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This year I didn't get to see nearly as many movies as I would have liked due to travel and work considerations, but it was a good year nonetheless. My favorites were Aachi & Ssipak and Time Crimes. I also liked Exte for the weird factor even though it wasn't a great film. The Cold Hour was dark but interesting, and I was especially curious about the production since I did a little consulting on it - they shot F900 (mostly dark interiors, therefore little video blowout potential), Cineform/Premiere Pro, color correction and post-y stuff in combustion (!?), and VFX done with XSI. I'd say a very successful effort to make it "look like a movie" but shot on video (although high end HD).

Southland Tales was a mess, but an interesting train wreck to watch, Girl Who Leapt Through Time was my second favorite animated piece (but better story/characters than the spastic Aachi & Ssipak), the Big Man Japan was novel fun mockumentary style, and obviously There Will Be Blood was the best "serious" film that I saw. I missed too much to call these best of, but they were my favorites that I saw.

Here's the press release from Tim League on the winners, with a few notes of mine in italics.

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2007 FANTASTIC FEST JURY AND AUDIENCE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Awards were announced last night at the closing ceremony of the 2007 Fantastic Fest in Austin Texas. Taking top honors was Nacho Vigalondo with CRONOSCRIMINES (TIMECRIMES), a world premiere screening. Vigalondo won the "Best Feature" award in the AMD Next Wave Competition and wins a $3500 editing system from AMD/Dell and a $1000 cash prize. The Audience Award went to Ernesto Diaz Espinoza's MIRAGEMAN, a Chilean martial arts film featuring Marko Zaror. The complete listing of awards is below:

HORROR SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
CRITICIZED
DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE
IN THE WALL
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2 YOU
MAQUINA
ANESTHESIA
THE RUN
LUMP
FAR OUT
THE FIFTH

Jury Members
Joe Lynch (Director, WRONG TURN 2)
Adam Green (Director, SPIRAL)
Bill Lustig (Founder, Blue Underground)

Bronze Medal: FAR OUT - Phil Mucci
Silver Medal: THE FIFTH - Ryan Levin
Gold Medal: IN THE WALL -Mike Williamson

Special Jury Prize For Best Screenplay: THE FIFTH
Special Jury Prize For Best Actor: Sam Lloyd, THE FIFTH
Special Jury Prize For Best Actress: Bianca Rusu, DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE
Special Jury Prize For Best Cinematography: HAPPY BIRTHDAY 2 YOU
Special Jury Prize For Best Effects: DEMONOLOGY OF DESIRE

ANIMATED SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
APNEE
THE BIRD, THE MOUSE AND THE SAUSAGE
EVERYTHING WILL BE OK
INTRODUCTION TO LUCID DREAM EXPLORATION
IT CAME FROM THE WEST
POSTMAN
SHUTEYE HOTEL
TALE OF HOW
X-PRESSION

Jury Members
Ryan Schifrin (Director, KING IN THE BOX)
Jonathan Brands (Funimation)
Michael Lehrman (indieWIRE)

Bronze Medal: X-PRESSION - Laurie Thinot
Silver Medal: RAYMOND - BIF Filmmaking collective
Gold Medal: EVERYTHING WILL BE OK - Don Hertzfeldt

FANTASTIC SHORTS COMPETITION
Competition Films
ANGE
BATTLE FOR THE SERPENT STONE (mikenote - this is a GI Joe live action film - geek ahoy!)
THE FAERIES OF BLACKHEATH WOODS
KING IN THE BOX
MONSTER JOB HUNTER (mikenote - they did color correction at my place - excellent CG in a cute short)
SNIFFER
LES PETITS HOMMES VIEUX
THE LITTLE GORILLA
MEBANA
UN-GONE
SUITYMAN
WAITING FOR YESTERDAY
DREAMTIME

Jury Members
Todd Brown (Twitchfilm)
Don Hertzfeldt (The Animation Show)
Travis Stevens (Imagination Films)

Bronze Medal: SUITYMAN - Jon Spira
Silver Medal: SNIFFER - Bobbie Peers
Gold Medal: WAITING FOR YESTERDAY - Julien Lecat, Sylvain Pioutaz

FANTASTIC FEATURES COMPETITION
Competition Films
WICKED FLOWERS
MAIKO HAAAAN!
OFFSCREEN
THE SWORD BEARER
AACHI & SSIPAK
A DIRTY CARNIVAL
NEVER BELONGS TO ME
WOLFHOUND

Jury Members
Marc Walkow (New York Asian Film Festival)
Chris Cargill (Ain't It Cool News)
Tom Quinn (Magnolia Pictures)

Bronze Medal: AACHI AND SSIPAK - Jo Beom-jin
Silver Medal: NEVER BELONGS TO ME - Ki-woong Nam
Gold Medal: OFFSCREEN - Christoffer Boe

Special Jury Prize For Most Original Scenario: NEVER BELONGS TO ME

HORROR FEATURES COMPETITION
Competition Films
Alone
Devil's Chair
Ferryman
Summer Scars
Exte: Hair Extensions (mikenote - saw this, enjoyed it, drank their victory beer with gusto)
Hell's Ground
La Hora Fria
Taxidermia

Jury Members
Scott Weinberg (Cinematical)
Harvey Fenton (FAB Press)
Ian Rattray (UK FrightFest)

Bronze Medal: DEVIL'S CHAIR Adam Mason
Silver Medal: ALONE Banjong Pisanthanakun, Parkpoom Wongpoom
Gold Medal: EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS Sion Sono

Special Jury Prize For Best Director: Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom for ALONE
Special Jury Prize For Best Actor: Kevin Howarth for SUMMER SCARS
Special Jury Prize For Best Actress: Masha Wattanapanitch for ALONE
Special Jury Prize For Best Gore: HELL'S GROUND

AUDIENCE AWARD COMPETITION
Bronze Medal: The Girl Next Door - Gregory Wilson
Silver Medal: Time Crimes Nacho Vigalondo
Gold Medal: Miragemen - Ernesto Díaz Espinoza

AMD NEXT WAVE AWARD
(Fantastic Fest Best Picture)
Competition Films
THE ENTRANCE
SPIRAL
FIVE ACROSS THE EYES
MIRAGEMAN
TIMECRIMES
BEAUTIFUL BEAST
END OF THE LINE
JACK KETCHUM'S THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
WRONG TURN 2

Jury Members
Charlie Boswell (AMD)
Eric Vespe (Ain't It Cool News)
Anne Goetzmann Kelly (Austin School of Film)

Bronze Medal: MIRAGEMAN Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
Silver Medal: SPIRAL Adam Green
Gold Medal: TIMECRIMES Nacho Vigalondo (mikenote - saw it, liked it, talked to Nacho a bit - fun guy!)

Special Jury Prize For innovative Vision: End of the Line, Maurice Devareaux

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
Fantastic Fest is an eight-day festival of the best new sci-fi, horror, fantasy and genre films, as well as choice classic and obscure cult titles from all over the world. The festival director is Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema). Programmers include Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Kier-la Janisse (Big Smash, Cinemuerte), Matt Dentler (SXSW), Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net) and Paul Alvarado-Dykstra. Festival co-chairs are Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies (screenwriter, Iron Giant). The 2006 festival premiered over 60 features and 30 shorts. Fantastic Fest is co-sponsored by Ain't It Cool News and the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar in Austin, Texas. Dates for the 2007 Fantastic Fest are September 20-27, 2007. Additional information can be found at www.fantasticfest.com

FANTASTIC FEST TESTIMONIALS
"Considering Fantastic Fest is in its infancy, it has already established a solid reputation on the global festival circuit as a world leader: the ace in the pack of cards. With an awesome list of guests and movies, Fantastic Fest also has the best cinema in the world, period: "The Alamo". Founder Tim League has succeeded a mission impossible with a bruiser of a movie festival with a touch of genuine Texan hospitality. Take my word for it: Fantastic Fest rocks our planet."
- Jay Slater, journalist, HOT DOG MAGAZINE UK

"The best film festival I've ever been to, at the best theater in the world. Everyone at Fantastic Fest really cared about the filmmakers, and worked incredibly hard to make every screening memorable. Thanks to everyone for making this first-time short film director feel like a Hollywood superstar." - Phil Mucci, director, THE LISTENING DEAD

"I attend a solid handful of film festivals every year -- and Fantastic Fest was (far and away) one of the most entertaining trips I've ever taken. >From fest-head Tim League down to the part-timiest festival volunteer, these folks were absolutely sterling. If you have even a passing interest in films best described as horror, sci-fi, fantasy or "plain old weird," I could not recommend Fantastic Fest highly enough. In only its second year of existence, FF looks to be one of North America's premiere genre festivals -- and I can only imagine what the 2007 event will look like." - Scott Weinberg, journalist, CINEMATICAL

Labels: FantasticFest

So last night after watching PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood (see trailer below)



The Awards Ceremony was casual and fun - there was even a break in the middle for a quick round of Fantastic Feud, where the host of the other night's Feud Scott Weinberg took on the winner of the Feud in a round of movie geek knowledge in the category of directors of sequels. These guys know their stuff!

Awards were traditional - traditional for Fantastic Fest, that is - beer mugs were the awards, presented full of beer, and award winners were expected to chug on stage. For the short films and lesser awards this was doable (single Stella Artois serving size), but the feature length were big steins, 2 Stellas worth. For those who weren't in attendance, volunteers were found. One of my favorites, Exte (Hair Extensions) won, and they called for a volunteer - I, never shy in public, raised my hand and shouted "Yo!" and Scott Weinberg called me out. I start in on it and the crowd is chanting "Chug! Chug!" and I start to dribble down my chin about 2/3's of the way through. Scott says "He's dribbling!" like it is a flag on the field foul or cheat, and in my head for some reason I'm amending it to "He's dribbling....like a little girl!" and I start to laugh and lower the mug. The crowd, dissapointedly says "Awwwwwwww........" but I laugh, breathe, and polish it off to crowd approval. I am such a drunken attention slut in those situations. What can I say? Maybe comes of being the littlest kid in class (was 5 ft 4 as a high school sophomore, now 6 ft 4). Anyway, Mary Sledd was ever on the job and snagged this shot:


Yes, technically, that is me working - drinking on a stage with Tim League, in his best 70s Telly Savalas look (you shoulda seen the pants!). Somehow, that furthers my career. Right? Sure. Maybe. Anyway...

After the final big award (I was going to list those but can't find'em on website, will update when I get'em), which went to Nacho for Time Crimes (and I heartily agree with the decision), we all caravanned over to Donn's Depot for the closing party, which was a total blast. Free booze for quite a while (Thanks Tim, Carrie, and sponsors!), and many good conversations. It is always surprising who knows who how. One award winner's producer turns out to know Mark & Aldey at Offhollywood and writes software for AJA. Who knew?

And then, home and to crater into bed. Another Fantastic Fest, indeed.

VIP badges are already sold out for next year, unfortunately - so I missed my slot on that AGAIN. They'll go on sale sometime next year with more badges.

I'll amend the award winners when I get the list, and post the YouTube-able content associated with'em.

-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

I'd only seen the the teaser for this film before tonight, and didn't know what it was until Tim announced it immediately before the screening.

Wow.

I'd taken it to be some period piece with some bitter feud building up for decades. And it was, but not of the sort I'd been predicting At All.

Daniel Day Lewis turns in one of the darkest but most believable characters I've seen in years. This is a heart dead but not cold, kept warm by the seething hate of all humanity, the love of nothing real, and one could just picture the black blood of oil and greed pumping through his caustic, poisoned, bitter veins.

So...not a nice guy.

An impressive film, a languidly paced film, with tension but not of the usual sort.

He's definitely going to be up for some awards on this one. He who? Daniel and Paul Anderson (the director).

OK, award show about to begin, more later....

Labels: FantasticFest

Yes, that is what it looks like - I just swung a sword to decapitate a champagne bottle that Tim League, founder of Alamo Drafthouse and organizer of Fantastic Fest is holding. I'm doing this in his back yard. Click image for larger view.

WTF?

OK, I'm not REALLY swinging the sword - I started off with the sword already resting on the bottle. And if you look closely, the dark blob you can see above the blurry 3 other champagne bottles is the cork (with some glass still attached).

Tim described it thusly:

"Napoleon, before battle, used to gather his men at Moet. They'd sabre off the top of champagne bottles the night before battle. If it shattered the bottle, it was a dark harbinger, the battle would go poorly.

So the men should drink heavily.

If it was a clean break, it foretold victory in battle.

In which case, the men should drink heavily."

I like that kind of logic.

I'm proud to say when he asked for volunteers I popped right out, and got my bottle open, with a clean break, on the first try. Others were not so fortunate, but I wouldn't read anything into that in terms of their manliness, fitness for battle, etc. I'm just sayin' I got mine right. First try. Ahem.

: D

Yes, I am a geek, but at times I do enjoy revelling in it.

Here's the deal: I ran into Tim in the hallway the other night at FantasticFest, and he mentioned he was doing a special event the next day, and would I like to come. Would I like to do something extra Tim thinks is cool? Hell yeah - after watching Open Water sitting in inner tubes in Lake Travis at a Tim event, I'm down for ANYTHING he comes up with - I like the way this guy thinks.

So while one group of folks piled into the Drafthouse to catch a screening on 35mm, a smaller group jumped into vans and cars and caravanned over to Tim's house with the huge yard, where he had the Rolling Roadshow inflatable screen set up.

While talking to Ludo about Blu-ray vs. HD DVD specs, and the various clever bits that Blu-ray can do to stop piracy, Mary Sledd walks up and with nothing said just hands me a lens to hold. Mary is my favorite event photographer in Austin - we met at the debut of an IMAX film at the Bob Bullock History Museum when one of us overheard the other was a native Austinite - there aren't that many of us around in what we do. So we became insta-friends. She rocks, if you have an event/wedding/rock star to shoot, hire her. She's good, nice, and fun to be around. See link below for pics from the event.

So she handed me a lens to hold while she swtiched out one on the body, talked to Ludo some more, and we all circled about in the yard until it got dark. (She also took the pics on this page).

Once dark, Tim League got up front and welcomed us, and the head chef from Alamo Drafthouse brought out the first of many excellent Japanese courses to match our movie, Uncle's Paradise. Tim described it something like this - in Japan, up and coming directors get their start in the pinku genre - basically soft core porn. They are given a very small budget (some 10s of thousands of dollars for a feature), told they must include a certain number of minutes of sex in the movie, but beyond that are cut loose to do whatever they want.

"Whatever this guy wanted" was just wonderfully bizarre - there's a giant squid theme throughout the movie, an uncle with priapism run amok, a friend that needs to die for the plot to go forward so they just cut to him with a giant (foot long) spider on his back black spots on his face as he falls over dead, the uncle writes his name in Sharpie on the back of the nephew's girlfriend during sex so the nephew finds it later during sex with the same girl, the uncle gets a snake latched on his penis while masturbating in the park on it and dies and goes to a sexual hell where the nephew gets him out. Huh? Don't understand? Right, us neither. But it was still bizarre fun.

....and this is runnning on a big screen in an open yard in a neighborhood. Tim said he didn't realize perhaps how much sex was in it in the context of screening it originally on DVD at home, vs in a yard, 20 feet wide, with 50 people, in the neighborhood, with moans heard down the street from the screen. But he said he'd do it again anyway.

Like I said, Tim rocks.

The meal was exquisite, with squid on the salad, some great ahi tuna, a gelee and japanese ice concoction for dessert...fabulous. Fantastic. Festive. A FantasticFest, for sure.

Mary has additional delightful pictures here to give you an idea of the lovely setup, including one of me with my girlfriend Erica....whom I had to keep reassuring that this wasn't the kind of stuff we'd been watching all week. "Uh huh....I believe you...."

Sure she does.

: )

-mikey!

UPDATE - here's Tim showing me where/how to slide the sword down the bottle's seam. I didn't wind up and swing it or nuthin'. That would have been cool, but Tim probably would have lost a hand. We need him to have that hand...to drive the remote so he can screen DVDs for FantasticFest...he probably has other uses for it too. Mary's pics also have decapitated champagne corks if you're wondering how it works.

Labels: FantasticFest

Saw 3 movies today:

Timecrimes (Spanish with subtitles) - a nice little recursive loop of a low key scifi movie. True science fiction - is set in our world but with a change in the science we know. Not a lay-zorr or lens flare or other fyou-choor accoutrements, just a time travel story with the usual message - you probably can't go back and fix what went wrong.

The Cold Hour - also in Spanish with subtitles, also science fiction. This is actually a client of mine's movie, so I'll just say Cargill was walking around saying this was the best thing at the festival. I liked it too. Shot on F900, Cineform/Premiere editorial, combustion color correction, some surprisingly good (for lower budget) CG done with XSI. Congrats to that team, it looked great. Didn't feel "video-y," was just "a movie." But a cool one.

Exte/Hair Extensions - Japanese with subtitles (this was a reading intensive night) - hair extensions with a vengeful, wrathful bent. Tim League intro'd this movie saying he saw the poster and offhandedly said "Now THERE'S a movie I wouldn't show at FantasticFest!" ....and here it is. In the hands of the usual low budget J-horror director, it woulda sucked. This had its moments. The bad guy gets points, BIG points, for originality.

OK, 2 am and to bed. A sneak tomorrow as well.

Labels: FantasticFest

Just saw Aachi and Ssipak - and OMFG....if Bill Plympton and Peter Cheung (of Aeon Flux) got all tweaked to the gills on crystal meth in a plushie toy factory, gotten massively constipated then held a japanimation firm hostage at gunpoint to produce the artwork, they MIGHT have come up with something as deliriously, ludicrously inspired as this.

(Imagine Movie Voiceover Guy in your head)

In A World....

...where all energy sources have been used up, and the government turns to poop to fuel the world. Everyone gets an ID gadget up their behind, which monitors the quantity and quality of their poop. In order to encourage and reward good production, after each successful session you get a blue popsicle...laced with addictive drugs. A portion of the population gets so addicted they become (or create?) blue midgets that band together to form the Diaper Gang, a menace to society.

Roll in Aachi and Ssipak, a couple of motorcyle losers looking to find an angle in this world. Enter Geko, who could give Aeon Flux a run for the money in flying death dealing.

Hundreds, nay, THOUSANDS of the little blue Diaper Gang get killed, not only by the cops but by each other and their leader, who has no problem shooting his minions by the bucket to make a point.

Anyway, total sensory overload. If a balls to the wall action adventure movie set in a poo powered future isn't your idea of fun, skip it. Otherwise, have nine Red Bulls and buckle in, it'll be a crazy ride.

Click the link at top of article for write-up, stills, trailer, and the action packed first five minutes.

Update:

Or just see for yourselves:


-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

Today was a catch-up day, so unfortunately I didn't get up there until about 10pm.

I checked in with Rae, she said press could chill and she'd let us know when we could get in so we wouldn't have to sit on concrete for a couple of hours. God Bless the Volunteers.

I ended up chatting for a bit with Harry Knowles for a while (the UberGeek behind AintItCoolNews.com and one of the festival's organizers), talking about HD DVD vs Blu-ray (discussions of hoping HD DVD wins due to price issues, the greater capacity of Blu-ray isn't really doing anything that matters right now), what's up with movies we want to see (resurgence of westerns due out Christmastime this year), video games and that life is too short to obsess over them (he thinks it was all downhill after the Atari 2600's simple mantra: "Joystick. Button. Done.").

I also had a nice chat with Harvey Fenton of FAB Press, who publishes a line of books about truly inidependent cinema. Tim League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, was so into Harvey's work he booked some retrospective shows - included in this year's FantasticFest is a Nikkatsu Action Retrospective. Harvey's in the lobby selling books and having great geeky conversations. You should stop on by and check out him and his wares.

Then it was time for Sunday's 11:30PM sneak.

Doh, gotta run, more later on the crazy awesome Japanese giants vs monsters fighting mockumentary we saw.

-mike

Labels: FantasticFest

....so I'm blogging from my iPhone- how trite is that?

I'm sitting in line waiting for the AICN special screening that starts at 6, it is 3:25. (It better be good!)

I'll post some pics and commentary later from laptop.

But FF has been rolling since Thursday, I missed the first 2 days while in NYC.

Just got out of the AICN sneak, was Southland Tales from Richard Kelly, director of Donnie Darko.

A big steaming pile of What The F*ck Was That.

Another reviewer turned to me at the credits and said "I have no idea how to start a review of that movie."

I later thought about adding "so long as you finish with Don't Go."

Another said "I feel like I just watched a filmmaker masturbate for 2 1/2 hours."

More later, but a huge cast, bizzarely uneven surrealistic comedy thriller scifi apocalypse movie. Yeah....that.

Sunday Update - OK, after a day, I'm still pondering Southland Tales. It sets itself up pretty seriously, in a post-9/11 environment where Abilene and El Paso were nuked (targets because what? Snuck nukes in over the Mexican border?), and WW3 is full-on, with fronts in ALL of the Axis of Evil countries. OK, you have my attention. But from there it starts to make fun of some of our media's ridiculousness, then starts to live in that ridiculousness. What starts out as an actor in the movie playing an actor with a bad script becomes...an actor in the movie living out that bad script as if it were real. I'm all for messing with the lines between real, unreal, dream, surreal, media excess, etc. Donnie Darko danced with the line between fiction and reality, but this movie seems to drunkenly stagger over the line, falling over several times. I really liked the WTF factor of Donnie Darko, because you could sense some structure and discipline behind it - it was worth trying to untangle the puzzle, because you could feel it would be worth it (I watched Donnie Darko on DVD, then immediately rewatched the ENTIRE film with the director's comments on...then watched it again one slow Sunday the other year). So I'm definitely a fan of Mr. Kelly. BUT....that said, this film lacks the clear vision, structure, and most importantly the DISCIPLINE of Donnie Darko.

On the one hand, I adore Tim League for booking this crazy mess of a movie - where else could you see it? I definitely wanted to see where things went, but the line between making fun of by being a campy spoof of crappy genre films, then actually BEING a crappy genre film were too intertwined. Is there genius living in this? I don't think so. Other films have messed with this crazy fiction becoming reality theme, and done it far better. As a spoof of bad action scifi apocalyptic movies, it has its moments. As a serious movie projecting where our War On Terror is taking us, it has a very few moments early on that are spoiled (or lost in) the campiness.

As I started to say above, this film lacks discipline, and tremendously so. What did he want it to be? It is far too many things not well enough, it has some great bits (love the musical number in the middle) that are just contextual shift overload.

The casting, however, is totally inspired, and perhaps a clue to what they were trying to do. With a few exceptions, it is mostly tier B of Hollywood - if the Donnie Darko guy called up and said "Wanna be in my next movie?" wouldn't you jump? The Rock, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Nora Dunn, Jon Lovitz, Ling Bai, Christopher Lambert (yeah, The Highlander himself), and oh yeah Justin Timberlake, with facial scars star in this. Plus a zillion cleverly casted cameos and tidbits (the lead from The Chumscrubber as a Lost Youth, The Highlander as an arms dealer, Justin Timberlake has his musical number but is a drug selling government sniper, Nora Dunn as a terrorist with Amy Poehler etc. - check out the full cast and crew)

One wonders if the whole thing were just a huge joke on us the audience, the investors, Hollywood, and everyone else desperately watching to see how he'd follow up on Donnie Darko. A big "Psych!" shout out to all of us - and we stand here confused - was this a joke, a mess, or just a failed multi-layered thingamabob?

While interesting to watch, laugh at, and occassionally laugh with, this will definitely not ride with mainstream audiences. Too much, too weird, too lost in its own inconsistent non-logic.

And it most definitely isn't worth taking the time to make sense of - life is too short - even though there is a TON of stuff in there.

Also, I saw The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a Japanese animation movie about a girl who discovers she can leap back in time small amounts, and uses it to better her life. Of course, there are consequences, and things aren't as easy to fix as you think....very cute, very fun, highly enjoyable for adults and kids. Hugely successful in Japan. If you get a chance and are any kind of animation fan, HIGHLY recommend.

Also, Michael Weiss from Confidence Bay was parked outside, and they were conducting interviews in the air conditioned interior. Confidence Bay is a mobile HD editing setup in an RV - they have a couple of high powered Macs with HD-SDI ingest & output, a projector for screening (you can watch from inside or outside with their clever setup), and room to sit and be air conditioned and comfortable inside. If you need on set assistance, this is a pretty good way to go without resorting to Plus 8's monster rig. I've visited with Michael a few times in the past, check them out.

10PM UPDATE My friend Robogeek nails it with the first line of his comment on:
Whedonesque : "I would call it a fascinating but flawed cinematic curiosity. It's a really weird, inventive, stylishly crafted movie that has no right to exist in a rational universe, and while I'm kind of tickled that it does, it may just be too ambitious and disjointed for its own good. "

Read the link for more on his take. I agree entirely, especially about glad I saw, but I wouldn't want to spend another 2 1/2 hours on it.

Labels: FantasticFest

Got a press release from FantasticFest today (reproduced below).

It is a local, home-grown, but very international film festival. Last week I watched the HD DVD of The Fountain (also on Blu-ray), and it is an amazing film, vastly underappreciated....and I saw it at FantasticFest in years past with both Darren Arronofsky (the director) and Clint Mansell (the music coordinator) in attendance.

I unfortunately missed Apocalypto with Mel Gibson in attendance last year. And, of course, Pan's Labyrinth - I saw it first at FantasticFest well before the theatrical release. But you get the idea - some AMAZING films are shown at FantasticFest....FIRST. The biggies are held to the last minute (sometimes we don't even know what we're going to see until we sit down), but the FF is WELL worth it. Here's some (more) of what will be showing this year:


(Austin, TX) As promised, we have a new crop of thoroughly engaging, incredibly fun new films to announce this week. We have a BUNCH of cool stuff that we are not yet at liberty to divulge; these we will unleash in the August 15 announcement. For now, whet your appetite on the following cinematic treats:

Exte: Hair Extensions
"Exte is transgressive art/horror genius Sion Sono's (Strange Circus, Suicide Club) entry into big-budget, star-fronted Japanese studio filmmaking, and neither his signature nor his spirit have been washed away by the influx of yen." (Mitch Davis, Fantasia). Customs agents stumble across a giant crate of human hair, destined to be used as extensions for trendy Japanese civilians. They are disgusted, but revulsion is eclipsed by horror when they discover, in the centre of this mountain of hair, a single dead girl, whose organs and even an eye have been removed, presumably for black market sale. This premise sets the tone for one of the most unexpectedly bizarre, subversive and yet still effective J-horror masterpieces ever made.

A Dirty Carnival
A beautifully shot, multi-layered story of a mid-level charismatic gangster and his attempted rise to greater power within the organization. Punctuated by moments of tender emotion as well as visceral violence, A Dirty Carnival is a "total package" film, blending an engaging story and characters, beautiful cinematography, and wild, brutal action sequences. Andrew O'Hehir from Salon.com says Dirty Carnival "elegantly repurposes bits and pieces of various mob classicsŠ might be this season's must-see for fans of Asian genre film."

End of the Line
Director Maurice Devereaux live in person!
WINNER: Audience Award: DEAD BY DAWN FILM FESTIVAL (Edinburgh, Scotland)
In this unsettling and creepy thriller, Karen (Ilona Elkin), a young nurse who works in a psychiatric ward, boards the last subway train of the night only to have it stop suddenly in the middle of the tunnel. As those around her are brutally murdered, Karen and a handful of survivors must face supernatural forces, homicidal religious cult members, as well as their own fears and suspicions of Armageddon, in order to survive.

Finishing the Game
Following his groundbreaking indie hit BETTER LUCK TOMORROW as well as studio ventures ANNAPOLIS and THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT, director Justin Lin returns to his roots with FINISHING THE GAME, a rollicking comedy spoof about this egregiously exploitative search for Bruce Lee's stand-in. Documentarians capture the absurd, hilarious and sometimes disturbingly true-to-life (but decidedly fictional) audition process as a motley assortment of candidates vie for the role: a former-TV-star-turned door-to-door salesman, a Bruce Lee knockoff named Breeze Loo and some guys who don't even look Chinese, much less like Lee.

Sex And Death 101
Roderick Blank (Simon Baker) is a successful modern man, content with his personal and professional life. However, a week before his wedding to a suitably stuffy fiancée, Roderick's perfectly planned existence is upended by a mysterious e-mail containing the names of every woman he has had sex with and, eerily, every woman he will have sex with in the future. He is stopped in his tracks when he meets a femme fatale (Winona Ryder) who targets men guilty of sex crimes against women. Co-staring Patton Oswalt and directed by Daniel Waters, writer of the cult hit HEATHERS!

Wrong Turn 2
Director Joe Lynch live in person!
First-time helmer Joe Lynch directs the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the 2003 sleeper WRONG TURN! Taking place shortly after the events of the original film, a group of six contestants are thrown together for six days in a simulated post-apocalyptic wasteland due to their participation in a reality television show called The Ultimate Survivalist: The Apocalypse, hosted and produced by former marine Dale Murphy (Henry Rollins), in which the winner will walk away with $100,000. Located in a remote part of West Virginia, the contestants soon discover that what they really are fighting for is their survival - against a family of hideously deformed inbred cannibals who plan to ruthlessly butcher them all.


The Last Winter
The Last Winter is a visually breathtaking, wholly nightmarish ecological horror film that is smart, informed and frightening. When one of its protagonists questions whether the act of drilling for fossil fuel is any different from graverobbing, it's impossible not to get shivers by the ramifications, nor is it a stretch when the oil team find themselves haunted, hunted and cursed for their actions. Award-winning writer/producer/editor Larry Fessenden continues on the unique path he's carved for himself with such previous philosophically provocative quasi humanist horror features as No Telling, Habit and Wendigo.

Retribution
Aren't we all sick of J-horror by now? From The Ring to Ju-On and beyond it doesn't matter how good these movies may be, there are just too many of them and they just aren't scary anymore. Is there anything anyone can do that's new with this genre? Yes, actually. Leave it to Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Doppelganger) to dredge up the bloated, water-logged corpse of the J-horror trend from the bottom of the river and to chop it up into something evil that slithers into your brain like a maggot worming its way into your brain. (New York Asian Film Festival)


Hell's Fever
Winner of the Melies d'Argent at the Rome Fantafestival 2006
Christmas time. A group of students steal a considerable amount of money from the local Campus. They flee through the snowy woods, in what the locals refer to as the "heartland of the Beast". They seek shelter in an abandoned mine only to end up facing a gruesome threat.

Ange
One evening, Octave, a doll repairman of about 30, is at a country fair and discovers ANGE (Angel), a girl born without a spine and thus condemned to spend her life as a circus freak in a steel scaffolding. This chance meeting is destined to upset the young man's life and force him to confront the voices that haunt him day and night...

Droomtijd
In a work-driven world where time is the ultimate dictator, a mysterious sandman spreads chaos and confusion. Even the best employees of the system get infected by his wondrous dream powder and lose sight of the once so dominating clock. Alex Deprins, future employee of the year, becomes one of those 'victims'. In his dreams he comes into contact with a strange new world, where a lady in red captivates his heart. Once awake he has to make a difficult decision. Does he stay in his familiar, but deadly rule-bound world or does he seek the road to salvation in his dreams?


The Fantastic Fest website has been updated with trailers, photo stills, links and more comprehensive write-ups for each of these films. We will be announcing the final slate of films on August 15, with the screening schedule, party list and guest roster to follow in early September. Be sure to log in to our website and set up your account. Once the festival begins, you can write reviews, create a schedule, rate films and communicate with filmmakers and festival programmers. We highly encourage everyone to become a part of the Fantastic Fest B-side community.

Festival badges are still available, but we expect them to be sold out before the festival begins. If you know someone who is considering attending, hustle them along, or they may miss out!

In other news, we announced this month our induction into the esteemed Melies European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation (see fantasticfest.com for more details). We are also one of the three founding members of NAFFA, the North American Fantastic Festival Alliance, along with Dead Channels in San Francisco and Fantasia in Montreal.

About Fantastic Fest

Fantastic Fest is an eight-day festival of the best new sci-fi, horror, fantasy and genre films, as well as choice classic and obscure cult titles from all over the world. The festival director is Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema). Programmers include Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Kier-la Janisse (Big Smash, Cinemuerte), Matt Dentler (SXSW), Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net) and Paul Alvarado-Dykstra. Festival co-chairs are Paul Alvarado-Dykstra and Tim McCanlies (screenwriter, Iron Giant). The 2006 festival premiered over 60 features and 30 shorts. Fantastic Fest is co-sponsored by Ain't It Cool News and the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema South Lamar in Austin, Texas. Dates for the 2007 Fantastic Fest are September 20-27, 2007. All screenings take place at the Alamo South Lamar.

Fantastic Fest is a supporting member of the Melies European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation as well as a founding member of the North American Fantastic Festival Alliance

Additional information can be found at FantasticFest.com.

Labels: FantasticFest, film festivals

\Fantastic Fest 2007: Sept 20-27

Fantastic Fest went live with their 2007 New 'N Improved website - this is an event run/organized by Alamo Drafthouse, Harry Knowles of AintItCoolNews.com, and my friend Paul Alvarado.

Last year's Big Surprise was an early screening of Apocalypto, with Mel Gibson in attendance.

All movies are at the oh-so-awesome Alamo Drafthouse.

They've announced some of the movies that will be showing this year, with many more to come - so get yer tix now and come on down to Austin this September!

I've gone the last two years and really enjoyed it - I've been able to meet a lot of the filmmakers, editors, DPs, etc. in totally relaxed circumstances, it has been great.

Labels: FantasticFest, film festivals