Red Carpet Wrangle

August is proving to a pileup of big-time movie premieres in Austin, with Robert Rodriguez' kiddie film Shorts getting a big to-do – including a downtown carnival – on Aug. 16 and Mike Judge's workplace comedy Extract premiering Tuesday, Aug. 18 with Judge and star Jason Bateman in attendance. Beating them both to the punch is the just-announced premiere of Inglourious Basterds on Aug. 15 at the Alamo Ritz. Basterds is, of course, the rabidly anticipated new film from Quentin Tarantino, which stars Brad Pitt as the leader of a Nazi hunting brigade during WWII.

There's no word yet on if any of the film's stars will be in attendance (totally crossing our fingers for Michael Fassbender), but Tarantino will be there for the showing and as a guest curator for Fantastic Fest's Cinemapocalyse, a dusk-til dawn movie marathon. Inglourious Basterds will kick off the marathon and will be the only title preannounced to the public; Tarantino's picking the first two films, and the rest of the lineup will presumably be determined by the Alamo Drafthouse's mishmash of mad-genius programmers. (Zack and Lars previously took their Terror Tuesday and Weird Wednesday shows on the road under the moniker of Cinemapocalypse in the spring for a West Coast tour.)

Tickets go on sale for Austin Film Society members and 2009 Fantastic Fest badge holders only on Thursday, July 30 at noon; go to fantasticfest.org for more info. A simultaneous VIP screening, including dinner and a simulcast of the next-room-over Q&A, will be offered to AFS members for $100 a ticket; see austinfilm.org for more.