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More Fantastic Fest 2010 Programming Announced

By Jette Kernion on September 9, 2010 - 9:30am in

Fantastic Fest 2010Practically every day this week, Fantastic Fest has announced movies, special guests, and events for its 2010 festival. Of course, the film fest does start two weeks from tonight ... but I suspect there are still surprises in store for festgoers.

Yesterday, the last wave of films in the festival lineup was announced, including some world premieres and sneak previews. Darren Bousman, who brought his film Repo: The Genetic Opera to Fantastic Fest 2008, returns with a preview of Mother's Day, along with two of the film's stars, Jaime King and Rebecca De Mornay. The star-studded action-comedy RED will also preview during the fest ... and Karl Urban will be in town with the movie (be still, my heart).

Personally, I am looking forward to Agnosia, the latest film from Spanish director Eugenio Mira, who will be at the fest. Mira was at the first Fantastic Fest in 2005 with his weirdly comic Lovecraftian film The Birthday, which I enjoyed.

Bill Pullman will also return to Austin -- he was here in 2008 for a couple of movies -- for special screenings of Spaceballs and a Master Pancake version of Independence Day. In addition, earlier this week Fantastic Fest also announced that Roger and Julie Corman will be in town to accept a lifetime achievement award, and will be around for a double-feature of the new documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed (about Filipino exploitation films) and Corman's new film, Sharktopus.

Let's get down to the Austin-related films and guests, which is why you read Slackerwood, anyway. (Well, that and my deathless prose.) Here's what I know about from this week's announcements:

  • Alamo programmer Zack Carlson has co-written a book called Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film, which will be released later this month. To celebrate the new book, Fantastic Fest is hosting a special screening of the film Class of 1984, which will be followed by a discussion and book signing.
  • The live comic-book inspired show The Intergalactic Nemesis, created here in Austin, will perform during the fest. I just looked at the list of people involved and realized I went to high school (in New Orleans) with one of them. So now I have to go (also, it sounds really cool).
  • Did you miss the screenings of the locally made documentary Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission at SXSW this year? Fantastic Fest is bringing back this film for some encore screenings. Garriott is scheduled to attend. Read Debbie's review of the film and listen to her interview with Garriott to prepare.

If you don't have a badge, you can buy tickets to the Paramount gala screenings here; they just went on sale this week. You also can buy tickets to Nevermore, the one-act play directed by Stuart Gordon (yes, he'll be here) and Jeffrey Combs. Tickets for the Bill Pullman events will go on sale at noon on Friday. Fantastic Fest runs from September 23-30, 2010.