Fantastic Fest starts today!

The second annual Fantastic Fest starts today -- this year, it runs for a full week (Sept. 21-28), with movies playing in up to three theaters at a time at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. I attended the sf/fantasy/animated/horror film festival last year and had a great time.

I don't see any point in duplicating everyone else's efforts, so here's are a couple of local articles about Fantastic Fest:

• Austinist has an interview about the festival with Harry Knowles, who's on the programming committee.
• This week's Austin Chronicle includes a profile of the festival, with quotes from its organizers and recommmendations on specific films.

VIP badges are sold out, and only a few of the regular badges are left. Tickets will be sold for individual screenings if seats are available. My guess is that you might be able to get tickets for the smaller films that are up against the big premieres ... just like other local film festivals.

I'm going to be covering the festival for Cinematical, with help from Scott Weinberg, so check out the site's Fantastic Fest category for full coverage. In the meantime, depending on how things go, Slackerwood may also have Fantastic Fest coverage, but not by me. All will be revealed in due course.

If you're attending any of the films and see someone you think is me, please stop me and say hi. (And if it's not me, well, at least you've made a new friend.)