scott mosier Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I have a special place in my heart for Fantastic Fest because it was the first film festival I attended and covered professionally, for Cinematical back in 2005, the year the fest started. The 2005 fest was a long weekend of genre films, attended by a small enough crowd that you felt you knew everyone there by the time it was over. Since then, Fantastic Fest has expanded to nine days, added all kinds of crazy parties and events, become notorious for "secret screenings" that premiered films such as Southland Tales and There Will Be Blood, and introduced filmgoers to any number of international science-fiction, horror, animated, and other "fantastic" films.

In its fourth year, Fantastic Fest has grown so large and popular that its opening-night festivities moved from the genre festival's traditional Austin venue, the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, over to the Paramount, a hundred-year-old theater in the middle of downtown that seats about 1200 people. The theater was packed for the opening-night film, the U.S. premiere of Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and writer-director Kevin Smith was also on hand.

The venue may have been the Paramount, but the minute the lights went down and a vintage trailer for Thunder Cops appeared onscreen, it felt like Fantastic Fest. Festival co-founder Tim League appeared onstage in a bright kimono, with a giant gong next to him, and announced, "With a stroke of this gong, I am about to declare this festival ... awesome!" Kevin Smith then introduced his film with a long and bizarre story about how he recently broke a toilet, then confessed that this had nothing to do with the film, he just wanted to tell the story.

Over on his blog, writer-director Kevin Smith has unveiled a new photo from Zack and Miri Make a Porno (see updated gallery below), as well as a few pieces of ridiculously cool movie-inspired artwork from this year's Crazy 4 Cult 2 gallery showing in Los Angeles at Gallery1988 later this month. (He also briefly talks about seeing Watchmen, which he called "f**king astounding.") The above image is only half of Andrew Wilson's sprawling epic-like movie character poster (see miniature version of entire piece below), which will be on display and available for purchase at the gallery when the show opens with a reception hosted by Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier on August 22. (The show itself will run from August 22 through September 12.)



**Click on the image above to head to a very cool website where you can scope out each character up close. How many can you spot?

In addition to Wilson's poster, Smith threw up a taste of what else will be on display (see two images in the gallery below; I apologize for not knowing artist names), and you can also see (and learn) more over on the Crazy 4 Cult 2 website and Gallery1988 blog. Wish I could attend, but the whole living on the other side of the country thing kinda gets in the way. If you go, definitely let us know how it is.