Butt-Numb-A-Thon

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Butt-Numb-A-Thon (also known as BNAT) is an annual film marathon held every December since 1999. It is hosted by Harry Knowles of the Ain't it Cool News website to celebrate his birthday. This mini-festival shows 24 hours of vintage films as well as premieres. The marathon is invite-only with an application process. Before BNAT 5 in 2003, there were typically two ways to gain admittance -- one for Austin residents that usually involved some event (such as BNAT 4 in 2002 having a costume contest at a horror movie screening at an abandoned mental institution on Halloween), then a separate one for those not in the Central Texas area. After BNAT 5, the application process was changed to be internet-only involving several essay-style questions and submissions of pictures, which is then used to create a yearbook with all the registered attendees. Competition to get in is fierce, as 10,000 or more applicants attempt to gain one of the approximately 200 seats. This system was put into place to ensure that only die-hard film fans would be in attendance as well as to be fair, as attendance is limited to the seating capacity of the Alamo Drafthouse.

Films that have been shown include the first public screening of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, as well as the The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Dreamgirls, Chicago, Black Snake Moan, Snatch, Magnolia, Knocked Up, 300, V for Vendetta, and both the original King Kong and the 2005 remake. Guests have included Mel Gibson, Zack Snyder, Peter Jackson, Seth Rogen, Eli Roth, Craig Brewer, Bill Condon, Vin Diesel, and Guillermo Del Toro. Some celebrity guests, such as Eli Roth, attend even though they may not have any films exhibiting but rather for the love of the event. Though he was not present for the screening of King Kong in 2005, Peter Jackson introduced the film with a video-taped message in which he was seen pointing at various locations inside the Drafthouse theater, such as the stage area and specific seats, showing intimate knowledge of the theater from previous visits.

While BNAT has been home to numerous special screenings and celebrity guest appearances, as much or more significant to explaining the thrust and tone of this event is the many other movies that have been screened, as well as the unique impact of seeing 12-13 films and 30-40 vintage film trailers back-to-back over a 24 hour period without ever leaving the confines of the movie theater. For every premiere or widely known classic that has been shown there has been a forgotten gem, a tiny independent work, a foreign title or a film that is unlikely to receive a public screening in any other venue due to content that would generally be considered perverse, disgusting or a reflection of cultural sensitivities no longer considered unacceptable. The event has also been characterized by such novel surprises as having a live jug band accompaniment to Buster Keaton's silent classic The General, the delivery of fresh meat pies to attendees during the early screening of Sweeney Todd and the use of electrically shocking devices to zap sleeping audience members during an intentionally interminable 3:00 am viewing of 1950s creaker-classic Attack of the Gila Monster.[citation needed]

Butt-Numb-A-Thon is held annually in Austin, Texas, at the Alamo Drafthouse downtown location. In 2007, BNAT 9 was held at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz location at 310 E. Sixth Street in Austin on December 8-9.

On June 24, 2007, as an acknowledgment of the last days of the Alamo Drafthouse's original downtown location (409 Colorado St, Austin, TX, USA) Harry Knowles hosted a hastily assembled half-birthday marathon titled Half-Ass-A-Thon. Half-Ass-A-Thon was to initially only show four features, but by unanimous vote of the audience the marathon was extended to five features.

[edit] Past Films

Feature films are listed in bold. Trailers are listed in italics. All other items are annotated as appropriate.

  • 1999:

Plan 9 from Outer Space, Magnolia, Song of the South, Fritz the Cat, Fade to Black, Phantom of the Paradise, Calling All Girls, Giant Gila Monster, Pitch Black, Daughters of Dracula, Tron & Six String Samurai

  • 2000:

Destination Mars, The Hobbit, The Gift, The Sea Wolf, Wonder Bar, Snatch, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, Robocop, Shogun Assassin, Santa Claus' Story & Ed Gein

  • 2001:

Fiend Without a Face, The Majestic, Rock All Night, King Kong, Vanilla Sky, Cabin in the Sky, Blood Feast 2, Terror of Tiny Town & The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

  • 2002:

The Mask of Fu Manchu, Chicago, Machine Gun Kelly, Odds Against Tomorrow, Crippled Avengers, Night Warning, May, Dust and Blood (short film) House of 1000 Corpses, Tiptoes, Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (partial screening) & The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers





FEATURE FILMS. etc:


    • The Poughkeepsie Tapes* (director/writer John Erick Dowdle, wife/star Stacy Chbosky, and writer Drew Dowdle attended but were unable to speak as scheduled due to studio demands)

EXCLUSIVE CLIPS

INTENDED FILMS

    • Rambo* - Unable to be shown due to missing special effects
    • Cloverfield* - Unable to be shown due to short notice and shipping error
    • Fanboys* - Unable to be shown due to being in re-shoots


* Previously unreleased features.

[edit] External links