Fantasia Day 6 (Tuesday, July 24)

The photo above kind of says it all. I love my job.

When you get to spend your lunch hour chatting with Michael Biehn (and his lovely work/life companion Jennifer Blanc), you have no right to complain about anything for about a week. My only regret is that it wasn’t long enough, but I’ll take it. Yes, I will.

My favorite thing about these snapshots is that they were taken by none other than the director of the original My Bloody Valentine himself, George Mihalka, who crashed our interview thinking we were just hanging out. He apologized profusely once he realized his error, so in recompense, I pushed my camera into his hands and told him to start clicking. Artfully composed, Sir George.

Actually, Mr. Mihalka was not the only filmmaker to stumble into my sphere whilst occupying a hotel lobby couch with the Blanc/Biehn team – seems this certain hotel is ground central for most of the out of town filmmakers. During the time I was there, I encountered Braden Croft (Hemorrhage), Eric Walter (My Amityville Horror) and Casey Walker (A Little Bit Zombie) without even trying. Methinks I’ll be spending a little more time down at that neck o’ the woods in the future. At BIFFF, the press team made all the arrangements for any and all interviews, but here it seems that one must take the initiative upon oneself. Which, now that I know, this guy says the horse can-do. Did a quick interview with Mr. Walker later in the afternoon, will be chatting with Mr. Croft in the a.m. and plan to meet up with Mr. Walter later this week.

Then I pretty much spent the day at the Seve again, watching four flicks (plus an early morning press room digital screening of Thailand’s Headshot, since I knew in advance the B&B chitchat was going to conflict with the 1pm showtime). Gotta say, I’m definitely feeling the fatigue and we’re only six (of 20) days in. Yikes. Waiting on that second wind to kick in.

And with that, I'm using my journalistic prerogative to be a little lazy and just post links to the Fantasia write-ups for the (all single word titles!) films in question, since, for the most part, they're saying what I would say and they weren't writing on fumes at 2 a.m. Not to worry - I won't make a habit of this.

Headshot (2011) (1st viewing) d. Ratanaruang, Pen-Ek (Thailand)
http://fantasiafestival.com/2012/en/films-schedule/165/headshot

Punch (2011) (1st viewing) d. Han, Lee (South Korea)
http://fantasiafestival.com/2012/en/films-schedule/284/punch

Hemorrhage (2012) (1st viewing) d. Croft, Braden (Canada)
http://fantasiafestival.com/2012/en/films-schedule/287/hemorrhage

Amok (2011) (1st viewing) d. Fajardo, Lawrence (Philippines)
http://fantasiafestival.com/2012/en/films-schedule/307/amok

Crave (2012) (1st viewing) d. de Lauzirika, Charles (USA)
http://fantasiafestival.com/2012/en/films-schedule/62/crave

2012 Totals to date: 321 films, 274 1st time views, 181 horror, 102 cinema

Fantasia Totals: 25 films, 23 1st time views, 12 horror, 24 cinema