Fantastic Fest is now over, and the only thing I have left are ticket stubs and memories. And the nostalgic photo above where they started changing the marquee one the closing party started. They hadn’t even let our seats get cold yet. But that’s just fine because it means that the Alamo Drafthouse is back to business as usual, and we want them to stay in operation so we can head to next year’s Fantastic Fest and do it all over again.

But what were the highlights? What makes Fantastic Fest different from all of the other film festivals around the world? While other festivals seem to focus on A-listers and high-profile star appearances, Fantastic Fest is happy to sit back and enjoy where it sits as a genre film festival. It’s the best collection of science fiction, anime, horror, thriller, Asian, and “other” films that you’ll ever see in one place. While the films are defintitely the focus, they’re just one part of what makes this festival so much fun.

The Films: Of course it’s the movies that bring people here in the first place, and they do not disappoint with an extremely varied selection. We saw films from all over the globe here, and more than half of the movies I saw were subtitled. That’s a testament to the programmers who reach beyond the North American shores for many of their choices. My favorite movies from the festival were from Japan (Fish Story), Sweden (Kenny Begins), Indonesia (Merentau), and Russia (Morphine). That’s not to say that the English language films sucked. There were some great ones there as well. These were just the movies that blew me away. Although I wish I hadn’t skipped The Bare Breasted Countess or S&M Hunter.

The Films – Part II: It’s not just about feature-length movies. Fantastic Fest also has a lot of short films programmed into the festival. There are entire blocks of live-action shorts, animated shorts, and some features are preceded by a short film. I wish they’d stick a shorty in front of every feature, as I’m sure a lot of the shorts were missed by people clamoring for the features, but there were some great things in here. A few standouts include: Next Floor, a truly bizarre film about gluttony, Hirsute, a Primer-esque film about time travel, and Tile M For Murder, a hilarious Swedish film where a game of Scrabble turns deadly.

The Events: Fantastic Fest goes above and beyond the films by planning extremely fun events throughout the festival. These include trips to local BBQ spots, the opportunity to shoot shotguns with filmmakers, trips to local swimming holes, interesting shopping locations, a day packed with automatic weapons – and of course, all of the parties. Sundance may have parties in the snow, but where else can you officially shoot shotguns and dress like a vampire? Fantastic Fest even lets you do both at the same time. The only downside to the events is that they normally have extremely limited space for them, but with the addition of The Highball, I’d imagine they’ll have larger events there next year, especially once the karaoke rooms are finished and open.

The Food: Seriously, you cannot understate the food at the Alamo Drafthouse. Here’s how things work: when you sit down, you have a menu and tiny slips of paper with a pen in front of you. You browse the full menu and select something like a pint of Shiner Bock and a “Royale with Cheese” – pictured above. Write it down on the paper, stick it in the metal clip in front of your table (like a high bench in front of your seats) and a member of the waitstaff will snag it and bring your order out. They bring the check about 30 minutes before the end of the movie, so you have plenty of time to pay. Their seating is all tiered, so the waiters won’t block your view. They have everything ranging from popcorn to burgers to five dollar milkshakes, and you’ll definitely find something for your palette. My advice: don’t order anything particularly juicy during films loaded with gore.

The People: Half of the fun at Fantastic Fest is meeting new people and finding out what movies they’ve been seeing. You’ll get some of the best recommendations this way. No matter how many movies you see at the festival, you’ll never be able to catch them all. Talking to people waiting in line with you will give you a good chance to see something that might not have been on your radar. The other people in the mix are the volunteers and the waitstaff. They work some serious overtime to keep things running smoothly, and make sure your Arrogant Bastard Ale and Asian Bat Wings are delivered to you as quickly as possible. A big shout out has to go out to hospitality coordinator Jill Lewis, who makes sure visiting press is well taken care of. Thanks, Jill!

Austin, TX: I’m pretty biased in this category, because I grew up in Texas and got myself down to Austin as soon as I could. I spent my formative years in college there, and it’s my favorite city in the United States. While Fantastic Fest is eight days worth of movies, you also have enough free time to experience a sliver of what the city has to offer: 6th Street, Barton Springs, the bats under the Congress Avenue bridge, Zilker Park, and more. While I was in town, the temperature ranging from hot, to chilly, to extremely rainy, but that didn’t make Austin any less fun. We spent one afternoon canoeing down Town Lake, and that’s something I’ve never done during a film festival.

That’s it for us, and we hope to see you at the festival next year! It was truly, in a word, Fantastic.

Fantastic Fest came to a close on Day Eight, and it was most definitely with a bang, and not a whimper. In fact, the final Secret Screening provided bangs both onscreen and off, and then the evening ended with a vampire-themed closing party. They even supplied sangria in blood bags, so it looked like you were chugging some b-negative instead of a fruity wine beverage. The staff were dressed up with scars, blood, and fangs, and attendees showed up in costume as well. Highlights included The Count from Sesame Street and a bevy of female bloodsuckers.

But, Day Eight also meant movies, and plenty of ‘em. There were screenings all day, including a sneak peek at the vampire flick Daybreakers from Lionsgate. Even after the festival had ended and people were partying, non-festival attenders lined up for a midnight screening of Paranormal Activity. Heat lightning lit up the sky around Austin, and it was a perfect way to end the best genre film festival on the planet.

Merentau: Indonesia has been absent from the martial arts movie scene for over 15 years, and Merentau is a triumphant return. The film is about a young man named Yuda, who must go on merentau to become an adult. This means leaving home, and going to live on his own elsewhere to discover his purpose in life. He’s been trained in the art of silat, a Malaysian-based martial art, since he was a child … and of course he puts that to good use. After he is pickpocketed by a young boy, he finds out that his older sister is being treated brutally by a local club owner, and he steps in to help out. This soon brings down the wrath of the club owner, and the man he reports to, and before long they are being pursued across the city. There are tremendous fight sequences and impressive acting, especially from the main star Iko Uwais who should stay on your radar as a martial arts movie star to watch.

Dirty Mind: This fun Belgian film is about two brothers who work as a stuntman team for television and movies: Cisse is the star in the jumpsuit, and Diego is the quiet guy behind the scenes. When an accident leaves Cisse unable to perform, Diego steps in. Unfortunately he doesn’t wait for his cue and falls through a plate glass window, missing his fall zone below. When he wakes up in the hospital, he insists that everyone start calling him Tony, and he quickly becomes a superstar. He’s sure of himself, outgoing, and fun. Completely different than Diego. He also ends up making almost everyone angry. He steals Cisse’s girlfriend, has an intimate encounter with his father’s girlfriend, and when he develops feelings for Jaana, the doctor treating him, it pushes Jaana’s surgeon boss over the edge. An operation could repair Diego/Tony’s brain and bring him back to normal, although he doesn’t want it. When he is nearly killed in a stunt driving accident, his brother decides to take matters into his own hands. Lots of humor, drama, and of course sex (those crazy Belgians) in this one.

Universal Soldier: A New Beginning: Van Damme is back. Lundgren is back. And yes, they have a tremendous fight scene. However, there’s also a new baddie, played by MMA fight Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovski. Both Lundgren and Arlovski and director John Hyams were on-hand to introduce Secret Screening #5, which might have caused some initial groans. Really? Another UniSol movie? Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad. By the time the end credits were rolling, I was really enjoying the film. It largely ignores the first two Universal Soldier movies (and yes, has nothing to do with the terrible TV movies), and carves out its own territory.

The story references a “White Tower” program in the U.S. Military that focused on supersoldiers, but was eventually shut down. Later it was revived as “Black Tower” with even more powerful soldiers being created, but it was also shut down. One of the doctors on the team goes rogue, and he takes one of the Black Tower subjects (Arlovski) with him, and is hired by the leader of an army in Russia. He’s a one-man killing squad who guards the base of one of the reactors at Chernobyl, threatening detonation if their demands are not met.

When the doctor decides he needs a backup policy, he thaws out a clone of Andrew Scott (Lundgren), and the U.S. brings Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) in from the general public, where a doctor has been trying to rehabilitate him, without much of a result. This sets the scene for some slam-bang fights between Arlovski and Van Damme, and a brief but very enjoyable fight between Scott and Deveraux. Lundgren is unfortunately not in the film that long, but it looks like the writers can bring him back whenever they want. The action was definitely racheted up well past the original film, and the entire audience had a great time watching.

With that, we sailed on into the night (just check out the Frog Brothers above from the closing party) and tried to race through the night until the sun came up. Unfortunately the weight of eight days worth of movies (and the accompanying movie food) caught up with me, and it was time to begin what I like to call Operation Coma. It was definitely time well spent, however, and I’ll be returning next year for sure. Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, and the others all have impressive films and A-list talent, but Fantastic Fest is really where a true movie fan can go to be surrounded by fellow geeks and see films ranging from the touching to the bizarre. Like Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket, a pass to Fantastic Fest is something you don’t trade for anything. We’ll have a wrapup post here on Screen Rant to sum up the experience, but I’m already planning my 2010 trip back to Austin.

Best Acrtress Winner Shera Bechard

Day Seven was devoted to catching some of the award-winning films at the fest that I hadn’t seen yet. Extreme horror is not really my thing, so I skipped Human Centipede (First Sequence), which sounds like a goretastic smorgasbord, if you’re into that kind of thing. You can watch a trailer for it right here and make up your own mind. I may have made a mistake, since people seem to really love the biological horror it provides, but someone told me it nearly made them puke so I took a stand. Which was probably good since I had a pizza during Yesterday, and that alone nearly made me sick.

With just one day remaining, I tried to pack in a wide variety, although I’ve been lucky enough to score a stack of screeners, which means I’ll be watching Fantastic Fest movies long after they’ve changed the marquee and started planning for next year. I’m not exactly sure these are the types of films you can watch next to someone on a plane, but I look forward to seeing ‘em.

SWEET KARMA

On paper, this movie sounds like a winner. A Russian girl travels to Canada to avenge the death of her sister, who had been forced to become a stripper. The Russian girl has to pose as a stripper to find out what happened and then kill the guilty parties involved. So you’ve got revenge, murder, and a lot of nudity. What’s not to like, right?

Despite the ample amount of bare boobs on display, this just didn’t hold together. Mostly because the director inexplicably decided to make Karma, the lead character played by Shera Bechard, a mute. She’s extremely attractive, to be sure, but I have a very sneaky feeling that she didn’t speak because… she can’t act. She can emote things like distress or anger, but I don’t know if she could have had us dramatically on the edge of our seats – although she certainly had everyone holding their breath during her big dance number. Also, Karma was raised without parents, yet also found the time and money for a boob job and a belly piercing? Shera Bechard, who plays Karma, ended up winning the audience award for Best Actress, and I’m still scratching my head over that one. Skip this one unless you need a dose of skin in your Netflix queue.

YESTERDAY

This Canadian movie is a low-budget zombie horror film shot on 16mm cameras, and at first glance it looks like a student film effort at best. And to be sure, that’s about the level of the acting and the filmmaking in this thing. But the real story is how much of a labor of love the whole thing was. Shot for an all-in costs of $25,000, the production crew broke several of their cameras during production, and they still managed to finish it. It’s not particularly well-acted, but there are some very funny moments throughout, and a couple of a dramatic performances that aren’t half-bad.

The effects are also fairly impressive for a microbudget movie, and there’s one scene where a man is crushed between two cars and half of his ribcage is exposed in the process. It’s surprisingly gory with gallons of blood, but the story is where things fall apart. We follow random groups of survivors until some of them meet up (only guys, no women), and they seek refuge in the woods while things devolve in the city. Of course, things don’t go right out in the woods (do they ever in a horror movie?) and that’s where the climax happens. Watch the trailer for a glimpse of what you’ll get.

DOWN TERRACE

This movie won the “Next Wave Best Picture Award” at Fantastic Fest, and I’m not saying it was a bad movie, but that also means it beat out films like Breathless and Private Eye for that award. What?! Down Terrace is a dramatic piece about aging British gangsters, but don’t start thinking that it’s anything like a Guy Ritchie film. This mostly takes place in the narrow flat of aging British thug Bill, where he lives with his wife Maggie and his son Karl. You soon find that they live in a world they are increasingly unsuited for: their leading rough guy / hitman Pringle now has a baby to take care of, the police are closing in, and Karl himself is soon to be a father.

Down Terrace is more about the relationships between the figures in the movie than any action scenes, and although there are a few murders in the film, they happen quickly and quietly. Soon you start thinking of them as just another dysfunctional family, and you might even compare them to your own. They face the same problem we do, it’s just that they also tend to kill people from time to time. There’s one chilling scene where Maggie slips poison to someone in his tea, and calmly talks about where he went wrong while he dies on the floor. Certainly not bad, but honestly I’ve seen better at the Fest.

Day Eight, the final day of Fantastic Fest, looms ahead like a chilling spectral vision in a ghost movie. It’s something you’re afraid to look at, but are also eager to see at the same time. I’ve heard tons of rumors about what the final Secret Screening will be, and I’m also hearing that Dolph Lundgren has been spotted in town. Coincidence? Probably not. We’ll find out tomorrow as the festival draws to an end and eager anticipation for next year begins. The countdown has already started, and if you’re thinking about attending Fantastic Fest, start preparing yourself now. You’ll love it.

With a very sore shoulder from firing round after round from automatic weapons, Day Six began slowly. After just a few hours of lugging and firing those things, I can’t imagine what it’s like toting around tons of gear, a flak jacket, and still being coherent over in Iraq or Afghanistan. Plus, we had relatively cool temperatures and even a little rain. My hat is off to our servicemen overseas.

And what better way to celebrate spent rounds of ammo than taking a cinematic tour through the Orient?

We visited Korea, South Korea, and China all in one day, complete with an Asian feast to top the journey off. The Asian Odyssey meant missing Secret Screening #4, but it was worth it. Especially the “all you could drink” wine and champagne selection. Am I easily swayed by free food and drink? Yes.

PRIVATE EYE

This Korean period piece feels like a Sherlock Holmes detective story that just happens to be set in another country with a couple of different players. Set in 1910, Jin-ho is a low-rent private eye who specializes in finding cheating wives. He’s trying to save up enough money to buy a cruise ticket to America, where he’s sure there must be tons of cheating spouses. Enter medical student Gwang Su, who has just been told he needs to start studying human bodies instead of animals. When he finds a dead body in the woods, he thinks it’s his lucky day. However, when the body turns out to be the missing son of a local gangster, he panics. Knowing that if he’s found with the body he’ll be killed, he decides to hire Jin-ho to try and find the real killer so he can clear his name.

Of course the pair fall into an enormous web of connected crimes. With a detective and a doctor teaming up, you get the Sherlock Holmes angle (despite being comedic at times, Jin-ho is also a very accomplished detective), and when you add Jin-ho’s love interest, who builds gadgets for him, it’s almost James Bondian. Private Eye is a film I highly recommend, and Jeong-min Hwang won Best Next Wave Actor for his portrayal of Jin-ho.

BREATHLESS

South Korea gives us this story about a common thug named Sang-Hoon Kim, who makes a living roughing up people who owe his boss money, while spewing forth a stream of obscenities. By the end of the flick, you’ll almost be cussing secondhand, just because you’ll be so used to it by that point. He’s not pleasant to anyone he meets, including high school student Yeon-hee Han. However, she shares his attitude and when they butt heads it eventually leads to an unlikely romance.

As the story unfolds, you find out that Sang-Hoon’s father accidentally stabbed and killed his daughter (Sang’s sister), and while Sang was rushing her to the hospital, his mother was run over by a car as she followed. His father has since served time, but Sang blames him for everything, and visits him from time to time to beat him up. As Sang-Hoon’s romance blossoms with Yeon-hee, he has no idea that her rebellious older brother is now working underneath him as a thug in training, and things eventually come to a head as one gangster struggles to make a name for himself, while the other looks back on his life of brutality and wants to get out. It’s extremely touching, and Yang Ik-June shines as the terrifically understated Sang-Hoon. Well worth finding and watching.

CRAZY RACER

I was lucky to be invited to Tim and Karrie League’s house for a Crazy Racer Feast to cap the day off, where Drafthouse executive chef John Bullington had prepared an amazing Asian feast to accompany the movie. Tables were set up in their front yard, with a massive inflatable screen dominating everything. There was a waitstaff and three courses, along with paired wine and champagne selections, and to start the screening with a bang they sliced the cork off of a bottle of champagne with a sword. Now that’s style.

The movie is, as the title suggests, crazy. In fact, it’s like a Chinese Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, as the story folds back on itself, jumps forward in time, and ties up multiple plot points. Geng Hao is a cyclist who wins a cycling championship by a hair, and wins an endorsement contract with a sports drink. However, he fails the post-race urine test because of the drink, and is stripped of his title. He later finds out he was set up by his rival, although he lacks the proof. When his coach later dies of a heart attack while pleading with Geng to seek justice, the story is set in motion. There’s a madcap, zany collision of plots as hitmen, gangsters, drug dealers, and Geng come together, and the frenetic pace of the movie doesn’t stop the entire time. It’s goofball and exciting, and a perfect match for dinner.

The only downside of attending the feast was the fact that it made me miss Secret Screening #4, which turned out to be the Coen Bros. new movie A Serious Man. But that opens in Los Angeles this weekend, and I’ll be heading back there on Saturday so it wasn’t a complete loss. There’s one more Secret Screening left, and it is literally anyone’s guess as to what it might be. I’m hoping for a complete surprise, so I’m trying to tune out the rumors … but I’ve heard that Dolph Lundgren is in town. If that’s true, I must break him.

Day Five of Fantastic Fest consisted of one movie. ONE MOVIE! Is it a shame when you attend a film festival and see only one movie on a particular day? I’d normally say yes, but when you see the alternatives that were available, I hope you’ll side with me on this one. It was not a day wasted. Besides, I’m stacking my days fairly film heavy for the rest of the festival, and I have a stack of screeners to wade through still, so it will not have been in vain.

One note on the day: Fantastic Fest VIP badges went on sale Monday morning for 2010 … and they sold out in one minute. That’s right, 60 seconds. That shattered their record from last year, when they sold out in two minutes. Fairly incredible for a festival this size, and it just shows how much people covet those VIP passes, which let you pick up tickets a day early for screenings, and gets you access into some of the fun events they have. Luckily, since they built The Highball lounge nearby, space hasn’t really been that much of an issue, and it’s a perfect venue for after-screening parties.

RAMBO 101: This is what I gave up most of my morning and afternoon for, missing the Chilean martial arts / hitman movie Mandrill in the process, which people have been raving about. Instead I was packed into a van and shuttled out of Austin, off into the boonies to the Astro Village Shooting Range where a group of private paramilitary guys called The BlackStone Group trained us to fire fully automatic weapons. Not replicas, not airsofts, and not paintball guns, but the real deal. Complete with bullets that could actually kill someone. Luckily, no one was “ventilated” as they referred to it. In the alternating pouring rain and pounding sun, I shot a UMP-45, a G-36, an AK-47, a semi-automatic combat shotgun, and a compact M-16. We were given five bags of ammo and were told we could do everything from single shots, to short bursts, to full auto … and let me tell you firsthand that full auto on an AK-47 is amazing. That sucker just wants to climb to the sky, and it would have been a wonder if I could have hit a target with it. My shoulder is still fairly bruised from the combat shotgun, but my favorite by far was the G-36. It had a holographic red-dot sight and double pistol-style grips and made a chattering sound when you fired it that would make lesser men pee in their pants. Thankfully my pants remained dry, but damn that whole event was a lot of fun.

Venus in Furs: They’re showing four of director Jess Franco’s films from the 1960s as part of the festival. In fact, the whole thing kicked off with Eugenie: The Story of Her Journey into Perversion last Wednesday, and since then they’ve also shown Succubus, The Bare Breasted Countess, and Venus in Furs. On surface level, the best way to sum up Franco’s films are “arthouse flicks with boobs.” They’re deeper than that once you see one, but a casual observer will notice that the women in his movies tend to hardly ever wear clothing. That was definitely true in Venus in Furs, which is a movie about a trumpet player named Jimmy who finds a woman’s dead body on the beach … or does he? “She was beautiful, even though she was dead.” When she begins to turn up alive in various places to seek revenge on the two men and woman who killed her in a night of depravity, Jimmy starts to question things. Is she undead? Or a ghost? Or is she even real? The movie doesn’t give you a real answer, and the final scene is a real “blow your mind, daddy-o” moment. You’re either going to hate Franco’s films, or think he’s a cinematic genius, so you might try watching these on your own. He does a lot of experimentation with the camera, and if you really needed further convincing, there are all the naked women. Just a reminder.

The Fantastic Fest Awards: When you win a category at Fantastic Fest, you aren’t presented with some cheeseball, bronze trophy. No, the award is a commemorative ceramic stein full of cold beer. When you accept your award, you have to chug down the beer and hoist your stein triumphantly. Definitely better than watching boring speeches and waiting for people to get played off by the music so they can hurry things along. From the press release: “Taking top prize in the Next Wave competition is the darkly comedic drama from Britain, DOWN TERRACE. The audience award goes to A TOWN CALLED PANIC, the best horror film goes to HUMAN CENTIPEDE while Chilean action thriller MANDRILL takes the Fantastic Feature award.” I had the honor of accepting the award for my favorite film Fish Story, which won for Best Fantastic Screenplay. I’m seeing the rest of the films this week, so hopefully I’ll be able to see what the hubbub was all about. At the end of the ceremony, the director of Down Terrace popped the cork off of a bottle of champagne with a sword, and we all raised a toast to all of the competing films and filmmakers, and to those who won. A nice touch.

The Fantastic Debates: Another Fantastic Fest staple are the midnight Fantastic Debates, where filmmakers, film critics, and other square off in a boxing ring. First they engage in verbal debates, then they actually go toe to toe in a very real boxing match. The topics this year included, “Michael Bay: Does He Deserve An Oscar or the Death Penalty?”, “Are Vampires Gay?”, and “Is Independent Film Dead?” Highly entertaining stuff. Especially seeing Drafthouse owner Tim League square off against director Uwe Boll. I’m just sad that Tim didn’t actually break his jaw, especially since he was wearing an “And the Oscar Goes To … Uwe Boll” t-shirt. That’s just a bit too much. I recorded audio from all of the debates, and you can give them a listen or download them in my post over on Cinematical. The Michael Bay one is fairly hilarious, and the independent film topic turned Tim League very passionate, and is well worth your time. He said we’re in a golden age for indie films, and I sure hope that inspires filmmakers out there to write some great stories and pick up a camera. It’s your turn in the spotlight.

Day Four marks the halfway point for Fantastic Fest, and I’ve already seen two of the best films of the festival so far. That really makes me wonder what they’re going to close things out with. There was Secret Screening #3 on Sunday, and it turned out to be Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and not the Michael Jackson concert rehearsal footage film, This Is It, as everyone expected. Personally, I think we got a good deal. We were able to enjoy Gilliam and Michael Jackson in the same evening… due to the Michael Jackson Dance Party held at midnight.

With only two Secret Screenings left, speculation is running rampant about what they might be. I’ve heard everything from Kick-Ass to Sherlock Holmes to The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Okay, New Moon was tongue-in-cheek; Let’s hope they don’t try to kill us with shock from something like that, or the horrendously awful Tucker Max movie. Enough about what we might be seeing, let’s talk about what we DID see during Day Four.

KENNY BEGINS

Definitely one of the weirder films I’ve seen in a long time, Kenny Begins ended up being my second favorite film so far. It’s a Swedish science fiction movie about Kenny Starfighter, an inept, blonde, longtime cadet in the Galaxy Hero class on a faraway planet. He keeps repeating the classes in hopes of being a true Galaxy Hero one day, and not a hairdresser like everyone else in his family. The film opens with him daydreaming that he’s saved the universe in a hilarious American-style sci-fi action opener, as he does battle (in English) against the evil Emperor Zing. He hurls an iron rod through Zing’s body and remarks, “You get the point.” But then he wakes up in class, and we see what an idiot he actually is. He ends up trying to ticket a speeding spaceship and accidentally falls through a black hole where he lands on Earth, and in the process teams up with a young boy who has received superpowers from a power crystal from Kenny’s world.

If it sounds crazy, it is. If it sounds convoluted, it is. If it sounds like it would be incredibly lame, it most definitely is NOT. That’s due in large part to Johan Rheborg who plays Kenny with such a lovable dumbness that he makes Patrick Warburton look second-rate.

DURESS

The first film I’ve really felt like walking out of at Fantastic Fest was this one. It was emotionally flat, had a twist ending that was completely unbelievable, and relies on two leading men (Martin Donovan and Sakis Rouvas) who are uninspired and tedious. The story is about a father (Donovan) trying to take care of his young daughter, who seems emotionally distant after the apparent suicide of her mother. Things take a turn for the weird, however, when Donovan is held at gunpoint one night at a donut shop, and his abductor starts him on a series of strange tasks, such as disposing of the donut shop clerk’s body. He threatens to kill Donovan’s daughter if he stops complying, and things quickly escalate. Donovan is pushed into doing things he never thought he’d do, including murder.

In more capable hands, this might have been a good thriller, but the pacing was extremely slow, and Donovan’s hangdog expression quickly becomes irritating. You might recognize him as the DEA agent Nancy Botwin was dating for awhile on Weeds. Word of advice: unless you want to feel some duress of your own, skip this one.

TRUFFE

Director Kim Nguyen said he wrote this script over a short period by writing down one word at a time on a pad of paer he had next to his bed. These words would be based on his dreams, and then in the evenings he’d try to hammer them together into a script. Suffice it to say, this guy has some pretty bizarre dreams. The story is about a couple, Charles and Alice, who discover rare black truffles on their property – an expensive delicacy that is almost more valuable than gold. However, as global warming heats up the earth, black truffles soon begin appearing everywhere, and they aren’t worth nearly what they used to be. Charles toils day and night in the truffle mine while Alice works in the diner they own. Meanwhile, a seemingly normal clothing shop called The House of Fur Collars is revealed as an insidious front, operated by a stoic blonde female terminatrix and a team of strange, furry weasel creatures. They’re trying to corner the market on truffles and make them widely available under the banner “Mr. Truffle…”

Sounds bizarre, right? Even crazier than Kenny Begins. Audience members who opted for the Truffe Truffle Feast (I did… when in Rome, right?) were treated to a three course meal featuring truffles in every dish and culminating with truffle gelato and a black truffle chocolate truffle. Decadent, to be sure. Truffe is a fun movie, although the plot is wacky and it’s shot in black and white.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

This was the Secret Screening for the evening, and even though it already screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, I was extremely excited to see it. I’ve been a Gilliam fan ever since I saw Time Bandits, and for me Parnassus did not disappoint.

The film revolves around the titular Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, a traveling show featuring a band of entertainers trying to lure visitors into the Doctor’s Imaginarium. They pass into it by stepping through a fake mirror, and on the oher side they really are in wonderland – or at least, their own version of it. However, times are tough, and the Doctor and his crew have fallen on hard times. As they leave one part of London and start traveling to another, they come across [SPOILER!!!] Tony (Heath Ledger), hanging from his neck under a bridge, apparently dead. Which was very eerie to see. They revive him, and he joins their band, but he isn’t all he seems to be [END SPOILER].

Tony begins to drum up a brisk business for the troupe, although each time he enters the Imaginarium, he looks different: during his three visits he looks like Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, which as you know was how they stepped around the fact that Ledger died during production. As Tony’s story begins to unravel, and the Doctor reveals that he’s been placing wagers with the devil (Tom Waits), the story comes to a climax in a battle of souls. Some people complained that they had problems following the story, and that it was too garish for them. To me, that’s just Terry Gilliam. I enjoyed this one and would recommend it, especially if you’re a Gilliam fanatic.

Day Four ended with the Michael Jackson Dance Party, and I’m not above admitting that I learned how to dance to “Thriller,” whipped my imaginary chain around to “Beat It,” and spun around to the tunes of “Bad.” There’s no denying that Jackson definitely had some amazing dance moves, and it was both fun and funny to see people trying to emulate those. Especially uncoordinated movie bloggers .

]]> http://screenrant.com/fantastic-fest-kenny-begins-duress-truffe-imaginarium-of-doctor-parnassus-kkelly-28342/feed/ 0 http://screenrant.com/fantastic-fest-vampires-assistant-kkelly-27925/ http://screenrant.com/fantastic-fest-vampires-assistant-kkelly-27925/#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:42:37 +0000 Kevin Kelly http://screenrant.com/?p=27925

Day Three of Fantastic Fest is over and done with, and it was a bit of a doozy. Not because of the continuing onslaught of genre films, but because by the end of the night it felt like an alien queen escaped from her hive and laid larval babies in my stomach. I’m not sure if it’s something I ate, or because I was burning the candle at both ends, but after the last screening of the day I was ready to crash. However, one of the movies I’d seen that day has stuck with me, and right now it’s a strong contender for my Best of the Fest.

Day Four is already underway, so I’m under the gun to get this one finished. Why? Because today’s plate involves Swedish science fiction, revenge killing, Canadian truffle hunting, and another Secret Screening. The hush-hush rumor is that it might be This Is It, the Michael Jackson concert footage movie. This seems like a good possibility, because Tim League is a massive Jackson fan, and they’re also having a Michael Jackson Dance Party right after the Secret Screening. Whatever it is, we’ll be letting you know.

Fish Story: This is the one that bowled me over. It was a Saturday morning early screening, but exhaustion, hunger, and everything else melted away once this movie started rolling. It’s a whirlwind blend of science fiction, mid-70s punk rock, martial arts, and failed book translations. They all get tied up neatly in a pretty little package near the end of the movie, but as the saying goes, “The Journey is the Destination.” Everything leading up to that point is amazing, cinematic, and completely engaging. Even the faux band Gekirin created for the movie delivers a wham-bang song in the titular “Fish Story,” and you can catch it right here. It’s just a very slim but important piece of the puzzle that is the entire movie, and you really need to see the whole thing for it to snap into place. The movie has more flashbacks and forwards than a Tarantino movie, but it is without a doubt one of the most imaginative and engaging movies I’ve seen all year. I highly recommend seeking Fish Story out if you get the chance.

Morphia: One problem with going to a genre-filled film festival is that a lot of people expect everything to be hyperkinetic and contain more cuts than the latest video on MTV. If it’s not, they get cranky and bored. Like the guy next to me at Morphia. He kept sighing loudly during each new scene, which gave the movie an unforeseen subplot I like to call “Don’t Punch The Idiot Next To Me.” The film watches like a very good novel, it’s slow and deliberate … but that’s the point. Set in 1917, it’s about a young Russian doctor stationed in a remote village, far on the outskirts of Moscow. When he has an allergic reaction to an anti-diptheria shot he receives, he asks the nurse for a shot of morphine temper the effects. Thus begins his slow descent into morphine addiction, and he begins to turn from a respected surgeon into a man crazed for his next fix. Along the way he beds a bankrupt widow, fights off wolves, has an affair with his nurse, and performs medical miracles. All while dealing with his vice and trying to keep it concealed from those around him. If you’re only interested in seeing fast-paced, brainless movies without a story, skip this. If you like cold Russian winters and slow descents into a panic-stricken world, try a shot of Morphia.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant: In the effort of full disclosure, I have not read any of the 12 Cirque du Freak books by Darren Sham. However, I am a huge fan of John C. Reilly, and I’d see him in just about anything. A testament to this is the fact that I loved Chicago, a movie I probably wouldn’t have considered if he wasn’t in it. I’m hoping that’s why a lot of people go see Cirque du Freak, because honestly JC Reilly is the best thing about it. Which means the performances from the two tween male stars fall way off the radar, and leave a lot to be desired. There’s a fantastic cast in this movie. Besides Reilly, you’ve got Willem Dafoe, Salma Hayek, Patrick Fugit, and Ken Watanabe. But they’re all hardly in the movie. Reilly has a lot of screen time, but as the title suggests, the movie focuses on the young vampire’s assistant, and ultimately about the battle between he and his best friend turned nemesis … the nasty and evil Steve. Nothing strikes fear into hearts like the name Steve. I’ll put it this way, if you have kids Cirque is fun. Otherwise skip it or give it a watch when it hits DVD. Book purists beware: they’ve added a fair amount of comedy.

The evening ended with Fantastic Feud, a trivia game pitting Americans against Foreigners in a battle for the ultimate in film geek glory, overseen by Cinematical’s Scott Weinberg (@scotteweinberg on Twitter). The Americans eked out a win in the end, and there was celebratory karaoke, pole dancing, and shenanigans. Sadly, I missed all of this because of the aforementioned alien babies. But tonight I’ve brought my dancing shoes and a change of clothes for Michael Jackson, so I’m in for the long run. Read all about the damage tomorrow on Screen Rant.

Day One of Fantastic Fest ended with an opening night party at the Drafthouse’s new “The Highball,” where they threw a Gentlemen Broncos “Brutus & Balzaak Bash” after the name of one of Dr. Ronald Chevalier’s science fiction novels. Complete with popcorn sculptures and a fully-outfitted battle stag (it’ll make sense if you see the movie), it went late into the night while people bowled, drank, and ate new menu items like Dr. Pepper ribs. That’s how geeks party.

But more importantly the end of the night meant that Day Two would be starting up soon. To Fantastic Fest attendees, that means more movies and more oddities. For me, it meant a chance to see some bizarre films, and I was not disappointed. I just don’t know if I was mentally prepared for part of the day. I’m hoping that I’m not deeply scarred emotionally. That’s all due to Secret Screening #1, which ended up being Robogeisha. These are screenings that aren’t revealed to the audience until seconds before the movie screens, and they usually haven’t ever been seen outside of festival circuits. Read on for more.

• Krabat: based on an actual children’s fairy tale called The Satanic Mill, Krabat is about a young boy who comes under the service of a powerful sorcerer as an apprentice. During the year, the twelve disciples of the master serve him by learning the dark arts, and doing his bidding. Although that might sound ominous, it just consists of simple chores like cleaning and preparing food. Once a year, the master sacrifices one of the twelve, which is how he stays young and maintains his power. At first, Krabat is a willing and strong follower, but when he accidentally meets a young beauty in a nearby village, he begins to rebel against the master. Although it’s beautifully shot and well acted (Daniel Brühl from Inglourious Basterds plays Tonda, a journeyman who becomes a fast friend to Krabat), the film is slow moving – and despite the presence of the dark arts, there are scant few instances of magic in the film. I’m all for a good story, but I wouldn’t have minded some serious wand-waving and magic making. Plus Krabat starts growing a ridiculous ponytail and a 70s-era porn mustache that makes him look a lot less appealing.

• Robogeisha: This is what I wasn’t sure I was prepared for. Not the film itself, mind you, but for what came afterwards. The movie is about a young girl who one day hopes to become a geisha like her older sister, but before she has the chance she’s pulled into a different life as an assassin. Not just a normal assassin, either, but one with bionic implements built-in to help with her killing. Sounds fairly straightforward, but toss in a pair of crazy Tengu assassin girls who wear bikinis with red faces on their breasts and shoot shurikens our of their butts (no lie). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Later you have transforming castles, executives with built-in shoulder guns, squads of women training in their underwear, and a group of geriatric, revenge-seeking grandparents. This is all lockstep with the main character Yoshie, who has now become a full-fledged robogeisha. Her body has now been replaced with so much technology that “when I strike a sexy pose, blades come out of my armpits.” Would you expect anything more from Noburo Iguchi, director of other Japaweirdness like The Machine Girl?

• Robogeisha: Even more — After the screening of the film, Drafthouse owner Tim League and director Iguchi came on stage with the makeup artist and producer of the movie … clad only in white sumo wraps. Yes, there was plenty of man-buttcheek to be seen, and just to make sure you saw it, they danced up and down the aisle, so you got a face full of it. Then, the two Tengu women from the film appeared, complete with their funky bikinis and katanas. They squared off against the sumo boys, and stuck darts in their rear ends, to the applause and delight of the audience. Not something I’m used to seeing at a movie, that’s for sure.

• The Men Who Stare At Goats: thankfully I had Secret Screening #2 to wash the taste out of my mouth, and I was surprised (along with people who supposedly knew what the next Secret Screening would be) to learn that we’d be seeing The Men Who Stare At Goats. This is the directing debut of George Clooney’s partner Grant Heslov, and it stars Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, and Jeff Bridges. The film is (very) loosely based on a book of the same name that documents the U.S. military experiments into psychic warfare, including trying to have men kill goats by staring at them. Seriously, that’s your tax dollars at work. While the book is non-fiction, the film takes a serious turn for the absurd, and that’s mostly due to “Jedi Warrior” (that’s what they call themselves) Lyn Cassady. Ewan McGroger plays Bob Wilton, a reporter in trying to get into Iraq to show his estranged wife how strong he is, and once he meets Len they have a series of bizarre adventures, none of which prove that Len actually possesses psychic powers, and he learns about the hilarious beginnings of the psychic program as the “New Earth Army,” sanctioned by the U.S. Army and led by Jeff Bridges who comes as close to channeling The Dude here as he ever has since The Big Lebowski. It’s not a deep film, and is extremely light in tone, but I found it very enjoyable. Looking forward to whatever Heslov turns out next.

That brought the screenings to a close, and I didn’t have the energy left to muster up a second midnight screening in a row, but I did go bowling and hit the skee-ball machines at The Highball. That place is going to end up being a huge boon to theatergoers looking for somewhere to hang out. Day Three is filled with Russian morphine addiction, Japanese punk rock sci-fi, and John C. Reilly in Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. See how it turns out right here on Screen Rant.

Fantastic Fest: Day One is now officially under the belt, as are a large amount of bizarre culinary treats, including the aformentioned root beer cookies. As promised, they are amazing. Amazing and extremely filling. Don’t eat this with a horror movie, or a film about sailing at sea during rough weather, because it’ll make you toss those cookies right back. I probably don’t need to eat sweets for a month now.

So how did the first day fare? It was a bit of a mixed bag. Things didn’t get rolling until the late afternoon, and it was a roller coaster of different movies that ended up being the good, the bad, and the in-between. Thankfully, I did work in several frames of bowling at the new Highball lounge recently opened up by the Alamo Drafthouse as a place to kick it between flicks. That gave me some time to soak in the first two movies before heading to a midnight screening, and I’m now running on sugar fumes.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

The Good One: A couple who hears bumps in the night soon find out that things are a lot scarier while they sleep, when they start videotaping the goings on in their house. It’s more frightening than The Blair Witch Project, but will play better on DVD in your own home when the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up. I’m always dubious about movies shot on “home video” like the Blair Witch and Cloverfield, but at least the guy in this movie also manages to purchase a tripod. There are some extremely creepy scenes without going overboard, and the two stars of the film definitely seem believable as real people – especially since they aren’t people whose faces you’d recognize.

Fans of Ghost Hunters and actual paranormal phenomenon will like this one, and there are moments that will definitely have you checking closets and bolting awake at strange sounds in the night. I saw this one before I’d heard the hype (it screened at Slamdance way back in 2008 with a different ending), and I enjoyed it a lot. For chills you can enjoy right now, you might also run out and rent The Entity. That’s some real terror right there, with a similar story. It’ll tide you over until Paranormal Activity hits DVD later this year.

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FIRST SQUAD

The In-between One: I’m a sucker for anime, and there are boatloads of Japanese animated movies that I’ve missed. However, the story here was written by Russian authors, and it was taken to Japan where it was animated by Studio 4°C, the same studio behind The Animatrix, Batman: Gotham Knight and more. It’s about a team (The First Squad) of teenage superfighters for the Russian Army in WWII, one of whom is a clairvoyant named Nadya. After the death of her team, Nadya loses her memory and foresees the coming of a resurrected German killing machine: Baron von Wolff.

Like the Russians, the Nazis also have a team of occult weirdies working on turning the tide of war, and they’ve managed to summon his spirit to break through the afterlife with a team of resurrected soldiers and attack the Russian forces. It’s dead vs. living as Nadya summons her team from the beyond to clash with von Wolff. I love Japanese animation, but the filmmakers chose to cutaway to live-action talking heads in this movie who may or may not be actual war survivors. It was extremely jarring, and would take you out of the film lickety-split. The film is at its best when they use a steampunkish machine to send Nadya to the afterlife in search of her cohorts.

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GENTLEMEN BRONCOS

The Bad One: Where does everyone fall in the Jared Hess directorial timeline? If you’re anything like most of the people I spoke with last night, you loved Napoleon Dynamite, weren’t too overboard for Nacho Libre, and … really didn’t like Gentlemen Broncos. That’s not to say it’s a completely terrible movie. There are some terrifically funny moments in it, most of them involving Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords as an extremely pretentious and self-centered science fiction writer named Dr. Ronald Chevalier. If this was a movie about his trials and tribulations on the sci-fi lecture circuit, it might have been better.

Instead, we get a plot that’s 2/3 Napoleon Dynamite (Pedro is Lonnie, played by Hector Jimenez, while  Deb is Tabitha, played by Halley Feiffer), and 1/3 mess. No one turns in a bad performance here: Michael Angarano is great as leading-boy Benjamin Purvis, who has his science fiction novel stolen by Dr. Chevalier; Sam Rockwell is hilarious as always in a dual role as both a bearded and fey space adventurer; Jennifer Coolidge is squinty and great as Benjamin’s housecoat-designing mom, and Mike White is deadpan hilarious as a wig-wearing David St. Hubbins clone. The problem is that the movie makes fun of bad moviemaking, which it does in spades, and in the end, it unfortunately becomes one of those bad movies.

I actually ended the day on Paranormal Activity, which was a good scare, and made it hard to go to sleep at night, despite my exhaustion factor. Today we’re on to more, including German horror and two Secret Screenings, which Fantastic Fest is known for. These are screenings that aren’t revealed to the audience until the show rolls, and last year they included The City of Ember, Role Models, and Rocknrolla. We’ve been busy speculating about possibilities for this year, and our whislist is Whip It, Kick-Ass, and The Lovely Bones. We’ve heard a rumor so many times this week that the first one will be Robogeisha, so I’m stoked for for blood and robots tonight.

Stay tuned for more.

(Check Screen Rant’s coverage of Paranormal Activity here)

[Guest writer (and all around cool dude) Kevin Kelly will be covering Fantastic Fest for us - enjoy!]

Have you ever enjoyed a movie while having dinner and beer… at an actual movie theater? That’s the main claim to fame of Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse. But if that wasn’t enough, they’ve gone above and beyond by creating special programming that caters to the geek in all of us. Things like quote-alongs with The Big Lebowski and Office Space, outfitting an entire audience with Flint Tropics uniforms for Will Ferrell’s Semi-Pro, and tailoring their menu to match what’s on-screen. For example, right now you can enjoy root beer extract cookies while watching Mike Judge’s Extract.

How do you top all of that? By creating a film festival made entirely for movie geeks. This year marks their fifth annual Fantastic Fest, which was originally conceived by Drafthouse founder Tim League, among others. It’s an eight day celebration of movies that appeal to the geek in all of us, ranging from sci-fi, to horror, to anime, to weirdness from Hong Kong and more. That’s not to say it’s all obscure strange stuff like the four hour Japanese bizarre upskirt movie called Love Exposure – movies like Zombieland, Daybreakers, and Jared Hess’ new film Gentlemen Broncos will all be screening over the next week.

And we’ll be watching. Stay tuned to Screen Rant for all of the weirdness of Fantastic Fest and more as we bring you capsule reviews, photos, and more from what Variety calls “Geek Telluride.” Fantastic Fest officially begins today, so check back tomorrow for a roundup. First on the block tomorrow: First Squad, an animated feature that pits Hitler’s secret occult division of the SS against Russia’s own clandestine magic squad. Only from Japan. We also managed to catch Zombieland last night, and you can look for something on that tomorrow (although Vic will be writing a full review next week). Here’s a preview: “It’s awesome.”