It's the latter half of the festival and the dwindling days mean that it's not quite as insane around here, thank goodness. Although I still haven't gone to bed before 4 in the morning ONCE in the past week, but I intend to rectify that tonight. Of course, I intend to rectify it every night, and then all of a sudden it's 4 in the morning. But not tonight, dammit! (Yeah, probably tonight.)
As I do all of the Fantastic Fest blogging and social, I'm not covering many reviews this year, so let's all please take a moment to thank Evan Saathoff, Phil Nobile Jr, Film Crit Hulk, Brian Collins, April Swartz and of course Devin for the wonderful job they're all doing of getting you guys reviews ASAP. Trust that all of these dudes are missing out on serious sleep to deliver you the goods, and we're lucky to have them. And while I'm thanking folks, a huge thanks to our sponsorship director Corey Wilson, our IT genius Roger Tinch and our creative director and hardest working man behind the scenes Henri Mazza for everything you guys do for Badass Digest.
Monday night we hosted Data Pop, the Fantastic Awards and the Fantastic Feud, two events that are a ridiculous blast every single year. But before we get to that, some fun videos from Days 3 and 4! (all videos by Arts + Labor)
Watch the Best Of The Fantastic Debates video below! You can read Devin's account of the debates here.
Fantastic Fest employee Damon Jones was the defending champ of the Nerd Rap Battle (read more about that here), and while he came in second place in this year's skirmish, his entry was crazy crowd-pleasing.
And see the Q&A from AMERICAN SCREAM and some footage from the amazing haunted house erected in its honor!
Monday night we held the Data Pop Dance Party, which is "Austin’s premier celebration of 8-Bit music and culture. The concert featured six of the world’s leading musicians and two top visualists all employing a plethora of low-res technology." Folks danced their butts off to music made from Amigas and original Nintendo Gameboys! (video by Arts + Labor)
And then we hosted the Fantastic Fest Awards, a ceremony that is about one hundred thousand times more fun than most awards ceremonies. Recipients must chug their awards, beautifully engraved mugs that we fill with Shiner Bock. Or, in the case of Barbara Crampton, wine. Also Doug Benson just did gigantic bong rips because he's off beer for September. Shakey face champions were declared, beer was spilled and the stage was sticky with bock and bong residue. We finished off the night with a champagne toast from a recently sabered bottle of bubbles because we're classy.
Our own Henri Mazza presented the best bumper and Devin presented the audience's favorite film! The audience award went to I DECLARE WAR, the AMD Next Wave award winner was FLICKER and the best feature film went to VANISHING WAVES. You can read the rest of the award show winners here! (photos by David Hill)
And we followed the awards with the annual Fantastic Feud, a Family Feud-style genre movie game show hosted by FEARnet's Scott Weinberg. Team USA let us down a little, but we still love them. (photos by Jack Plunkett and David Hill)
Yesterday we screened AFTERSHOCK from director Nicolás López and producer Eli Roth, and it got a huge response from the crowd. Henri interviewed Roth and López on the red carpet. (photos by Jack Plunkett, video by Arts + Labor)
We took the Fantastic Fest 2012 filmmakers on an adventure to learn to shoot automatic weapons, because mere shotguns aren't enough for us. We need visiting filmmakers to shoot ALL the guns here at Fantastic Fest. (photos by David Hill)
Fantastic Fest and Alamo Drafthouse founders Tim and Karrie League hosted a filmmakers dinner at their house, where Alamo Drafthouse executive chef John Bullington created a tapas-style menu, Alamo Drafthouse beverage director and our own amazing writer Bill Norris tended bar, and the film NO REST FOR THE WICKED was screened. (photos by David Hill)
And we closed down the night with Tittie Bingo at the Highball. Tittie Bingo's a weekly event at the Highball (free every Tuesday!) and they were kind enough to invite Fantastic Fest into the porny fold. Tittie Bingo's like regular bingo, except contestants play with edited porn parodies. Last night we watched the STAR WARS parody porn and marked off items like "Chewbacca gets a BJ" and "Look at the tits on that Storm Trooper." We also had contests to see who performed the best porneoke and who could blow up a condom faster. (The answer, it turns out, is not Brian Collins.) It was pretty great, if mildly gross. (photos by David Hill)
Check back in for the daily updates from the last two days of the festival! Read about Days 1&2 here and Days 3&4 here!
About the Author: Meredith is the managing editor of Badass Digest and the Alamo Drafthouse. She’s into writing, making stuff, starting dance parties, dressing in costume for the flimsiest of reasons, drinking beer and eating brunch.
