 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.")
What's better than an awesome new horror movie? An awesome new horror movie with a director who'll stick out 24 hours of film in a theater of 250 die-hard movie fans.
"Trick 'r Treat," a comic book-derived horror thriller, was by far my favorite film shown at this weekend's ninth annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon festival - a 24-hour movie marathon that doubles as Austin film guru Harry Knowles' birthday party. On top of getting to see the movie six months before its release, this year's audience (which was hand-picked by Knowles out of more than 7,000 applicants from around the globe) got to have questions answered afterward by the film's writer and director: Michael Doughtery (who also wrote "X2" and "Superman Returns").
Despite being the last film of the festival, which started at noon Saturday and ended at noon Sunday, "Trick 'r Treat" managed to maintain a wide-eyed audience, and lack of sleep may have actually made the film's four interwoven plotlines (all taking place on Halloween) that much more disturbingly surreal. The movie is set to come out just before Halloween. Go see it; you'll be glad you did. If anything, you may get a kick out of the scene in which Anna Paquin randomly turns into the "sexy werewolf" character.
This year was my third time to attend BNAT, and most of my friends say they'd have to get paid to attend such a long movie fest. The enjoyment of the event is widely inexplicable beyond getting to see movies that have never been shown before and being in the same theater as the celebrity-type people who make surprise appearances. In addition, Knowles (who's the head geek of the film gossip site, Ain't it Cool News) always throws in some rare or vintage favorites.
This year we saw Tom Hanks' film "Charlie Wilson's War," set to open in theaters Dec. 21. The movie, which doubled as somewhat of an "America pep rally," was a glimpse into the life of a Texas congressman who worked tirelessly to shoot down the Soviets from the skies of Afghanistan during the Cold War era. Also shown were never-before-seen clips from the new "Rambo," which many attendees were disappointed to find out would not be shown in its entirety.
BNATers were also the first to see footage of next year's "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," and we saw the Russian film "Mongol," a gorgeous movie set in Mongolia. As far as the plot of "Mongol" goes, think "Braveheart" or "300," but with Eskimos instead.
Among my favorite films was Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd," starring Johnny Depp and set to open on Dec. 21. If you can stand a couple hours of straight singing, then there's no reason you wouldn't love the remake of this Broadway musical about a barber who kills people and bakes their remains in pies. My most sincere praise goes to the Alamo Drafthouse kitchen staff for cranking out 250 meat pies during the film, but that wasn't the best time for me to find out whether or not I'm a fan of the meat pie.
A highlight of the event was being one of the first ever to meet the next Pixar heartthrob and star of "Wall-E," which will come out next year. I thought you couldn't get any cuter than "Ratatoullie," but I have a serious crush on Wall-E, a trash-compacting robot who has been doing the same job for more than 700 years. I was blown away by the footage and presentation by two Disney/Pixar reps and wanted to see more of the little robot, who takes on space travel to seek out his female robot lover: Eve. Although the characters never talk, this will by no means be a silent film, as the brilliant minds behind Pixar have accomplished depicting a robot love story through completely different forms of communication than that which the English language provides.
It was around that weird too-early-to-be-up but too-late-to-be-up time that we saw "Farewell Uncle Tom," which was more like getting smothered generously with every single raw detail of American slavery in the 1800s than actually watching a movie. In the 1972 mock documentary, a camera crew is dropped into the middle of a slave plantation and tells a story that is realistic enough to make you think it was a history lesson, grotesque enough to make you cut your breakfast short and racist enough to make you sweat beads. I'm talking about slave ships with thousands of men stacked rib-to-rib with rats chewing at their necks. Disease and death, cages and castration. Brandings, enemas, rape, torture - all in detail. This may be the most depressing film I have ever watched. Thanks, Harry.
But the debauchery-fest that was "Farewell Uncle Tom" by no means takes Harry's birthday cake for having the most shock value. Knowles and Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League continued their tradition of showing the vilest film they can possibly think of right before breakfast.
This year's early-morning film was "Feels So Good," which had been previously presented at the 2006 South by Southwest film festival by director Gary Huggins. The short film is basically a lounge music-style score paired with footage from a vintage medical tape showing the play-by-play of a doctor performing a surgery called membranous urethroplasty on a male patient.
Words can't describe the cringe-worthy nature of this surgical procedure, but it's essentially a totally reconstruction of everything from the urethra to the anus and in between. Huggins, who was in person for the screening, said he "wanted to make something that would send people out of the theater humming," and he got just that. Let's just say I blocked this part of Sunday morning from my memory and most likely won't eat French toast again for a while. The details hurt; Google it if you're still curious.
Between "Feels So Good" and "Trick 'r Treat" I was left with plenty of nightmare-causing memories. But, after being awake for nearly 30 hours straight sitting on my rear in a theater, I'm sure I will sleep just fine.
Harlin is a Latin American studies and journalism senior, and the editor-in-chief of The Daily Texan.
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