Tim League Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Tim League founded the Alamo Drafthouse with his wife Karrie in Austin, Texas back in 1997, and since then it's become a mainstay for mainstream films with a brisk sideline business for film geeks who require a steady diet of sci-fi, horror, fantasy, Asian, cult and ... the plain weird flicks. They've become known for their offbeat programming as much as they are for the fact that you can get a cheeseburger and a pint of beer during the movie, and this week marks the start of their fifth annual Fantastic Fest film festival.

Besides being the owner of the Alamo Drafthouse, League founded the fest with Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Matt Dentler, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies. These days, League is usually busier than "an octopus with hives," as my uncle used to say, but we caught up with him during the relative calm before the hurricane of film geekery and all-day screenings begins. Read on after the break for the full interview, and of course stay tuned to Cinematical for all of your Fantastic Fest news.

Although circumstances dictate that I don't attend nearly as many film festivals as my colleagues do, it soon became clear that my last-minute decision to head out for last year's Fantastic Fest was a wise one. FF veterans were quick to note that the event had grown in proportion to its popularity, and the relatively young festival has similarly changed things up in its fifth year out of hopes of accommodating even more attendees than ever before.

However, this is not a think-piece about a mid-level film festival struggling with the limitations of stardom. No, this will merely be a list of seven reasons why we at Cinematical and the Squads are about to very much dwell on Fantastic Fest for the week to come -- well, seven reasons other than the movies.

We'll get around to those in due time.

I have a special place in my heart for Fantastic Fest because it was the first film festival I attended and covered professionally, for Cinematical back in 2005, the year the fest started. The 2005 fest was a long weekend of genre films, attended by a small enough crowd that you felt you knew everyone there by the time it was over. Since then, Fantastic Fest has expanded to nine days, added all kinds of crazy parties and events, become notorious for "secret screenings" that premiered films such as Southland Tales and There Will Be Blood, and introduced filmgoers to any number of international science-fiction, horror, animated, and other "fantastic" films.

In its fourth year, Fantastic Fest has grown so large and popular that its opening-night festivities moved from the genre festival's traditional Austin venue, the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, over to the Paramount, a hundred-year-old theater in the middle of downtown that seats about 1200 people. The theater was packed for the opening-night film, the U.S. premiere of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and writer-director Kevin Smith was also on hand.

The venue may have been the Paramount, but the minute the lights went down and a vintage trailer for Thunder Cops appeared onscreen, it felt like Fantastic Fest. Festival co-founder Tim League appeared onstage in a bright kimono, with a giant gong next to him, and announced, "With a stroke of this gong, I am about to declare this festival ... awesome!" Kevin Smith then introduced his film with a long and bizarre story about how he recently broke a toilet, then confessed that this had nothing to do with the film, he just wanted to tell the story.

In comparison with film festival veterans, I'm a newbie: I've attended all or part of about two dozen over the past five years. I've yet to make it to Cannes, Toronto or Sundance, but I've gone to regional fests, Asian fests, homegrown fests run entirely by volunteers and big city fests sponsored by large corporations. With all these fests, I've come to expect different things: red carpet premieres and well-known stars at the bigger ones, great enthusiasm and excitement for the films at the smaller ones. Fantastic Fest in Austin, which concluded its third edition this past Thursday, walks another line entirely.

Our own Scott Weinberg described it as "the slickest, screwiest, most user-friendly genre festival this side of the continent." (We'll get to Scott and the unexpected pleasures of the game show he hosted later in this article.) Allow me to explain further: the festival is held at the Alamo Drafthouse (South Lamar location), a multiplex where, yes, you can order food and drinks from your seat, but, more important, all the auditoriums are superb screening facilities. Any projection glitches are fixed quickly and the sound is cranked up as loud as it should be.

Three of the six auditoriums were set aside for the festival, and clearly marked lines were set up in the lobby so you knew where to stand while waiting for your next movie. The staff and volunteers are friendly, well trained, knowledgeable and willing to share opinions on movies if they can spare a moment. It's a huge advantage to have all the festival screenings at one location, especially an exceptionally well-run facility with plenty of free parking. This gives Fantastic Fest a tremendous leg up on other well-meaning though poorly-organized festivals I've attended.

Talk about a "bad news / good news" situation! I'll just give you a little recap and then turn you over to Tim League, the mega-movie-nerd who, along with his lovely wife Karrie, created what became known as "the best movie theater in the country." (I said it first, Entertainment Weekly agreed with me a few years later.) Anyway, the Original Alamo Drafthouse, that blissful oasis of movie geekery that's been wedged in downtown Austin for almost precisely a decade, is closing its doors later this year. Yep, the one that started it all (there are now numerous locations, my favorite being the Drafthouse South Lamar, because they offer the Alamo Magic combined with first-run movies) is about to close its doors forever.

But before you start weeping uncontrollably (as I did before reading the whole letter), you should know that the downtown location will soon be located only a few blocks away ... in an old movie palace ... and they'll be adding a second screen! Awesome! So while it's obviously very sad that the original Drafthouse (which I fell in love with five years ago while covering my first SXSW) will be disappearing, this new venue represents a very big and very exciting step forward for the Alamo posse. They'll be moving into a theater known as The Ritz, and I'm told it's a very classy building that could really use a fresh coat of paint and a whole lot of movie-love.

Frankly I think this is seriously awesome news. The Alamo Downtown is (of course) a phenomenal venue, but it's wedged right between a few rather bombastic night clubs, plus I think it's probably a little too small these days. 80% of the time I've spent at the Alamo Downtown has been in mega-packed houses, and I know from personal experience that Mr. League really hates turning patrons away because of capacity restraints. Even when they're showing free midnight movies, this guy HATES turning people away.

Bittersweet news, of course, but onwards and upwards, right? Everyone here at Cinematical wishes the Leagues nothing but great success as they switch over from "Downtown" to "Ritz" -- and if you plan to be in Austin any time over the next few months, I heartily recommend you head to 4th and Colorado and enjoy the original Drafthouse before it's (sniff) gone forever. If you see me there and you're a female, I'll probably buy you a beer. (Tim's press release / goodbye letter is included after the jump.)

I'd like to introduce a new Cinematical column, IndieSeen, which will focus weekly on various aspects of independent filmmaking, distribution, and exhibition. Maybe I'll interview a woman who shot a feature in her basement for under $200, maybe I'll ruminate on well-known actors who built careers on non-studio films, or maybe I'll look at the latest alternate method of film distribution. But for my first column, I'm going to talk about a studio-produced film ... one that received a theatrical release that most indie filmmakers wouldn't envy. Perhaps it's a lesson about the virtues of making a film independently.

The Mike Judge film Idiocracy has had one of the weirdest theatrical releases ever. Twentieth Century Fox considered postponing the release indefinitely, then decided at the last minute to give the film an extremely limited run in only six U.S. cities, which did not include New York. The studio did not publicize the movie one bit: no trailers, no ads, and only two stills from 2004 that everyone on the internet used in their online reviews. Overall, the film did only moderate business after its Sept. 1 release, and quickly faded from the public eye.

However, Idiocracy is still playing in two theaters, at least for the next week: Regency Academy 6 in Pasadena, CA, and Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar in Austin, TX. My husband and I decided to see the movie again last Sunday night, figuring it might be our last chance, and assuming we'd be two of maybe a half-dozen people in the theater. We were amazed to have to stand in line to get in, and we estimated 50 people in the audience, which is a good count for any theater on a Sunday night at 9:45 pm. I noticed that a number of other people had seen the film before, because they were anticipating the gags -- is Idiocracy attracting a small cult of fans?

In between watching movies at Fantastic Fest, meeting a bunch of new people, watching more movies, drinking too many of Alamo Drafthouse's chocolate milkshakes, and trying to find wireless internet connections, I took a few photos around the festival.



All the Fantastic Fest films were screened at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. Two of the festival's organizers, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies, told me that they were inspired to pitch the festival idea to Alamo founder Tim League when the six-screen South Lamar location opened in early 2005. They loved the idea of a film festival that took place in a single location, so you didn't have to worry about driving around town to several different venues, finding parking, and trying to figure out how to find time to eat (Alamo serves meals). They were successful: Fantastic Fest was one of the least stressful film festivals I've attended.