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November 19, 2003

Emails Sent

I just got my email from Tim. There’s not much in it we don’t already know — tickets will be $45, and you must get your ticket by December 1st. On December 1st, he’ll post a list of ticket purchasers. If you’re not on that list, you need to contact him immediately or lose your place.

One new point:

“We have a big change from last year… THERE WILL BE NO CAMERAS OR VIDEOCAMERAS ALLOWED AT ALL. I know this kinda sucks, but it’s a hard rule.”

Oh, and Harry wants birthday presents.

November 17, 2003

Tickets On Sale!

Yep, tickets are on sale now. Run, scurry, and purchase! (Thanks to Nordling for the heads up in comments.)

Books Into Movies

(Thanks to my wife’s bookclub ) I just finished Carter Beats The Devil and it’s apparent that Glen David Gold wrote this with a feature film in mind. It’s already been optioned by Paramount for Cruise/Wagner and Robert Towne so my desire for it becoming a film is likely to be realized.

Any other books out there just begging for adaptation?

November 14, 2003

Email Update

Harry speaks over at Aint It Cool News — Tim’s apparently been collecting movies and is away from his computer, thus the lack of emails. Also: he thinks tickets will be about the same as last year. Lengthier quote follows, or just read the update.

“HARRY HERE with an update! You’re probably wondering why you haven’t received an email regarding tickets yet. The reason is quite simple. Tim League has been driving across the United States gathering a gigantic load of 35 mm film prints from obscure cubby holes. These strange mountain locations are not wired for web, and he is supposed to be back very soon. Next day or so. When he gets back there are two things at the top of his list. 1- Email you folks. 2- Email me with the list of booty he picked up so I can see if he found that miracle last film that’s a hole in line-up. Ie - I have the whole 24 hours programmed with the exception of 1 film, and I’ve got to find that perfect obscure work of coolness with which to pull the whole damn thing together with! Hang on! Tickets should be right around what they were last year, I’m just waiting to hear the final tally on what the YEARBOOK thing will run us and if it is worth it, which I genuinely hope it will be… I’ve put too much work into this already! OK… now back to what was already written….”

Obscure Movies

One of my favorite things about BNAT was catching old films I had never heard of. Night Warning was a special treat — though I readily admit it that it’s schlock, it was enjoyable campy schlock. Harry seems reticent to commit to BNAT6 and beyond (and he certainly doesn’t need our help picking out obscure films) but let’s give up some suggestions for future BNAT or Drafthouse events.

I was introduced to Twice Upon a Time in college and was ecstatic. It was my first experience with a full-lenth animated film that was not for kids. Several people have only seen the edited version of this film that is still availablt on VHS, I think. That version is nothing like the original which is kinda crude and hilarious. Check out this synopsis on my rarely updated media blog.

November 13, 2003

Etrigan, The Evil Blog Czar

I’ve edited comments in a few posts and I’ll apologize up front. Harry’s gone to a lot of trouble to make BNAT special by getting us exclusive access to films — some of which have yet to even be released. Someone in the industry went out on a limb to get these prints to Harry, and while we may not like their current work that person may someday do something really cool that we’ll want to see — and if we hurt their feelings or make them feel like BNAT/AICN/Drafthouse can’t be trusted with sneak preview films they may decide to pass us by for another city/group.

I know that other groups out there on the web have openly named these films and I may be fighting a loosing battle, but I don’t want to be the one damaging Harry or BNAT’s reputation.

So, please refer to that Gary Oldman film as “Greenboots” (because we got to see the green boots) and BNAT3, BNAT4 and hopefully BNAT5’s grand finales as “Salome and it’s sequels”.

My only prediction

I spend a vast amount of time every year guessing what movies will be shown at BNAT. In four years in a row I believe that I have been right once (maybe twice).

This year I will make only one guess.

Here is my only BNAT prediction: Someone involved from the last movie shown will be in attendance this year.

Getting into town

For anyone coming into Austin for BNAT:

I am a cab driver here in town and will be happy to pick up anyone who needs a ride from the airport. Also to take anyone out on the town once they have arrived.

E-mail me at rod@paperstreet.tv and I’ll give out the number to call or schedule a pick up.

With my day driver a cab will be avalible 24/7, and I’ll be giving discounts to any BNAT attendees.

Worst BNAT Movie?

We have all been (and will continue to be) kissing Harry’s ass until at least sometime the afternoon of December 7th. That is probably as it should be, but take a step back and talk about the worst movie you’ve seen at BNAT.

Originally, I thought “Greenboots” might be the worst (and it has nothing to do with the fact that it was basically unfinished/unpolished.) However, I am compelled to put House of 1000 Corpses as my nomination. I have ruminated on why I disliked this film so much, and I still don’t have a definite answer. Partly, my feelings derive from the expectations that come with a movie brought to the screen by such an ominous cult figure paired with the let-down of the (lack of) story. Also, I am pretty sure this film was supposed to be scary but at no point was I emotionally moved (other than getting hot over Sheri Moon…which is something I share with Rob Zombie since he married her) — and I’m the guy who was terrified at Event Horizon. It could have just been how overwhelmed I was by it’s absurdity. I can’t nail down my reason, but it has to be my least favorite.

November 12, 2003

OT: Wireless at the Drafthouse

This may be a little OT1 but I figure I won’t be the only net-savvy BNATer who feels like discussing it.

Now that the Drafthouse is officially a WiFi zone I am considering bringing my notebook so I can blog and email between films. Not to mention the convenience of pulling photos from my camera showing the inevitable progression to dishevlement that will afflict us BNATers. The problem arises that using a notebook for 24 hours — even in fits — requires power that can’t easily be achieved with one or even two batteries.

Any ideas on how we can address this as a group? Communal notebooks? Should we ask Tim for a communal power strip? (and come up with a rotating queue and time limits for use?)

1 hover over abbreviations in my posts if you don’t know what they mean.

What's Your BNAT History?

Post your BNAT history.

I was ignorant about BNAT the First, only finding out about it several months afterward. BNAT2 appeard in my vision a week after I missed it. I was unable to leave work to get in line for BNAT3 tickets. My wife will have to tell the story of getting me tickets for BNAT4. I had a good friend come into town who doesn’t like horror films (I know — why is he my friend, again? ;p ) so I missed out on the all-night horror gig. BNAT4 was all the things I love about all the Drafthouse special events I’ve been to, but concentrated in both culture and time-span. So, I’m only a sophomore — but a very excited one.

November 11, 2003

Bryant's Essay

Since smallerdemon showed us his, I figure I’ll go ahead and post mine.

OK, Harry, here’s the scoop. This is me:

And this is my good pal and partner in crime Jamie:

You can see why I’m in black and white and he’s in color. It’s just one of those things.

OK. You wanted a picture that expresses who I am. There’s a lot of places I could go with that, but what the hell… here’s St. George-in-the-East.

What the hell? Am I British? Why an old church?

I took this photo while I was in London in 1999; an important part of my visit was my pilgrimage to every single Nicholas Hawksmoor church in London. Hawksmoor was a dangerous man, for his time, building all these funky churches with Grecian mathematical ratios and suchlike pagan homages. You could read Alan Moore’s From Hell to get the low down on old Nicholas, and Moore does it better than I could, but suffice it to say I think Hawksmoor’s sense of proportion and form was rebellious and angry and that his buildings are punk architecture. Never mind the Sex Pistols, here come the 18th century architects. I dig a guy who did his own thing and made it beautiful no matter what anyone else thought of him.

Ever onward…

I live in Boston, Massachusetts. I’m 33. I want to come to BNAT because, frankly, I made it to #2 and it was a total blast. I’ve never had so much fun at the movies. I didn’t get any sleep, I freaked out at the weird Busby Berkeley musical with watermelon, and I generally had a good time. Plus I want to find out if that breakfast was as good as I thought it was, or if I was just starving my ass off and anything would have tasted good.

It was special, to me, flying into Austin for no reason other than to see movies. It was like a little time capsule taking me out of my everyday job and putting me someplace I’d never been before. I want to recapture that feeling, that sense of discovery. Cause in the end, that’s what makes me happy — seeing things I’ve never seen before. (There’re the Hawksmoor churches again.)

All right, what else I got? Favorite movie? Brazil, without question. It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen but it changed my eyes forever. Before Brazil, I didn’t understand that movies could be transgressive horrible compelling life-changing experiences. I didn’t get that movies weren’t safe. I mean, I’d been seeing family flicks and good Disney animation and all that nice teen stuff and WHAM holy shit what the hell is Terry Gilliam doing? Good times. It will always be my favorite movie. It was the first DVD I bought, in the holy Criterion three DVD case.

What do I do? I’m the Director of Technical Operations for Turbine Entertainment. We make MMORPGs — and I gotta say, my job is a geek’s dream.

And, um, I dunno if you’re cooler than Moriarty. Didn’t really sit down with either of you last time. That may blow my chances, but what the hell, it’s true.

That’s me. On to Jamie Lewandowski, depraved film student.

Whoops, I guess I gave away what he does. He’s studying communications at USF — I used to live in California, during the dot-com boom, which is where I met the guy. He’s around my age, 32. Genuinely good guy. You know how a lot of people will make with the little lies to smooth things over? Jamie is the kind of guy who says “Dude, your girlfriend is kind of a dog.” Not to insult me, but just in case I hadn’t noticed, in a friendly kind of way. This is making him sound terrible, isn’t it?

But I’d rather hang out with him than just about anyone. He came along with me to that BNAT so long ago, and now every year we have this tradition where we do whatever we gotta do to submit our names to you and pray we get in and call each other when we don’t get in and make disappointed noises. It’s been good times so far, but we’re hoping you screw up our plans this year and let us in. I’m not sure how we’d react.

Oh, and I will once again do the puppy eyes thing and point out that he’s in California and I’m in Boston (which I whined about last year, but what the hell) so this is like our big chance to get together in a cool fulfilling film geek kind of a way.

He says, on the phone, “I don’t know what my favorite movie is — that’s a really tough question. This year? Lost in Translation was really good. All time? Um… Big Trouble in Little China is always a good fallback, but I dunno… crap. Tell Harry it’s Jackie Brown. I just watched it again and it was better than Pulp Fiction and I liked it a lot, so tell him Jackie Brown. But tell him the question is ass, there’s no way to answer that one.” See what I mean about how he doesn’t hold back?

Of course, he doesn’t like Geena Davis, so what the hell does he know?

So. That’s me, and that’s Jamie, and there are the pictures, and there’s what I think is important about us. He’s without Internet right now, so he had to go scramble all over San Francisco to get me that picture. OK, that’s not really all that much of a hardship, but — we wanna go to BNAT.

Magic word?

Please.

BNATers On The Web

Here’s some links I’ve dredged up (long hard work, that Google thing) of BNATers.

  • [link] smallerdemon at livejournal (including headshots, essay and state of mind pic)
  • [link] and [link] DarG’s photo albums from BNAT4
  • [link] BNAT4 paraphenelia on sale at CafePress

Anyone got anymore? (Rod, Tim - where are your photo albums?)

BNAT Etiquette

Here’s a few related questions:

  • what movies can we discuss from previous BNATs?
  • what movies are off-limits?
  • do we have to refer to certain films (Salome, Boring Depressing Dwarves) indirectly?

BNAT Message Board

There’s a fairly active BNAT message board available. Thrill to the offers of foot massage!

November 09, 2003

Our pictures

Be sure to check out the page that has all our pictures on it. I can’t wait for the yearbook! It’s just like high school except no-one’s seriously called me a “fag” in years.

Up and running

As usual with a fresh blog, I’ve got a lot of work to do before I’m happy with the appearance of it but it is functional.

If you want to have an account on this blog (which assumes that you are one of the people going to BNAT5), try sending me an email at spamaway(a)rollerfeet.com — if you don’t get a response from me in 24 hours, post a comment here with your email address.

If you have an account and want to be all fancy with your posts, be sure to read about Brad Choate’s MT Textile plugin that we use extensively on Rollerfeet.com.

Some tips for first time users:

  • if you upload images, please make sure they are small (much less than 100k, preferrably)
  • if you have a long post, put a short header in the “Entry Body” section, then put the rest of your post in the “Extended Entry” section. I don’t usually use the “Excerpt” field, but if you find it useful tell me how.
  • If the site doesn’t look right or you have a suggestions, let me know and I’ll address it as quickly as I can.
  • And alway feel free to ask me for help if you want. I may be surly, but I’m always excited to expand horizons — yours and mine.