The Circuit

Bill Murray attended last night's sneak screening of "City of Ember" at Fantastic Fest.  Murray plays the Mayor of Ember, an underground city who's source of power - a 200 year old generator - is failing.

After the screening, the fest closed with a subterranean party inside Longhorn Caverns in Burnett, TX.

Magnet has grabbed North American rights to "Chocolate," the new martial arts actioner from "Ong Bak" helmer Prachya Pinkaew.

Pic preemed at Toronto and just had its U.S premiere at Fantastic Fest.

Apparently, the film's lead, Jeeja Vismistananda, trained for five years for the role.  She plays an autistic girl who learns Muay Thai by watching marathon screenings of Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee films.

"'Chocolate' proves Jeeja is as hard hitting as the big boys and fans will be delighted by Prachya’s return to kick ass action,” said Magnolia Senior Vice President Tom Quinn.

by Jette Kernion
World "air sex" championships. Choosing between Japanese soft-core porn and Swedish vampire films. A glossary of icons used to denote content in films from "anarchy" and "backne," "workman's crack" and "zombies." Filmmakers chugging beer out of their beer-stein awards in front of a chanting audience. A whole roasted pig served before a movie to bring the film good luck. Boat parties and cave parties and and outdoor screenings and movie-trivia game shows.

The fourth annual Fantastic Fest, Austin's genre film festival, is underway. Festival founder Tim League (pictured with Kevin Smith) donned a kimono and struck a gong Thursday night to start the festival with the words, "With a stroke of this gong, I am about to declare this festival ... awesome!"

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno," was the festival's opening-night draw, with writer-director Kevin Smith attending. In previous years, Fantastic Fest was a single-venue festival at Alamo Drafthouse South, where the largest theaters seat no more than 250. For 2008, Tim League (who also owns Alamo Drafthouse) decided to expand the increasingly popular festival, holding the official opening-night film and party at the 1200-seat Paramount Theater, which was filled to capacity for the event.

The subsequent party featured the World Air Sex Championships, in which contestants simulated sexual activities while dressed as vampires and sexy teachers... and the McCain/Palin ticket.

Fantastic Fest's offerings this year were heavily international -- subtitles were the norm rather than the exception. The genre festival lineup included horror (often with lots of gore), science fiction, fantasy, animated films and documentaries about genre films and filmmakers. Some of the festival's more popular selections have been "JCVD," in which Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as himself; the Swedish horror film "Let the Right One In," J.T. Petty's Western thriller "The Burrowers," the Thai action film "Chocolate," directed by Prachya Pinkaew (Ong Bak), and the Chilean superhero comedy "Santos," produced by Elizabeth Avellan of Austin's Troublemaker Studios.

Despite its increased size, Fantastic Fest still manages to retain a casual and friendly feeling, with many filmmakers attending the festival and mingling with festgoers at screenings or on the patio next to Alamo Drafthouse. Actor Bill Pullman arrived at the festival on Thursday for the opening-night films, then participated in Q&A sessions on Friday night for a double-feature of films in which he starred: Jennifer Lynch's thriller "Surveillance," and the surreal comedy "Your Name Here," in which Pullman's character is based on science-fiction author Philip K. Dick.

In addition, Fantastic Fest included a retrospective series on Australian exploitation ("ozploitation") films, including an outdoor screening of "The Road Warrior" (preceded by a Vegemite-eating contest), and a series called "Behind the Pink Curtain," which featured a selection of Japanese "pink" films, such as "Blue Film Woman" and "S&M Hunter."

Awards for the festival were announced on Monday night. "Tokyo Gore Police," a Japanese action film directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, took home the AMD Next Wave award for up-and-coming filmmakers. The Korean film "The Good, the Bad and the Weird" won the festival's audience award. "South of Heaven," a horror-noir movie starring the Nee brothers ("The Last Romantic") won the Fantastic Fest Online award, in which online audiences could watch selected features from the festival and vote on the best ones. The Danish satire "How to Get Rid of the Others" led the Fantastic Features category, and "Let the Right One In" took home the Horror Features award.

The festival continues through Thursday, with three of its trademark "secret screenings" planned. In previous years, these screenings have included early showings of "Apocalypto," "Southland Tales" and "There Will Be Blood," with the film's directors in attendance. The closing-night festivities will take place at Longhorn Cavern State Park, a cave in Burnet, Texas that served as a speakeasy during Prohibition.

If you can't make it to Fantastic Fest, don't fret.  Ten of their films are available online -- for the low price of free -- including the docu "I Think We're Alone Now," (pictured) following two stalkers who've been trailing Tiffany for 20 years.

Fest sponsors AMD and B-Side have them up at fantasticfest.com/online.  You need to be a member of B-Side, but that is also cheaply free.

The ten films available:

Features:
Dr. Infierno (Spain)
A demented gynecologist discovers a cure for all the world’s illnesses and uses it as leverage to become sole dictator of the earth. Jam-packed with monsters, kung fu, battling robots and deviant sexual practices, DR. INFIERNO doesn’t let budget get in the way of executing a mountain of crazy ideas.

I Think We're Alone Now (USA)
This fascinating and deeply disturbing documentary takes you deep into the worlds and obsessions of Kelly McCormick and Jeffery Deane Turner, who have been separately stalking 80s pop icon Tiffany for nearly 20 years.

La Creme (France)
Under the Christmas tree, unemployed loser François Margin mysteriously finds a jar of face cream that once applied, temporarily turns him into the most famous celebrity in France.

Rule of Three (USA)
Set in one night in a seedy hotel, cult Novelist Eric Shapiro’s debut feature intertwines two stories of sexual encounters gone horribly awry.

South of Heaven (USA)
Two brothers on the wrong side of everyone must face an endless array of torture, terrors and indignities in this darkly comic and visually striking noir.

Shorts:
Cam to Cam (France)
Technology and intimacy are at war. This movie is a genuinely creepy exploration of the casualties.

Fish (USA)
The filmmaking team behind last year's FF hit THE BIRD, THE MOUSE AND THE SAUSAGE are back with a new stop-motion food tale that reveals the secret nature of pescatorial reproduction.

Kingz (Germany)
A botched drug deal spirals out of control in a subterranean night club filled with unnameable evils. The action is furious and so are the villains, so be prepared for some whirlwind brutality!

Rojo Red (Colombia)
Some people complain about their life unraveling, but it's rarely as pronounced as in this whimsical, bizarre short from a young Colombian visualist already on par with mighty artists like Michel Gondry.

Treevenge (Canada)
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN creators Jason Eisener and Rob Cotterill imagine a yuletide season where the Christmas trees finally even the score for decades of living under the axe of mankind.

The full gore of Fantastic is now online. 

"Razorback," Air Sex World Championships, "Evil Dead" Quote-a-Thon," "Mad Max" Outdoors, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." 

So angry pigs, sex with nothing, talking to the screen, post apocalypse in the open air, and indie film porn.  Something for everyone, almost.

Kevin Smith will honor Fantastic Fest's Air Sex World Championship after-party by screening "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" at the Austin fest's opening night gala.  Smith will be there to intro the film and do a Q&A. 

The competition will take place on stage at Austin's Paramount Theater.  It's described as "air guitar, but with a bit more sizzle."

The Weinstein Company will open the pic October 31.

As mentioned earlier, Fantastic Fest's second round of pics has Nicolas Lopez's "Santos," Mark Hartley's "Not Quite Hollywood," and now the world premieres of "Blair Witch" co-director Edward Sanchez's "Seventh Moon" and John Gulager's "Feast 2," the followup to his Project Greenlight pic, "Feast," which world premiered at Fantastic's first year.

UPDATE:  Mabrouk El Mechri's JCVD, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme in his own twisted biopic, has been added to the lineup.  While reception to the film was mixed at Cannes, it has some legs for the fest circuit.  Before Fantastic, it'll play Toronto's Midnight Madness.

Fantastic Fest - Second Wave

Santos
World Premiere / dir. Nicolás López / Chile / 2008 / 100 min.
Three years after his SXSW debut feature PROMEDIO ROJO, Chilean prodigy director Nicolás López returns with SANTOS, a wild, sweeping tale of comic book nerds versus superheroes in a battle for the future of mankind. Think Ultraman with a Latin American brain transplant.  From the producers of SIN CITY and THE ORPHANAGE, visual effects by Troublemaker Studios.

Seventh Moon
World Premiere / dir. Edward Sanchez / USA / 2008 / 90 min
While honeymooning in rural China during the "Hungry Ghost" Festival, newlyweds Melissa (Amy Smart) and Yul (Tim Chiou) find themselves stranded at night in the middle of a superstitious ritual that may be more real than folk legend. 

Acolytes
US Premiere / dir. Jon Hewitt / Australia / 2008 / 91 min.
Three teens blackmail a killer into taking down the violent bully who has been making their lives hell.  An explosive first feature from Australian Jon Hewitt who will be in attendance to present the film.

Chocolate
US Premiere / dir. Prachya Pinkaew / Thailand / 2008 / 110 min.
The director of ONG BAK returns with his new protégé, who was in training for five years for this role. Ammara Siripong portrays an autistic girl who learns martial arts from watching Tony Jaa and Bruce Lee films so as to exact revenge on those who bankrupted her mother.

Deadgirl
US Premiere / dir. Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento / USA / 2008 / 99 min.
Exploring an abandoned sanatorium while ditching school, two high school burnouts discover a girl strapped to a gurney in a secluded chamber.  Debut directors Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento craft a new breed of teen angst drama set against a backdrop of humor black enough to make John Hughes retreat to a fetal state. Both directors will be in attendance to present the film.

Fear(s) of the Dark
Austin Premiere / dir. Various / France / 2007 / 85 min.
An animated anthology of films by six of the world's hottest graphic artists and cartoonists. All films are rendered in black and white, and all are based on their creators' own nightmares and fears.

Feast 2
World Premiere / dir. John Gulager / USA / 2008 / 90 min.
John Gulager returns to the Alamo to premiere the second installment in his FEAST franchise.  The original crowd-pleasing splatterfest FEAST world-premiered at Fantastic Fest in our first year.

JCVD
US Premiere / dir. Mabrouk El Mechri / France / 2008 / 96 min.
Jean-Claude Van Damme portrays an aging action star whose career in Hollywood is all but washed up. Returning to his homeland in Brussels, he lands in the middle of a bank heist and may have to actually save the day.

La Crème (THE Creme)
Regional Premiere / dir. Reynald Bertrand / France / 2007 / 83 min.
Under the Christmas tree, unemployed loser François Margin mysteriously finds a jar of face cream that once applied, temporarily turns him into the most famous celebrity in France.

Not Quite Hollywood
US Premiere / dir. Mark Hartley / Australia / 2008 / 102 min.
A documentary that traces the secret and not so secret history of Ozploitation, Australian exploitation cinema.

Rule of Three
US Premiere / dir. Eric Shapiro / USA / 2007 / 85 min.
Set in one night in a seedy hotel, cult Novelist Eric Shapiro's debut feature intertwines two stories of sexual encounters gone horribly awry.

Surveillance
North American Premiere / dir. Jennifer Lynch / USA / 2008 / 98 min.
Jennifer Lynch (BOXING HELENA) helms a crime thriller with overtones of RASHOMON. None of the eyewitness accounts in a roadside serial killer massacre seem to match up.  The FBI is called in to cut through the confusion before the killer can strike again.

Tokyo!
Regional Premiere / dir. Joon-ho Bong, Leos Carax, Michel Gondry / 2008 / 90 min.
An anthology of three 30-minute short films, all reflections on Tokyo by three non-Japanese directors. Michel Gondry's Interior Design, Bong Joon-Ho's Shaking Tokyo and Leos Carax's Merde.

Wicked lake
Regional Premiere / dir. Zack Passero / USA / 2008 / 95 min.
Four buxom ladies head out to the country for some good old-fashioned naked lesbian Wiccan frolicking. The locals who bust in on their retreat quickly regret their imposition when the witching hour arrives.

Zombie Girl
World Premiere / dir. Aaron Marshall, Justin Johnson, Erik Mauck / USA / 2008 / 91 min.
A documentary covering the two years that it took 12-year-old Austinite Emily Hagins to write and direct the feature-length zombie movie PATHOGEN.

Fantastic Fest's second round of pics has the world preem of Nicolas Lopez's "Santos" and the US preem of Mark Hartley's "Not Quite Hollywood," which fest director Tim League describes as "probably the biggest concentration of explosions, nudity and blood at Fantastic Fest this year."

Note: The full schedule will be released on Thursday (Sorry, we jumped the gun a bit). 

In the meantime, take a look at "Not Quite Hollywood's" awesome trailer, which in its own abbreviated way delivers on every prepubescent boy's classroom daydreams.  Including the nudity.

One retrospective at this year's Fantastic Fest that has fest director Tim League all giddy is their showcase of Japanese "Pink" films - Japan's version of soft core porn. The genre blossomed in the '60s and '70s as a way for filmmakers to get a budget and distribution.  All they had to have was 35 minutes of sex on screen.  The rest was up to them. 

"They aren't like American soft core, with is kinda a joke.  Some of these are real movies.  Porn is an afterthought," said League.

One film he's looking forward to screening - "The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai."  What's it about? 

At a café a woman is involved in an argument and shot in the head.  Rather than killing her, the lodged bullet gives her extraordinary mental powers.  And in her pocket she finds a cloned copy of George W. Bush's finger, which the North Koreans want for their nuclear holocaust plans.

Oh, and she's a call girl.  So every ten minutes she has sex.

Austin's Fantastic Fest has announced the first pot of films for their fourth event.  Fest director Tim League, along with programmers Harry Knowles (Ain't It Cool News), Todd Brown (Twitchfilm.net), Blake Ethridge (Cinema is Dope), Zack Carlson and Lars Nilsen (Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) "scoured the globe for the strangest, the most heart-pounding and the most challenging new genre films."

Though only four years old, Fantastic has made name by screening first-looks of such films as Mel Gibson's "Apolocalypto," and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood."

While League won't yet say what sneaks he's planning this year, the list of films so far is a thorough cross-section of recent genre films.  The program includes fest circuit favorites such as Aleksei Balabanov's "Cargo 200," Tomas Alfredson's vampire flick "Let the Right One In," and Aristomenis Tsirbas' animated sci-fi "Terra" (pictured).

DJ Caruso is expected to attend, bringing his Shia LaBeouf thriller "Eagle Eye" to screen. 

The fest's opening night party is dubbed the Air Sex World Final.  (Imagine an air guitar contest, then replace the imaginary guitar with an imaginary person.) 

There will also be a dance party in a mile-deep cave, and a boat party after a screening on "Donkey Punch," which if you've seen the film may not sound like much fun.


Feature films:

"Art of the Devil 3" (2008, Thailand, director: Ronin Team)

"Cargo 200" (2007, Russia, director: Aleksei Balabanov)

"Dark Floors" (2008, Finland, director: Pete Riski)

"Doctor Infierno" (2008, Spain, director: Paco Limon)

"Donkey Punch" (2008, United Kingdom, director: Oliver Blackburn)

"Eagle Eye" (2008, USA, director: D.J. Caruso)
   
"Estomago" (2007, Brazil, director: Marcos Jorge)

"Ex Drummer" (2007, Belgium, director: Koen Mortier)

"Fighter" (2008, Denmark, director: Natasha Arthy)

"Gachi Boy: Wrestling with a Memory" (2008, Japan, director: Norihiro Koizumi)

"How to Get Rid of the Others" (2007, Denmark, director: Anders Rønnow Klarlund)

"I Think We’re Alone Now" (2007, USA, director: Sean Donnelly)

"Jack Brooks Monster Slayer" (2007, Canada, director: Jon Knautz)

"Let the Right One In" (2008, Sweden, director: Tomas Alfredson)

"Muay Thai Chaiya" (2007, Thailand, director: Kongkiat Khomsiri)

"The Short Films of Nacho Vigalondo" (various, Spain, director: Nacho Vigalondo)

"South of Heaven" (2007, USA, director: Jonathan Vara)

"Spine Tingler - The William Castle Story" (2007, USA, director: Jeffrey Schwarz)

"The Substitute" (2007, Denmark, director: Ole Bornedal)

"Terra" (2008, Canada, director: Aristomenis Tsirbas)

"The Tingler" (1959, USA, director: William Castle)

"Tokyo Gore Police"  (2008, Japan, director: Yoshihiro Nishimura)

by Maria Alvarez Rilla
News broke Friday night that Nacho Vigalondo's "Time Crimes" has taken top honors at Austin's Fantastic Fest, scooping the AMD Best Feature plaudit and an Audience Award silver medal.

He's an adopted Basque: the Spanish helmer's been working mano a mano for years with the spruce, gentlemanly Bilbao producer Eduardo Carnero. They won a best short Academy Award nom with "7:35 in the Morning" in 2005. Now they're making waves with Vigalondo's long feature debut.

"Time Crimes" has been a Spanish-language blogsphere smash since the get-go, thanks to its helmer's cult status as a director and a blogger.

As a sci-fi and jigsaw aficionada, I loved the wit of this time-paradox jigsaw. Basque thesp Karra Elejalde ("Airbag", "Mutant Action") is breathtaking as a time-traveller-caring-hubby Hector, and Barbara Goenaga ("Sylvia's Gift") is simply wonderful as a perturbing bike riding nymph.

An enthusiastic Harry Knowles review followed "Crimes" Austin's world premier. To Vigalondo's delight, Peter Martin at Twitchfilm misspelled Vigalondo as "Vigilando" (watching). "It's the perfect name for my hidden identity as a superhero," he blogged. We agree.

Sitges starts Thursday. "Time Crimes" competes. We will be Vigilando, Nacho.

Full list of Fantastic Fest winners here.

Watch Nacho at Fantastic Fest:

by Marjorie Baumgarten / Marginalia
The secret closing-night film of Fantastic Fest 3 in Austin, Texas, on Thursday night turned out to be the first public screening of Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood." In "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," it's not the gold that destroys men's souls but greed; in "There Will Be Blood," the commodity that drives the greed is oil.

Anderson was in attendance and answered a few questions following the screening. The film, which is based on Upton Sinclair's Oil!, really only uses "about the first 150 pages of the novel," according to Anderson. "The book goes on to Hollywood and Washington" and was just too expansive for his purposes, though he said that those opening chapters contained Sinclair's clear descriptions of the workings of the derricks and the precipitous moods that hung over communities that were about to sell their land to the oil prospectors. Anderson's usual mix of stunning landscape shots and long takes blend with his close-up scrutiny of the hidden meanings of faces and comportment.

Essential to the movie is the original score by Jonny Greenwood, the Radiohead guitarist and BBC composer in residence. In addition to some uniquely haunting orchestral arrangements, there's this insistent string motif that sounds like the buzzing of an insect inside one's head, a sound that grows louder and more unavoidably distressing whenever soulless events are about to occur.

"There Will Be Blood" was indeed an unusual choice to close out this year's Fantastic Fest, as Alamo Drafthouse Cinema founder and host Tim League was the first to admit. Though the film hardly belongs to the science fiction, fantasy, animation, and crime genres that attendees had been snacking on all week, League attested in his introduction that the film is undeniably "fantastic." League met Anderson this summer when the Drafthouse's Rolling Roadshow hosted an outdoor screening of "Boogie Nights" in the L.A. area and the director made a surprise appearance. The two became fast friends, which led to the Fantastic Fest screening. However, it took Ain't It Cool News' Harry Knowles to point out during the Q&A that Plainview was the "best monster" he had seen all week. Anderson responded that Dracula was in his thoughts as he was writing the screenplay. "There Will Be Blood" indeed.

A quick text message from someone in the audience at the Fantastic Fest sneak screening of "There Will Be Blood":

There will be blood just ended. Easily one of the best movies of the year.

More coming...

Twitch has a review of Richard Kelly's reworked "Southland Tales." The first cut famously bombed at Cannes.  Todd Brown says the "Donnie Darko" director's new cut, secretly screened last night at Fantastic Fest, "is far from the mess it has been made out to be, a work that rewards as much as it challenges and succeeds in finding the human, emotional core lurking beneath all of its high concepts." 

Yet he predicts that "if Darren Aronofsky's 'The Fountain' was too obscure and cerebral for mainstream audiences then 'Southland Tales,' a more challenging film by far, is destined to die a quick and unpleasant death at the box office."

As hot as they are, festival sneak screenings now lead to the inevitable blog leaks… and long, long lines.  Gone are the days when Telluriders would line up to get the latest sneak announcements.  Now word gets out.  As quickly as the first “Juno” was uttered, text messages, IMs, emails, and then blogs spilt the screenings all over the mountain town.  The winding line outside Chuck Jones' Cinema foretold they’d be a lot of unhappy badge holders. 

Rumors circulated that the fest sold too many Patron badges.  But Telluride’s Gary Meyer (pictured at Telluride's Sheridan Opera House) told me they sold the same number as last year.  And overall they actually sold less badges than last year (that includes Festival and Acme levels).

Said Meyer: “We had more screenings than ever before, and the addition of The Backlot which should have taken pressure off of screenings.  But people want to be the first to see high profile movies… and they all rush to see those movies causing horrible over-crowding… The reality is that every year there are people turned away from certain shows. We wish it wasn’t the case. And I wish I could predict what will happen but I can only guess.”

And as Fantastic Fest opens under a rumor of a “There Will Be Blood” screening, you can expect a repeat of Telluride – where lesser badgers scowl at the VIPs being ushered in first.  Said one Fantastic goer: “There are humongous lines for all the secret screenings, which end up being some of the town's worst-kept secrets.”

One might think the answer is to not make them secret.  Simply make it a part of the festival, red carpet and all.  But a fest programmer explained: “More often than not, it's due to a distributors' desire to save the film's premiere status for a later opportunity. Either for a later festival or because they don't want to diminish the film's actual Hollywood or New York premiere."

"That said, the nature of events like film festivals lend themselves to that air of mystery and surprise. So, it's actually kind of fun instead of frustrating.”

Is a distributor angered when their sneak title is leaked?

“It depends... I think as long as there are no trade reviews, it's not a big deal. But as we know, blogs have changed everything.”

Indeed, the currency of blogs and fanboy sites is in their value as first-look trade reviews.  No one knows that better than Harry Knowles, who is one of the Fantastic Fest’s founder/programmers.  Bet on Hollywood watching his site this week and next for first-words on big films.

On the heels of its pickup, Fantastic Fest has announced that “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead” will open the event in seven days.  Romero, pictured with Asia Argento in Toronto, will be there (photo by Jason Gemnich/Wireimage.com).

Austin's Fantastic Fest is not to be confused with the other Fantastic Film Fest in Scandinavia that has a very similar name, same theme... and happens around the same time.

That other one just announced some very cool guests of honor.  Let's hope they fly to the right place.

Austin’s Fantastic Fest has opened a fun trailer competition, but only for filmmakers 16 and under. And it must have a superhero in it:

Youth filmmaking teams will embark on a mission to conceive, write, make the costumes, film and edit a short film featuring an original concept superhero. The film must explain the powers of the superhero and conclude with the aforementioned character turning to camera and saying "(Name of superhero) welcomes you to Fantastic Fest."

(Mike Jones)

Austin's Fantastic Fest will announce a bunch of "cool stuff" later this week, though the program for the third annual event is already impressive. Fantastic will run September 20-27 featuring the best in "new science-fiction, fantasy, horror, animation, crime, Asian, and all around badass cinema," all from the collective programming brain of SXSW's Matt Dentler, Harry Knowles, Tim League and Kier-La Janisse (The Alamo Drafthouse), Todd Brown (Twitch), and Tim McCanlies (screenwriter of "Iron Giant"). Recently, Dentler scored Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's "Inside" (pictured) for Fantastic, about a very pregnant woman stalked by a deranged, aspiring mother with a knife. Check out the review here. "Inside" will also screen in Toronto's upcoming Midnight section. The Weinstein Company picked up the film in Berlin.  (Mike Jones)