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Mood: Happy ]
The eagerly awaited Fantastic Fest 3 finally started last night as I managed to not see either film I planned on, saw several people I knew and had a hell of a time.
My film day actually started much earlier on Thursday as the new Austin Chronicle came out with my review of King Kung Fu.
| Quote: |
| Production began on King Kung Fu in 1974. Due to financial constraints, it was not finished until 1987, though what exactly the money was spent on is unclear. |
While this had nothing directly do with FF3, it left me eager to see some GOOD movies.
Arriving a bit later than I expected to the Festival, the line for George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead wrapped around the building with well over 300 people in line! I wasn’t too terribly shattered since I knew Diary will get a wide release and my chance to see it will come. After Diary ended, I did speak to Austin Chronicle reviewer Marc Savlov, who sputtered excitedly about the film saying something about it being a biting social commentary and the best Romero yet. Chris Cox (aka Cyrus) of Spill relayed similar sentiments and promised to post the entire post-film Romero discussion on the site (not up yet).
Instead of Diary I attended the screening of Wicked Flowers, a surrealist Japanese film about slackers and video games. Attending movies at the Alamo Drafthouse is unlike anywhere else. First off, they have an entire menu. You aren’t stuck with just popcorn and candy. The menu offers some twenty different types of beer, wine, burgers, pizza, fancy desserts, and the like. (Course that means I have to be careful. I could go broke eating at this festival!). The other oddity is that when you enter the theater, there are NO slides with bad trivia and no commercials. No piped in commercial music. They show clips that somehow relate to the movie you are about to say. In the past, they’ve had an Elvis concert playing before Bubba Ho-Tep and the Japanese Spider-man before the Spider-man 2. You get the idea.
My first image related to Wicked Flowers was what appeared to be a Japanese version of a US-style family sitcom complete with laugh track. The characters spoke to one and other in both English and Japanese interchangeably. When English was spoken, Japanese subtitles appeared below the text. The family for some reason were trying to act "ghetto", using the word "nigga" a lot. Some bizarre shit there.
Following the sitcom, there was a series of strange (well to this American) Japanese commercials including one with a dude in a cape and helmet, a stuffed monkey (in a similar outfit) resting on his shoulder. I can’t remember what he was promoting.
In a scene out of Lost in Translation, one of Charles Bronson’s Mandom commercials played next. I couldn’t find the exact commercial on You Tube, but this one was close.
NEXT: I see some movies.