2007 Butt-Numb-a-Thon lineup.

What is Butt-Numb-A-Thon? It's sort of a film festival put on by Aint-It-Cool-News in Austin, Texas where they play a lot of cult and unreleased films. They play these films back-to-back, 24 hours straight, hence the name. What makes the festival so unique is that no one besides Aint-It-Cool's Harry Knowles knows what the films are going to be playing.

I attended Butt-Numb-A-Thon 3 back in 2001 and had a blast. I got to see Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring nearly a whole month early, but my favorite film of the evening was the Roger Corman quickie Rock All Night. With an hour running time, Rock All Night has some of the best tough-guy dialogue I had ever heard, a hilarious phony beatnik poseur named 'Sir Bop', and last but not least, a youthful Dick Miller (Murray Futterman from Gremlins) in all his sarcastic glory. After that screening, I have probably watched Rock All Night 100 times. Apparently, the movie also inspired Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to make Grindhouse.

Here are the films that played this past Saturday/Sunday:

The Great McGinty
Charlie Wilson's War
Pickup on South Street
Mongol
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Sweeney Todd
Lonely are the Brave
The Poughkeepsie Tapes
Teen Lust
The City on The Edge of Forever (episode of Star Trek, broadcast in HD)
Farewell Uncle Tom
Trick 'r Treat

Making up the new films this year were Charlie Wilson's War, Mongol, Sweeney Todd, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and Trick 'r Treat. Nice, but not quite as remarkable considering that last year, they screened a 90% completed version of 300. Rumor has it, they were supposed to play JJ Abrams Cloverfield, too, but the print got lost in the mail. Ha.

I'll definitely have to catch the new films that played, except for Sweeney Todd, which I've already seen.

But the films that intrigue me the most are the older ones. You better believe that Farewell Uncle Tom and The Great McGinty are at the top of my Netflix queue.

Might have to pass on Teen Lust, however.