Butt-Numb-A-Thon
| Location | Austin, Texas, United States |
|---|---|
| Hosted by | Harry Knowles |
| Language | English |
Butt-Numb-A-Thon (also known as BNAT) is an annual film marathon held every December since 1999 in Austin, Texas. It is hosted by Harry Knowles of the Ain't It Cool News website in celebration of his birthday. This mini-festival shows 24 hours of vintage films as well as premieres.
The marathon is invite-only via 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 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, Frozen, 300, V for Vendetta, and the 2005 remake of King Kong. Guests have included Mel Gibson, Zack Snyder, Peter Jackson, Seth Rogen, Adam Green, Eli Roth, Craig Brewer, Bill Condon, Vin Diesel, Guillermo Del Toro, Jackie Earle Haley, McG and C. Robert Cargill. Some celebrity guests, such as Eli Roth, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Laura Harris and Elijah Wood have attended the event, even though they may not have any films exhibited. 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.
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