The following is a press release:
September 24-October 1, 2009
www.fantasticfest.com
Fantastic Fest is proud to announce the winning films from the 2009 festival. 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.  The photo above is MANDRILL leading man Marko Zaror doing a celebratory flip. Complete awards listings are below:

Jury results - SHORTS Awards

ANIMATED SHORTS:
Best Animated Short - I AM SO PROUD OF YOU (Don Hertzfeldt)
Special Mention - ALMA (Rodrigo Blaas)

FANTASTIC SHORTS:

Best Fantastic Short  - TERMINUS (Trevor Cawood)

Special Jury Award - NEXT FLOOR  (Denis Villeneuve)

HORROR SHORTS:
Best Horror Short  - FULL EMPLOYMENT (Thomas Oberlies, Matthias Vogel)
Special Mention - EXCISION (Richard Bates, Jr.)

Jury results - FEATURES Awards

HORROR FEATURES
Best Horror Feature: HUMAN CENTIPEDE (Tom Six)
Best Horror Director: Kerry Prior (THE REVENANT)
Best Best Horror Actor: Dieter Laser (HUMAN CENTIPEDE)
Best Horror Actress: Neve McIntosh (SALVAGE)

FANTASTIC FEATURES
Best Fantastic Feature: MANDRILL (Ernesto Diaz-Espinoza)
Best Fantastic Director: Kim Nguyen (TRUFFE)
Best Fantastic Screenplay: Tamio Hayashi adapted from Kotaro Isaka (FISH STORY)
Best Fantastic Actor: Marko Zaror (MANDRILL)
Best Fantastic Actress: Chiaki Kuriyama (KAMOGAWA HORUMO)

NEXT WAVE FEATURES
Best Feature: DOWN TERRACE (Ben Wheately)
Best Director: Yang Ik-Joon (BREATHLESS)
Best Screenplay: Robin Hill, Ben Wheatley (DOWN TERRACE)
Best Actor: Jeong-min Hwang (PRIVATE EYE)
Best Actress: Shera Bechard (SWEET KARMA)

AUDIENCE AWARD
Audience Award, Best Feature: A TOWN CALLED PANIC (Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar)

Audience Award, Honorable Mention Films:
FISH STORY BREATHLESS
THE REVENANT
MERANTAU

Uwe Boll’s Totally Awesome Video Games Filmmaking Frenzy Contest:
This year, Filmmaking Frenzy teamed up with G4 to create a contest that challenged filmmaking teams around the nation to create trailers for movies based on video games. Uwe Boll, the undisputed master of that genre, showed up to be the judge.  

Team:  FilthyButts
Film: MARIO PAINT

Team Capt: Joey Graham

Fantastic Fest Bumper Contest:
Filmmaking Frenzy also challenged teams to create 30 second Fantastic Fest bumpers that would play before all of the features in the festival. So many teams responded to this challenge that no bumper was played twice. The winning video was chosen by the Filmmaking Frenzy online community.

Team: FOGAR!
Film: DOGZILLA VS. CATHRA

Team Capt - Maurice Jacks

Shakey Face Badge Photo:
Fantastic Fest badges ask for a photo submission, similar to other festivals the world over. At Fantastic Fest, though, we demand that badgeholders submit a “Shakey Face” photo, and we reward the best face of the fest with a blanket featuring their shaken mug woven on it. This year’s winners are listed below, and you can check out a video of their Shakey Face Throwdown after that.

2009 Shakey Face Award Winners:
Christine Fisher
Troy Gonzales
Video of the Fantastic Fest Shakey Face competition

Tags: 2009, announced, Award, best, competition, fantastic fest, winners, winning

I got this email the other day from a publicist regarding the impending release of the new Joe Wright (”Atonement,” Pride & Prejudice”) movie “The Soloist,” starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx. At first I thought the film had won some film festival or something, but after a little looking around, I realized that the Truly Moving Picture award was something bestowed by a charity group (with an .org URL) that calls itself Heartland Truly Moving Pictures. Their goal, as quoted on their website, is to “influence the making of more films with positive messages.” Read this insidious crap below:

Everything about this offends me. What we really need as a society is for a group of people to mount their moral high horse and start telling the rest of us what is “truly moving.” What’s really sad is that Hollywood pictures covet this designation because it helps sell tickets to their movies. You get the approval and recognition of the nonprofit organization Heartland Truly Moving Pictures, and you’re instantly guaranteed some kind of ticket sales.

Do you remember when Mel Gibson’s grisly and violent (and R-rated!) “The Passion of the Christ” came out and religious groups bussed in huge amounts of people to see the film? I saw the movie on opening weekend and there were little children in the theater screaming in the aisles because their parents refused to let them leave the theater. Apparently the incredibly graphic torture scenes (you mean the entire film?) were “required viewing” in the eyes of their parents. That was more disturbing than anything I saw onscreen that night.

Well, TrulyMoving Pictures.org has a list of Truly Moving Pictures and guess what’s on it? Big surprise: “The Passion of the Christ”! I wonder what this group would think if they knew that their “truly moving film” was in part responsible for a huge surge in anti-Semitic crimes?

So who decides what films are “truly moving”? If you register on the website, you can become a member and “vote in polls.” I don’t think those polls determine officially recognized films, though, because “The Soloist” isn’t even out yet and its already a certified winner. The site says the list is “constantly growing,” though, so who’s voting?

You can be a part of this group for the low, low price of $35. (As long as you’re a student, senior, or educator. For everybody else, a donation of anywhere from $50 - $9,999 is needed to join the group’s Circle of Friends, which makes it way easier than getting into Robert De Niro’s scary Circle of Trust.) But does that guarantee you a vote?

The “About Us” page has a little more information: “By bestowing a watermark to honored films, the award allows studios and distributors to inform potential audiences of a film’s uplifting message and appeal. Submissions are received directly from studios and producers for consideration. The award is given prior to the film’s release with the goal of encouraging moviegoers to support the film, especially on opening weekend.”

Wow.

Well, it still doesn’t say who or how many people are voting, but their endgame is right there, plainly stated. They want to influence box office receipts on opening weekend so that everyone else will see how successful a “truly moving picture” is and go out and see it for themselves. How’d that work for ya, “Martian Child”?

My biggest problem here is that this group, which sponsors the Heartland Film Festival in Indianapolis every year, is purporting to have the “be all/end all” list of inspiring movies. Every page on their website has a link to “The List.” What’s the difference between this list and the AFI Top 100, you may ask? Or my own personal Top 10 of the year?

Well, first off, I don’t have a strictly defined moral agenda and neither does the AFI. Every single one of the films on my 2008 list moved, challenged, or inspired me, and I guarantee you that the AFI list does the same thing for its wide variety of polled individuals. The people who read the AFI list are looking for movies with any kind of cultural significance rather than some simplified, cliched moral highmindedness.

“Slumdog Millionaire” somehow didn’t make the Heartland list, yet millions of people worldwide watched this little movie come out of nowhere and delight and inspire them all the way to a Best Picture win and over $311 in global box office. How is that movie not “inspiring” enough? Why is it not on the “approved” list?

Did Fox Searchlight overlook this potential audience and forget to submit it? Did it lose out on moral endorsement from Truly Moving Pictures because it was screened too early, before anybody ever thought it was going to make so much as a dent? Was it because its warts-and-all portrayal of a pumped-up Dubai culture was too morally complicated for the group to digest? Or was it something as simple and “offensive” as the main character falling into a giant pit of human excrement?

Whatever the reason, the Truly Moving Picture list seems to celebrate movies that subscribe to their particular worldview. I think “Dr. Strangelove” is a truly moving film. I need to be able to laugh at the power of the military-industrial complex. That’s how I deal with my growing, nagging fear of it. Stanley Kubrick parodied this problem back in 1964 and its still relevant today. Just because it doesn’t give me warm fuzzies at the end like Truly Moving Picture “I Am Sam” doesn’t make it less moving, only less manipulative.

I can’t imagine what a limiting world the members of this organization live in. Should the moral intentions of a film be singled out over its artistry or lack thereof? Are “moving” films not allowed the moral ambiguity that makes our world such a fascinating place to live in? I’m sure Mimi Leder wanted to make a film that inspired people to do good deeds when she directed the alarming Truly Moving Picture “Pay it Forward,” but shouldn’t she also be taken to task for insulting every member of the audience with the movie’s cheap tactics, arrogance, and triteness?

How insane is this? This group is a nonprofit, collecting money from donors so they can tell more people to go see movies they like! Sounds fun.

I hereby announce the formation of my own group of moral movie crusaders. We are here to save the world from overwrought, condescending, self-righteous claptrap and will support the films that we like by talking about them incessantly on the Internet and going to see them if we get around to it. If not, we’ll rent them on DVD or download them if that comes first. We are a complicated and diverse people and we like our movies to reflect that. In fact, we can’t agree on anything. We are also way less motivated and couldn’t muster up a busload of movie watchers if our life depended on it.

We are the tax-deductible nonprofit group known as the Scene-Stealers, and we are now taking donations. Put your money where your morality is. Email your intended amount of donation to eric@scene-stealers.com today and we can make our own “inspring” movie posters that feature characters gazing upward with blissful, saintly looks on their faces.

Tags: Award, circle of friends, gibson, Heartland, Heartland Film Festival, honor, list, manipulative, mel, passion of the christ, recognized, the soloist, Truly Moving Picture, Truly Moving Pictures, uplifiting, winner

The 2008 Screen Actor’s Guild Award nominations were announced this morning. There were some really nice surprises her for people who’s Oscar chances were waning. Melissa Leo (”Frozen River”) and Richard Jenkins (”The Visitor”) got nods for low-budget indie films that have scored pretty well in various critic’s polls (all aggregated here), but the biggest surprise on this list is the inclusion of Dev Patel from “Slumdog Millionaire.” Yes, the movie is a Best Picture nom cinch, but three actors play each of three main roles in the movie, so Patel’s performance (which has been all but ignored elsewhere) getting a nomination here is a big deal. Leo Dicaprio got shut out for “Revolutionary Road,” as did Clint Eastwood for “Gran Torino,” Sally Hawkins for “Happy-Go-Lucky,” Cate Blanchett for “Button,” and Marisa Tomei for “The Wrestler.” And five nominations for “Doubt”? That’s overdoing it, don’t you think?

BEST ENSEMBLE
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Doubt”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins, “The Visitor”
Frank Langella, “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn, “Milk”
Brad Pitt, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie, “Changeling”
Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep, “Doubt”
Kate Winslet, “Revolutionary Road”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, “Milk”
Robert Downey Jr., “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Doubt”
Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
Dev Patel, “Slumdog Millionaire”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, “Doubt”
Penelope Cruz, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis, “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Kate Winslet, “The Reader”

Tags: 2008, actors, announced, Award, guild, nominations, SAG, screen