Fantastic Fest

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Dell Lounge makes Fantastic Fest live FOREVER!

You only thought that Fantastic Fest 2007 was gone, buried
deep within the stacks of your happy memories. Maybe you still have
that photo of you and George Romero on the fridge, but your Richard
Kelly-signed SOUTHLAND TALES poster has already been packed away for
two weeks…presumably appreciating.

Now, like an elevator opening at the Overlook Hotel, all those
memories can come flooding back!

The good people at Dell have immortalized your happy memories (or at
least they're ready give you a happy time) at the Dell Lounge, where
you can watch exclusive video and interviews from the incredible,
irrevocable Fantastic Fest 2007.

Watch George Romero wax zombie-philosophical! Watch Richard Kelly
expound on the nature and future of time travel! Watch Uwe Boll &
Zack Ward…be Uwe Boll & Zack Ward! Watch Patton Oswalt & Daniel
Waters lay it bare about Sex & Death! Watch Adam Green, Joe Lynch,
Maurice Devereaux & Nacho Vigalondo before they are wigs too big for you!
Watch Drafthouse founder Tim League shooting shotguns! You.
Are. There.

Watch it all HERE!

Friday, October 26, 2007

Whoa! Fantastic Fest favorite TIMECRIMES goes to Magnolia Pictures!

We're very, very pleased to announce that the top-honored feature of Fantastic Fest 2007, Nacho Vigalondo's TIMECRIMES, has found distribution through leading American independent Magnolia Pictures!



The film had its world premiere at FF and it was pretty much unanimous...TIMECRIMES is a massive force of entertainment. Intelligent, perfectly paced, funny, well-acted, beautifully shot; there's nothing bad to say about the film. And equally enjoyable was writer/director/co-star Nacho Vigalondo, who joined us for Fantastic Fest and was one of the most good-natured and hilarious people you could ever meet. Plus he's one major karaoke maniac!

Visit the film's official site HERE!

See the Fantastic Fest listing -- including countless audience raves and a five star rating -- HERE!

Fantastic Fest is a celebration of all things fun and exciting about "genre movies," but one of its primary missions is to create a strong forum for films -- like TIMECRIMES -- that might not already be stirring up a huge international fervor via industry hype and countless internet blogs. It's very important to us that not-yet-well-known productions and filmmakers be equally represented alongside lauded veteran auteurs. The fact that the film has now found a home with one of the best film companies in the US proves that creativity and hard work can still be very much rewarded despite this age of bonehead remakes and self-indulgent Hollywood money-burners!

So we hope you'll join us in giving a huge heap of congratulations to Nacho Vigalondo and company for their accomplishments with TIMECRIMES, and wish them and Magnolia Pictures the best with what is sure to be a great run together. We look forward to having Nacho back here (hopefully with new features) for many more Fantastic Fests to come!

Thursday, October 25, 2007

George Romero immortalized in human flesh!!

Here at the Alamo Drafthouse, we acknowledge and embrace our severe movie-nerdism. But every so often, one Alamoid will step forward with an act of celluloid obsession so impressive that it must be documented for the ages.

Case in point: recent Drafthouse inductee Katie Beavers, who kindly approached Fantastic Fest special guest/zombie legend George Romero and asked him if he'd autograph her arm. By the time the ink had dried, Katie was already halfway to the tattoo parlor to make her appreciation of fine horror filmmaking known to the world forever!





We are extremely proud to count Katie and her arm among the Alamo family.






PS: Stay tuned for more tattoo news. I think I've convinced Alamo founder Tim League to get a Chucky doll on his neck.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

THE PIXAR STORY: Another free screening for Fantastic Fest Badgeholders

If you attended Fantastic Fest 07 check your inbox for a big fancy evite to a free screening this Sunday night of THE PIXAR STORY with director Leslie Iwerks live in person.

Buying a Fantastic Fest badge opens the doors for you in many ways above and beyond the fest itself. We also give badgeholders priority opportunities to attend events throughout the year at the original Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas. Last year alone Fantastic Festers saw PAN'S LABYRINTH, CHILDREN OF MEN and other films before anybody else in Austin did.

2008 VIP Badges are sold out but we will place standard fest badges on sale soon. Check www.fantasticfest.com for more information on 2008 Badges. We are already getting fired up for some amazing events and guests.

If you are on the fence about buying a badge, we hope this will be the Texas-sized cowboy boot that kicks you off the fence and into the gorgeous green meadows of awesomeness, Fantastic Fest style.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Fantastic Fest fave Weirdsville opens Alamo tonight!

If you were lucky enough to check out this flick during Fantastic Fest, you will be happy to know that Magnolia is doing a limited theatrical release and it's happening this weekend at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. There's not much word out on this title, and selling it on the strength of "from the director of PUMP UP THE VOLUME" only gets you so far... Anyhow, I thought the movie was a ball, and if you think so too, please tell your friends to come and check it out at the Alamo South Lamar.

Here's a few quotes from the Fantastic Fest attendee reviews:

"Upon Leaving: Cheeks ached and twitched, stomach felt like i did 1000 situps, and could finally catch my breathe and wipe the tears away(from both laughter and nostalgia, not from drugs, good friends). Drive Home: In Reflection, thoughts sparked, invigorated. Thanks."

"This is some of the best and funniest dialogue that I've seen in a long time. This is a rare plot where you can summarize it with loony details like "inept satanists" and "medieval midgets" and yet the movie itself doesn't devolve into mindless silliness."

"When watching this movie you're thinking to yourself...this is a cult classic unfolding before my eyes. The laughs are played out with pinpoint accuracy. The characters are straightforward in their zaniness and this only helps to enhance the insanity of this drug addled night. Little people gangs in Medieval costumes going after Yuppie-dressed Satanists while two junkies try and made some money they owe their dealer. It's that crazy and that fun."

Read the Austin Chronicle review.

Tickets for this show are on sale now at the Alamo South Lamar page.

Description from the Fantastic Fest guide:
Director Allan Moyle (TIMES SQUARE, PUMP UP THE VOLUME) returns to his Canadian roots with this year's Slamdance sleeper, which unfolds during a long winter night in a small Northern Ontario city called Weedsville, whose nickname supplies the pic's title.Two slackerish heroin addicts -- Dexter (Scott Speedman), a wry ironist who's trying to kick the habit, and Royce (Wes Bentley), a manic mood-swinger who overestimates his smarts -- make the mistake of indebting themselves to drug kingpin Omar (Raoul Bhaneja). Recklessly, they agree to settle accounts by dealing drugs for Omar.

When Royce's sweetie, Matilda (Taryn Manning), a part-time hooker, appears to fatally O.D. on the kingpin's product, Dexter and Royce reluctantly agree they should bury the luckless cutie in the boiler room of a drive-in where Dexter was fleetingly employed. Fortunately, they determine Matilda is still alive before they plant her in the ground. Unfortunately, they don't make this discovery until after they've interrupted some novice Satanists in the act of carrying out their first human sacrifice.

Moyle slyly grabs attention while establishing a sense of controlled chaos -- and an expectation that anything might happen -- with flashy cutting, accelerated action and drug-fueled fantasy sequences. But even as the style veers toward visual hyperbole, the substance of Willem Wennekers' ingenious script remains governed by its own internal logic.

WEIRDSVILLE lurches from one outrageous plot twist to the next, careening along a circuitous path that threads through the mansion of a brain-injured millionaire (Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer), a shopping mall and a back alley where a band of medieval re-enactors get medieval on the Satanists.

Deconstructionists will delight in divining the influences that inform WEIRDSVILLE, a cleverly constructed, capably crafted and often uproarious shaggy-dog black comedy that riffs on everything from TRAINSPOTTING and Quentin Tarantino to RACE WITH THE DEVIL and Elmore Leonard. (Joe Leydon, Variety)

Monday, October 01, 2007

Fantastic Fest 2007: A Look Back



This is a video montage we put together for the Awards Ceremony this year. We wanted it to feel kind of like a high school graduation video, the kind you watch with all your friends during the overnight lock-in where you see yourself walking down the hall in slow motion and you think about how strange it is that you'll never go to that locker again and you get all weepy. Except instead of lockers and teenagers, we have gore cannons shooting at Zack Carlson's crotch and Zack Ward telling you what to do with his.

Joe vs. the Volcanic Eruption of Champagne


Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2) displays excellent form sabring the top off of a bottle of champagne at the filmmaker luncheon at my house last Saturday. Thanks to Debbie Cerda for keeping the camera rolling.