Article by Andy James (Rockets & Robots Are Go!)
This year I counted myself extraordinarily lucky enough to attend the annual Fantastic Fest film festival held at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. Attending Fantastic Fest has been a dream of mine for a number of years and, this year, I made it reality.
Fantastic Fest is an annual, week-long film festival dedicated to the weird, the wild and the wonderful in the world of cinema. There are insane, low-budget sci-fis and horrors from first-time directors rubbing up against masterpieces by avowed genre masters. If you remember the standalone Incredibly Strange Film Festival, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about (ISFF founder and programmer Ant Timpson even being a judge at Fantastic Fest and those great icons from the ISFF brochure living on at Fantastic Fest). Fantastic Fest offers film geeks an opportunity to convene and gorge on films, food and beer together. The vibe is one of fellowship and friendliness, with conversations between strangers starting easily and often (notably more at the start of the Fest and less at the end when everyone is just too damned tired to talk).
A quick word on the venue, as it is a large part of what makes the Fest so great. The Alamo Drafthouse chain was started with a deceptively simple philosophy at its core: going to the movies should be an experience again. And more than that, it should be a great time. To that end, each Drafthouse cinema has a dedication to the audience experience: the sound and projection is top notch, full food menus are available and deliverable to your seat and there is strictly no talking or texting. You can order chicken wings, burgers, nachos, beer and bottomless soda and people rude enough to light up their cell phones during showings are booted out. It’s a little slice of heaven and helped make an awesome festival experience fantastic.
Over the course of eight days I personally attended 28 films; there were comedies and drugs and sci-fi and aliens and Japanese and killers and Germans and butt-zombies and more. I battled sleep-deprivation and sickness to get to as many films as I possibly could. Below are some of my highlights:
Clown
Easily the funniest film at Fantastic Fest and the funniest film I’ve seen in years. Unbeknownst to me or the majority of the audience, this is based on a popular Danish TV show shot in the popular faux-documentary style (but without talking head interviews or any other acknowledgements of the camera). Frank and Casper play fictionalised versions of themselves, skipping out on their girlfriends for a “Tour de Pussy” masquerading as a canoe trip. Except impending father Frank manages to bring along his girlfriend’s 11-year-old nephew in an attempt to show how great a father figure he can be, much to Casper’s annoyance. The cringing, embarrassing, uproarious, disgusting and boundary pushing hilarity ensues. These aren’t boys behaving badly (though they do at that), these are boys fucking it all up in outstanding, catastrophic fashion and, perhaps, growing up a little.
Clown: The Movie
Manborg
Did you love those numerous schlocky sci-fi direct-to-video movies from the ’80s? Manborg director Steven John Kostanski sure did; he and his small crew from Winnipeg spent two years creating this bizarre, often funny, homage to them. In the far future, Hell has taken over the Earth and it’s down to the newly awakened curly-afroed cyborg Manborg and his crew of misfits to escape the gladiatorial arena and save the day. Manborg is balls out inventiveness; with crazy latex demon doctors, a stop-motion battle royale and intentionally cheap green-screen and digital effects. Surely the perfect double-bill for Hobo With a Shotgun.
Headhunters
In this Swedish black comedy, Roger is a successful businessman, working as a top head-hunter for a recruitment firm; he has an amazing house and a gorgeous, statuesque Nordic wife who towers over him. To maintain this lifestyle (including a mistress), he moonlights as an art thief. His schtick is to interview prospective targets in his day-job and then rip them off later. Then he hears about one big score, one theft that could set him up for years to come. Except the target is a hardcore ex-elite ranger scout, charismatic as he is tough with years of hunting and tracking backing him up – the absolute last guy you want to steal from. Roger, the poor little twerp, ends up on the run and the chase becomes outrageous and blackly comic – involving an outhouse, a dog on a tractor, twin cops and head shaving. Headhunters takes everything great about Hollywood filmmaking that Hollywood itself seems to have forgotten to create a tight, taut and funny thriller.
Milocrorze: A Love Story
Telling three tales about the same thing (love), this Japanese film was an explosion of ideas and styles and was one of the breakout hits of the Fest. The first tale – that of the 7 year-old Ovreneli Vreneligare – plays out like a psychedelic fairytale. He has orange hair, pink tartan pants and, when the love of his life the Great Milocrorze leaves him, he covers the hole in his heart with a pot lid and takes to uncontrollable sighing. Besson Kumagai is a misogynistic male youth counsellor, dispensing advice through song-and-dance numbers in a 1960’s pop world. This was the highlight of the film for me: energetic, frenetic and with a fantastic sense of humour. The third tale, that of one-eyed ronin Tamon and his search for his lost love is equally stylised (concluding with what has to be the longest slow-motion one-take fight scene in history), but drags the momentum of the film down. And, after two such high-energy segments, you really feel it. However, Milocrorze is a brightly coloured explosion heartbreak, dance numbers and a badass ronin – it’s one of those rare films bursting with ideas and style that only come along once in a while.
Milocrorze: A Love Story
Extraterrestrial
This was easily the most hotly anticipated film at Fantastic Fest for me, coming as it does from Nacho Vigalondo – the madman behind the mind-bending Timecrimes. With his second film, he’s gone back to his comedic roots (as he works on an even more serious and mind-crashing film apparently) with a romantic comedy set during an alien contact. Set largely within one apartment, Vigalondo tap-dances his characters through set-ups and convoluted lies inherent to the rom-com but with the frisson of possible alien invasion hanging over the four central characters. Knowing nothing of Vigalondo’s comedy background, Extraterrestrial was a pleasant surprise, with the same intelligence and wit evident in Timecrimes and proving Vigalondo to be more than a one-hit wonder and one to watch.
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope
The closing night film for the Fest was a pretty perfect pick: a documentary on the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, the largest pop culture event of its kind. Thankfully, director Morgan Spurlock holds himself back from appearing or commenting, instead allowing the fans to speak for themselves. And those fans are the heroes of the film: two guys bringing their portfolios to Con, hoping to score work; the young couple who met at last year’s Con and his efforts to propose to her; the owner of Mile High Comics – the largest comic-book retailer in the States and a glimpse to the lessening importance of comic-books at Comic-Con; and the costume designer who works with her friends out of her garage and who has created professional level costumes for Mass Effect 2. Cut into and around these tales are interviews with other Con attendees and the likes of Joss Whedon (the upcoming The Avengers), Harry Knowles and Kevin Smith. It’s a fair celebration of geek culture and provides a brief overview of the craziness of Comic-Con. It went down a treat with a geeky Fantastic Fest audience.
But there was so much more than just these stand out films. The Fest was bursting with amazing films; other notable mentions include the $5,000.00 Korean feature film, Invasion of Alien Bikini, about a vigilante loner with a bright yellow jacket and a fake moustache taking up with an alien. Japanese director Noboru Iguchi’s Karate Robo-Zaborgar and Zombie Ass – about an aging hero and his transforming motorbike and a fetish film about alien parasites that turn people into zombies via their butt, respectively. The John Landis classic An American Werewolf in London. The French comedy about a middle-class family who find themselves accidental drug dealers, Borderline. The stunning Belgian noir film about the illegal hormone business in farming, with one of the most compelling central characters in recent memory, Bullhead. The, literally, in your face 1980’s 3D western Comin’ At Ya!. The survival thriller, set in the Scottish mountains, A Lonely Place to Die. The Swiss horror-thriller, cutting across multiple timelines, Sennentutschi. The comedy from the Netherlands that takes stupidity to new heights (or lows), New Kids Turbo. Classic Hong Kong action films. And more. So much more. For a day-by-day breakdown of my time at Fantastic Fest, check out my blog at rockets and robots are GO!
Fantastic.
