Father Geek's BNAT X Wrap-Up!

Fathergeek here... still. The Butt-numb-a-thon experience for those of you that have never attended is sooooooo much more than just watching some flicks, that my friends is available many times and at many places. Nooooo, BNAT is about people... friends... film geeks from all over the world... a small band (200+) of dead-icated, bonded, film watching adventurers based out of Austin, Texas... LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Minn.-St. Paul, Portland, Canada, England, Holland, Germany, Ireland, China, annnnd dozens of other locations sprinkled around this planet we all share. Sure we lock ourselves in a room for a consentrated, overdose of film watching. The old, new, & future (we-don't-know-what in advance), buuuut really we're there for a shared experience, to rub shoulders with comrades-of-arms (eye balls?), a bonding of geekdom that knows no like politics, no set boundries, no common tastes of food, drink, education, sex, or even film genre. All we know for sure is that as different as everyone in that room is... we are all... underneath...inside... the same. The 1st bnatters started to arrive in Austin a full week in advance. On Monday some out-of-towners began watching films like "Slumdog Millionaire," "Grand Torino," and "The Wrestler" in HD 1080 glory on the phantastic 13' screen on Harry's livingroom wall. By Thursday evening 75+ of us had gathered at Threadgill's (downtown) to celebrate Harry's actual birthday with a feast of southern roadhouse cooking. (including some who could not attend BNAT) Plenty of brew, too. I consummed a mountain of fried chicken livers, a "Devil's tower" worth of chunky mashed potatos, 2 plates of Texas caviar(blackeyed pea salad) and 2 more plates of fresh buttered carrots, a large bowl of heavy peppered country gravy and a healthy slice of strawberry-rubarb pie. Got up about 7:30 am Friday to psych myself up for the annual orgy of bagging gifts for all those attending BNAT. Swung by Harry's to pick him up about 10:30 to head on down to the Alamo South. We arrived to find about 20+ out-of-towners already stuffing coolness into poster tubes, large paper shopping bags, and outstanding Dreamwork's "Monsters Vs. Aliens" canvas shoulder strap bags. About a dozen of the workers were from the Minn.-St. Paul area along with a couple each from Ireland and Canada. There were No super hi-end items like last year's HD DVD players or the Atari Game Systems everyone got a few years back. However, in addition to the regular swag; piles of T-shirts,(Benj. Buttons, Monsters Vs Aliens. Valkyrie etc...) ballcaps, bottle openers, toys, and movie posters everyone this year was getting one of the canvas bags crammed full of $250.00 + worth of great graphic novels. These included the $57 boxed HBK for "Trick 'r Treat;" "Scarface, Devil in Disguise;" "Doomed" with stories by Matheson & Bloch; "Hell House" by Richard Matheson; "30 Days of Night" by Steve Niles; the HBK "Tales of Terror" by Niles & others; "ZVR Complete" by Ryall-Wood; "I Am Legend" by Matheson; "Snaked" by Meth-Dayglo-Wood; Gene Simmon's "House of Horrors"; plus more. Everyone got Frazetta's great "Fire & Ice" DVD, a "Tropic Thunder DVD and others.(found a "Walle" triple disc in my bag and some got "Indiana Jones" 3 pacs) By 4pm we were finished packing. Then Friday evening starting about 5:30 pm we started to get-together for the offical BNAT kick-off party (once again including some non-bnatters) at Austin's historic political wateringhole SCHOLZ'S BEER GARTEN, a huge indoor-outdoor bar-barbeque joint that's been in continous operation since 1866. LBJ, O'Henry, J. Frank Dobie, Earl Cambell, Walter Prescott Webb, the Bushes, and toooooo many famous politicans & poets, artists & intellectuals, writers & sports heros, and yes, movie personalities to name here have leaned on its beautiful bars downing gallons of the finest Texas and German beer over the last 140+ years. Great Texas Bar-B-Q, too. I filled myself with hot German red cabbage, steamed broccoli, a giant spud stuffed with fine smoked pulled-pork, Elgin garlic sausage, brown German mustard, fresh ground horseradish, and peach cobbler. Attending? Approx. 125 !! Then BNAT from 11 am Saturday to 1:30 pm Sunday. Coolness others will write about in detail over at aintitcool.com. I'm a history nut, sooooo this year's program really got my attention. Wallace Beery's fantastic turn as 1910-14 Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa with Faye Wray as the lovely aristocrat he pursued unsuccessfully in "Viva Villa" started things off with a bang. Great classic entertainment. Huge battle scenes, public whippings, and honey soaked, ant mound staked, back stabbing generals helps makeup for the lack of much true history in this old school, pre-pc Hollywood epic. The next film up starts right were Villa's time line ends. David Fincher's stunningly brilliant "Benjamin Button" features outstanding makeup concept and design by a large staff including Greg Cannon, Will Huff, and Peter Abrahamson. Set in turn of the century New Orleans it is a beautiful yet heart wrenching phantasmagorical tale that follows Brad Pitt's lead character from advanced oldage to the moments proceeding birth. From Teddy Roosevelt thru World War II we follow the interconnecting lives of Pitt's Benjamin and Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond, & Tilda Swinton's characters. Several young actors spell Pitt from time to time and Cate uses a handful of ballet "stunt" girls, buuuut all the body double work is natural and seamless. The makeup effects work is the real star here. That, and the intriguing script by Eric Roth. This motion picture is easily worth all the praise its been getting. The next two features to hit the BNAT screen came real close to just continuing the timeline. They were 1943's Zoltan Korda (Jungle Book, Thief of Bagdad, Four Feathers) WWII lost patrol-esque "Sahara," followed by the Christopher McQuarrie (Usual Suspects) penned WWII historical thriller "Valkyrie." Though seperated by 65 years and tons of film making changes in technique the movies are a really good pairing. "Sahara" is set in the early mid 40's N. Africa and the historical event in "Valkyrie" actually occured on July 20,1944. Both films are high on drama with only a medium action level. Korda and Singer have simular directing backgrounds and tastes, and both have large "A" list male casts. "Sahara" has Humphrey Bogart, Jeff & Beau's dad Lloyd Bridges, Rex Ingram, J. Carrol Naish, Dan Duryea, & Bruce Bennett."Valkyrie" uses Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Eddie Izzard, & Tom Wilkinson. The drama ends badly for most of both casts and they each have moments of real grit. Rex Ingram's hand to hand to the death struggle with the Nazi zealot is one of the best, most real ever captured on film. When the plans fall apart for Cruise and company the tension is downright smothering. Different, yet alike, I loved both of these. You can't go wrong watching either one. The next film I'm going to approach from this year's BNAT lineup is one of the most important motion pictures ever made, Fritz Lang's 1927 "Metropolis."This was the 1984 Giorgio Moroder color tinted restored version. (Rare and hard to see today) This 35mm print from a private collection was beautiful with great sound. The score features 80's pop standards like "Blood from a Stone", Destruction", "What's Going On?", "Love Kills", and "Cage of Freedom." The music of course dates the flick and missing is all the recently discovered footage in new Kino and Criterion DVDs, buuuuut what this print did do was open writer Thea Von Harbou's important messages of social upheavel and workers rights up to a whole new generation of viewers who would never have seen Brigitte Helm's stunning performance in its original silent format. About 4/5s of the BNAT audience had never seen this version and were sitting on the edge of their seats throughout the late-night screening. It rocked... hard! Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant, Pat Benatar and company did their job. While I greatly enjoyed all the great 3-D extended footage from "Coraline", "Monsters Vs Aliens", "UP", and seeing the whole new 3-D feature "My Bloody Valentine", Sam Fuller's classic "White Dog", "I Love You Man", and the phantastic extended clips from "Watchmen" and "Terminator" I'm going to fast forward to the final film of the fest... ...Steven Soderbergh's epic telling of "CHE. " What we were treated to at BNAT was basically what showed at Cannes this year, two 2hour+ segments with an intermission between them. I was worried about this closing out the fest, a basically sub-titled, Spanish language film running close to 5 hours, basically a one man carried show (Julia Ormond does show up), but those fears were soon put to rest. Benicio del Toro is brilliant. After 24 hours of film watching I didn't doze off once during "Che", neither did the people on either side of me. Called by some "Che: the Antiglobalist" Soderbergh's film congers up an authentic feel of the hardships of a life on the run and the brutal nature and psychological drain of guerrilla warfare. It reminded me in many ways of Ang Lee's 1999 civil war era movie "Ride with the Devil" and last year's great Andrew Dominik directed motion picture "The Assassination of Jesse James." "Che" is action packed with lots of firefights (big and little, both urban & jungle) and a fantastic train derailment, but what appealed to me most was the getting-inside Che's head nature of the film. It was adapted by Peter Buchman and Soderbergh from Ernesto Guevara's "Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War." And having lived thru that era; the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Che's United Nations appearance, Angola, etc... Old Fathergeek found "Che" incredibly interesting, entertaining, and informative... even on the tailend of 26 hours of film. What'd I have to eat and drink during all those screenings? How did I keep the old furnaces stoaked? The brain alert and fine tuned? Well, in order, a large fresh orange juice, a 3-cheese grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of choc. covered espresso beans, a large bowl of Beer Chili, a glass of straight vodka, some caviar with cream cheese, a giant bowl of goat milk cheese salad with walnuts, spinach, cranberrys, etc..., Shiner bock black label, more choc. espresso beans, a Constant Gardener veggie sandwich, a large espresso milk shake, a plate of Molten Choc. Choc. cake, a free Miller Highlife, another fresh orange juice, a cup of triple espresso, Cream burlee French toast, some fresh fruit & berries, a Negra Modelo... Went home and caught 5 hours sleep... phone rings... leave to meet a group of out-of-town-bnat-types (Canada & LA) with Harry & Patricia at the lakeside "Hula Hut" @ 8 pm for Thai fajetas in groovy plum and peanut sauce on a bed of long grained wild rice and black beans, fresh carrot shavings, and mango chunks... Now (Monday), I must leave to meet with Harry and a Toronto bnatter for breakfast, etc.... some are hanging till Wednesday... I guess our little 24 hour fest will end then??? Just toooo much fun!!! Note: Tuesday we took some Canadian BNAT attendees to the world famous Salt Lick bar-b-q joint outside of Austin near Driftwood, Texas for their signature all-you-can-eat-family-style feasting... as I said, BNAT has a life of its own... it just doesn't want to end.