What is Fantastic Fest?

It’s an eight-day genre film festival that takes place primarily at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX in late September every year.

It’s a movie-geek fantasy camp.  As a kid, I used to watch R-rated movies in secret and dream. Fantastic Fest is that dream.

It’s a celebration of horror, martial arts, fantasy, science fiction, animation, action, and other genres.

It’s a film festival without pretense. There’ s no such thing as “so bad it’s good.” You never have to use the phrase “for what it is.” No one cares if others don’t consider these “serious” films.

It’s all of the pleasure with none of the guilt.

It’s seeing and experiencing new, fun, exciting, weird, revolting, amazing, frightening, and yes–fantastic things with a friendly group of like-minded movie gluttons addicted to awesome and jonesing for the next face-melting fix.

It’s a collection of exactly the type of movies you wish you could send back through time to your younger self and share with friends. Fantastic Fest recaptures that sense of discovery and fun and camaraderie that some people abandon forever after high school.

And its only downside is having to wait 357 days until the next one.This is my third year attending Fantastic Fest, but the first that I am covering here at Scene Stealers.

There are a few heavy hitters this year that everyone is going to see including Survival of the Dead, Gentleman Broncos, Rec 2, District B13 Ultimatum, Ninja Assassin, and Daybreakers.

Aside from those, here are 10 lesser-known movies I am very much looking forward to:

Under the Mountain - A New Zealand adventure thriller with a Goonies vibe that isn’t afraid to go to dark places.
Fish Story - A time spanning film about a Japanese proto-punk band and their song that changed the world.
The Legend is Alive - A Vietnamese movie that will prove once and for all that Forrest Gump needed more kung fu in it.
Breathless - There’s something about Korea’s special breed of dysfunction I love above all others.
Crazy Racer - A Chinese film that somehow features a disgraced cycling champion trapped in an “inextricable web of lies, deception, murder, and crime.”
Down Terrace - It’s British, darkly comedic, and it looks to be that type of warped I can’t get enough of.
K-20: The Fiend With 20 Faces - “A big budget, high energy, steampunk oriented take on the American masked-crimefighter genre.” Also from Japan.
Fireball - A Thai Combat basketball film. Basketball… to the death. My head explodes at the premise alone.
Mandrill - The one-two punch of Mirageman and Kiltro slayed me in 2007, so I can’t wait to see what these Chileans do with an “action thriller.”
Terribly Happy - A Danish film about a bizarre small town. It sounds right up my alley.

If you can’t make it to Austin but want to go ahead and play along at home, you can read more about the films showing this year and view trailers for all of them at the official site here.

If you want to study up on the festival’s legacy, several past Fantastic Fest highlights are currently available to stream instantly via Netflix.

Here are some that I feel are particularly noteworthy.

The Celebrated - these films were some of the most highly regarded:
Let the Right One In
Timecrimes
JCVD
The Host
Pan’s Labyrinth
Apocalypto
The Orphanage
Severance
Hatchet

The Underdogs: Under-appreciated, under-attended, or misunderstood:
Just Another Love Story
Spiral
Weirdsville
Chocolate
Persepolis
The Backwoods
Finishing the Game

The Infamous - People are still talking about some of these:
Big Man Japan
Tokyo Gore Police
Sex and Death 101
The Woods
Night of the Living Dorks

Extra Credit - Not technically Fantastic Fest alumni:
District B13
The Signal

I am chinesedentist on Twitter if you want to follow my much less verbose and up-to-the-minute ramblings and quick impressions.

Otherwise, I hope you stay tuned here at Scene Stealers for my daily dispatches from Fantastic Fest 2009! Day 1 brings Gentleman Broncos, Solomon Kane, more!

Tags: 2009, action, alamo drafthouse, austin, Awesome, fantasic fest, fantastic, fantasy, film festival, genre, horror, martial arts, science fiction, strange, weird

It’s no secret that I absolutely adore “Adventureland,” the new 1987-set comedy from Greg Mottola, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Ryan Reynolds. Check my review here. So I’m really excited to offer our sitegoers the opportunity to win these prizes from the film.

Now the question you need to ask yourself is: “Are a you a ‘games’ person or a ‘rides’ person? We have two T-shirts just like the ones the characters wore in the movie at the rundown amusement park. Both shirts are Large, and we have one of each design.

We also have the best soundtrack in recent memory up for grabs. (See below for tracklisting.) This is really cool because hard copies of this album don’t even exist for its commercial release. The soundtrack is only available as a digital release. What we are giving away are special CD promo copies of the soundtrack, complete with liner notes from director Greg Mottola.

1 Satellite of Love - Lou Reed
2 Modern Love - David Bowie
3 I’m in Love With a Girl - Big Star
4 Just Like Heaven - The Cure
5 Rock Me, Amadeus - Falco
6 Don’t Change - INXS
7 Your Love - The Outfield
8 Don’t Dream It’s Over - Crowded House
9 Looking for a Kiss - New York Dolls
10 Don’t Want to Know If You Are Lonely - Husker Du
11 Unsatisfied - The Replacements
12 Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground
13 Farewell Adventureland - Yo La Tengo

All you need to do to win is fill out the form below. We’ll pick two winners at random on Thurs. April 16. Each winner will win a T-shirt and a CD soundtrack!

Open to residents of the U.S. 13+. Good luck!

Tags: adventureland, Awesome, CD, contest, drawing, free, giveaway, soundtracks, sweepstakes, T-shirts, tees