Ain't It Cool News (AICN) is an entertainment news website founded by Harry Knowles and run by his sister Dannie Knowles since September 2017, dedicated to news, rumors, and reviews of upcoming and current films, television, and comic book projects, with an emphasis on science fiction, superhero, fantasy, horror, and action genres.
Harry Jay Knowles is an American former film critic and writer known for his website Ain't It Cool News (AICN). Knowles was a member of the Austin Film Critics Association until he was removed in September 2017 "by a substantial majority vote" of the organization following allegations of sexual assault.
Michael Stephenson, known professionally as Michael Paul Stephenson, is an American filmmaker and actor. He is known for directing the critically acclaimed documentaries Best Worst Movie and The American Scream. Michael made his narrative feature debut with Girlfriend’s Day, starring Bob Odenkirk. Michael's latest film, Attack of the Murder Hornets, is an original documentary that he directed and produced for Discovery+. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America.
The Butt-Numb-A-Thon was a film marathon held in Austin, Texas every December from 1999 to 2016. It was hosted by Harry Knowles of the Ain't It Cool News website in celebration of his birthday. The festival showed 24 hours of vintage films as well as premieres.
The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going etiquette.
Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2005 by Tim League of Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, and Tim McCanlies, writer of The Iron Giant and Secondhand Lions.
The Ritz is a historic theater in the 6th Street district in Austin, Texas. The building's history includes use as a movie theater, music hall, club, and comedy house. It reopened after renovations in fall 2007 as the new downtown location for the Alamo Drafthouse. The venue temporarily closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was permanently closed in 2021 when the Alamo Drafthouse filed for bankruptcy. It now currently serves as Joe Rogan’s comedy club, Comedy Mothership.
ActionFest was an annual film festival in Asheville, NC, started by Carolina Cinemas and Magnolia Pictures founder Bill Banowsky and action director/producer Aaron Norris, along with Dennis Berman and Tom Quinn. ActionFest was the first film festival in the world devoted exclusively to action film. It was also the only film festival in the world that honoring stunt performers, filling a void caused by the decision of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences not to recognize stunt men and stunt women in its Academy Awards. ActionFest's stated mission was to "recognize, honor and appreciate the remarkable efforts of these amazing people who risk their lives every day to make Hollywood films look exciting and great."
Drafthouse Films is a film distribution company based in Austin, Texas which releases "provocative, visionary and artfully unusual films new and old from around the world". It was founded in 2010 by Tim League, who had previously founded the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain. Drafthouse Films has released a variety of films since its inception.
Klown is a 2010 Danish comedy film directed by Mikkel Nørgaard, and written by and starring Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen. It was developed from the successful Danish television series of the same name, in which Hvam and Christensen play fictionalized versions of themselves.
Nothing Bad Can Happen is a 2013 German psychological horror drama film directed by Katrin Gebbe. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, following the acquisition of the United States rights by Drafthouse Films.
The FP is a 2011 American comedy film written and directed by Brandon and Jason Trost. The film focuses on two gangs, the 248 and the 245, fighting for control of Frazier Park. The gangs settle their disputes by playing Beat-Beat Revelation, a music video game similar to Dance Dance Revolution. Gang member JTRO trains to defeat L Dubba E, the leader of a rival gang. The film also features Caitlyn Folley, Art Hsu, Nick Principe and Dov Tiefenbach.
The Tribe is a 2014 Ukrainian crime drama film written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. Starring Hryhoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova and Roza Babiy, the film is set in a boarding school for deaf teenage students, where a novice scholar is drawn into an institutional system of organized crime involving robbery and prostitution. He crosses a dangerous line when he falls for one of the girls to whom he's assigned to pimp. The film is entirely in Ukrainian Sign Language and was the first Ukrainian film to be released in many countries around the world.
Colossal is a 2016 science fiction black comedy film directed and written by Nacho Vigalondo. The film stars Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, and Tim Blake Nelson. The film follows an unemployed writer who unwittingly manifests a giant creature in Seoul while struggling with alcoholism and an abusively controlling colleague.
Ant Timpson is a New Zealand film producer best known for producing The ABCs of Death series, Turbo Kid, Deathgasm and The Greasy Strangler. He founded and hosts the 48Hours film contest.
Mondo was an American company known for releasing limited edition screen printed posters for films, television shows, and comics, as well as vinyl movie soundtracks, clothing and apparel, toys, and re-issues of VHS releases. Founded in 2004 as Mondo Tees, the company is a former subsidiary of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain in Austin, Texas, and currently hosts a permanent gallery space there which features original artwork and custom posters.
Neon is an American independent film production and distribution company founded in 2017 by CEO Tom Quinn and Tim League, who also was the co-founder of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema chain. Its first film, Colossal, was released on April 7, 2017. The company is best known for distributing critically acclaimed and award-winning films, such as I, Tonya (2017), Three Identical Strangers (2018), Apollo 11 (2019), Parasite (2019), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), Palm Springs (2020), Flee (2021), Spencer (2021), The Worst Person in the World (2021), All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022), Fire of Love (2022), Triangle of Sadness (2022), and Anatomy of a Fall (2023). Parasite is Neon's highest-grossing film at the worldwide box office with more than $200 million.
Kier-La Janisse is a Canadian film writer, programmer, producer, and founder of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. Her best-known work as a writer is House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films which many critics consider an important milestone in both confessional film writing and the study of female madness onscreen. Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas referred to it as one of the 10 “most vital” horror film books of all time, and Ian MacAllister-McDonald of the LA Review of Books called it “the next step in genre theory, as well as the most frightening and heart-rending memoir I’ve read in years.” Her debut feature as a filmmaker, the three-hour documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, premiered at SXSW 2021 where it won the Midnighters Audience Award.
Giant Pictures is an American film distribution company founded by Nick Savva and Jeff Stabenau with offices in New York City and Los Angeles. The company releases feature films, documentaries and series on streaming platforms, with an emphasis on flexibility and customization for filmmakers. Since 2022 the company has owned and operated the Drafthouse Films label.
