I’m at Fantastic Fest, the genre festival hosted and programmed by Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse, which happens to be the world’s best movie theater. Fantastic Fest is basically a full week of the movies that play in most fests’ “midnight” sections: horror, martial arts, explosions, broad comedies, people being set on fire, monsters, general weirdness. It got a reputation a couple years ago for showing a lot of movies that used rape as a plot point, but I have seen very little of that this year. So far the trend this year is child death and head trauma.
As for current events, three of the four new wide releases this weekend weren’t screened for press in Portland, even though Portland is awesome. “Dredd 3D” and “End of Watch” — both of which are reportedly pretty good, actually — were shown in most of the bigger markets (“Dredd” even had a Fantastic Fest screening that I missed), but not in P-town. And I don’t think “House at the End of the Street,” which is probably as generically PG-13 as it sounds, was shown to anyone, including the people who made it.
Here’s what I do have for you, the viewer.
“Trouble with the Curve” D+ [Pajiba]
“Liberal Arts” B+ [Pajiba]
Eric’s Bad Movies: “The Phantom” (1996), in which Billy Zane runs around the jungle in a purple leotard. [Film.com]
Re-Views: “Manic” (2001), a tough drama starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a teen in a psych ward. [Film.com]
New to Me: “An American Werewolf in London” (1981). I do love a good international love story! [Pajiba]
Snide Remarks: no column this week due to pre-Fantastic Fest concerns.
Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider: We interviewed comedian Mike Birbiglia about his movie “Sleepwalk with Me,” and also reviewed “The Master” (kind of) and “Trouble with the Curve.” Listen here.
Subscribe to In the Dark, a weekly email with all my latest reviews, DVD releases, and Netflix recommendations.
Follow me on Twitter.
