW: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records with members of Youth Brigade LIVE!
MC Chris LIVE presenting GREMLINS
NOT A PHOTOGRAPH with members of Mission of Burma LIVE

We’re partnering with Austin’s incredible, mammoth weekend-long music festival Fun Fun Fun to present THREE special guest screenings at The Ritz!

Saturday, 10:15 PM
LET THEM KNOW: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records with the members of Youth Brigade LIVE
** This show only $5 with a Fun Fun Fun Fest wristband **
- One of the most incredible stories of punk dedication EVER TOLD! By the time the second wave of Los Angeles punk rock began to crest in the early 1980s, most historians had already closed the book. But things were just starting to get interesting. The music got harder and faster. Politics became integral to the scene. Police-on-punk violence and massive riots were de rigueur. The concept of “D.I.Y.” transformed from a necessity to a battle cry. And the Better Youth Organization was born. Founded by brothers Shawn and Mark Stern from the influential L.A. punk band Youth Brigade, the BYO was part political movement, part business venture. It was a way to organize punks to take positive action to help sustain their scene and their way of life. The ideals upon which it was founded helped countless bands put on shows, put out records, and otherwise get their music out to the world.

Saturday, Midnight
MC Chris presents GREMLINS
- God-DANG! Nerdcore rapper MC Chris is coming back to the Alamo to introduce and present another of his holy grail movies. You may know him as MC Pee Pants from AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE or you may know him from his jams, like Fett’s Vette Now get to know him as the funniest movie host on the planet. This time the almighty Dungeonmaster Of Ceremonies has chosen a film that no card carrying nerd can afford to miss on the big screen. Seeing Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates save the world is one of life’s sublime pleasures. And those little furry dudes are pretty cool too, sometimes. MC Chris’ movie showings are more like his concerts than standard movie screenings – he sets up an audience participation environment like no other – you’ll be laughing like a fool. Don’t miss!

Sunday, 10:15 PM
NOT A PHOTOGRAPH with members of Mission of Burma LIVE
- Legendary Boston post-punk band Mission of Burma may not have sold a lot of records in their time, but most everyone who bought one started a band, with such bands as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth citing them as influences. Breaking up in 1983 due to lead guitarist Roger Miller’s tinnitus (made worse by the band’s notoriously loud shows), Mission of Burma was one of the most important bands of its time, and when they reunited for 2004’s ONoffON, documentary filmmakers Jeffrey Iwanicki and David A. Kleiler followed their return, and NOT A PHOTOGRAPH: THE MISSION OF BURMA STORY is the result. When some once-prominent bands come back after several years away, the danger of those bands destroying their legacy with substandard new material often looms large (we’re looking at you, Big Star), but NOT A PHOTOGRAPH proves that Mission of Burma’s return shows that some bands not only never lose what made them great in the first place, but that they’re able to pick it up again after nearly 20 years apart.

…all of these shows will redefine your life as a music and movie fan, and tickets for all are cheap and available HERE!

Austin is lucky enough to be the new home for independent filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, and the Alamo is proud to present his latest film BEESWAX, opening this Friday at our South Lamar theater! Andrew and members of the cast will be appearing on Friday and Sunday to introduce the film, as well as conduct Q&A’s after the screenings! More details on the show page HERE!

Meanwhile, look at the reactions that BEESWAX has received!:

“It’s cause for celebration.”
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Wise and wondrous.”
- V.A. Musetto, New York Post

“A subtle, amusing film filled with charm and spontaneity, [...] creating an acute sense of life being lived before our very eyes.”
- Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times

“This warm, graceful and fundamentally optimistic movie snuck up on me, in the best possible way. For the first half-hour or so, I wasn’t sure what I thought. And then, very suddenly, I realized that I had fallen in love with Jeannie and Merrill, dicklike moments and all, and that if the future of our republic was in their hands we could do a lot worse.”
- Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

“…A remarkably subtle, even elegant movie. Its leisurely scenes and hesitant, circling conversations conceal both an ingenious comic structure and a rich emotional subtext…[Bujalski] is an artist who knows his business.”
-A.O. Scott, New York Times

Set & filmed in Austin, TX by Bujalski (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation), Beeswax centers around twin sisters Jeannie & Lauren (played by real life twins Tilly & Maggie Hatcher, luminous in their first starring roles) living/loving/working & struggling with decisions that will shape the rest of their lives. Jeannie runs a vintage clothing store with an increasingly estranged partner, and a brewing confrontation between them sets the story in motion as Jeannie turns to an ex-boyfriend, Merrill (Alex Karpovsky), who is recently graduated from law school and all too eager to try to fix her problems as a way of ignoring his own…

Jeannie uses a wheelchair, but this isn’t an “inspirational” tale–it may be the first narrative feature with a disabled lead character who’s presented as complex, fully human, and defined by more than limitations. We watch her manage the store & “manage” her crises to the best of her ability, in a story that’s ultimately about how we depend on families–the kind we’re been born into, the kind we build for ourselves, and the beeswax that holds them all together.

Director Andrew Bujalski will be live in person on Friday evening, October 9, and also at the Sunday 4:15 and 7:05 screenings! He’ll do a quick intro and answer questions after the film.

Get your tickets HERE!

There are discounted tickets available to the screening on October 9th for AFS members, please present your membership card at the box office to redeem the discount.