As we’ve reported here on TG, film festivals seem to have been making a big comeback across the country, which we think is a wonderful development.
There used to be quite a few of them back in the day in the days before the multi-plex, and if you had the endurance, you could sit through, say, all five Planet of the Apes movies in a row, and double and triple bills were commonplace at the nation’s screens.
Just this year alone the Planet of the Apes series will be shown twice in L.A. and Texas, and in Texas there’s also a film festival being lined up for a magical year in genre film history, 1982, the year E.T., The Thing, The Road Warrior, Conan, and Tron were released.
And in celebration of The Avengers, a Marvel film festival has been set up around the country, which sold out a good month in advance.
Last summer was the Hero Complex festival, which was somewhat of a mini ComicCon where Star Trek 2 and Dick Tracy were screened, and Khan writer / director Nicholas Meyer, as well as Tracy director Warren Beatty, were special guests of honor. Now the Hero Complex fest is back, with a great movie and Q&A line-up, and the festival runs from May 18 to May 21.
Hero Complex is an L.A. Times column that’s run by writer Geoff Boucher, who’s been writing regularly about comics and genre movies since 1991. This year the Hero Complex will be showing the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead with a Q&A with director Zack Snyder and Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman; Shaun of the Dead with writer / director Edgar Wright; RoboCop with Peter Weller; A Clockwork Orange with Malcolm McDowell; Wall-E with director Andrew Stanton with a preview of the new Pixar flick Brave; Joss Whedon’s Serenity with star Nathan Fillion; and the first X-Men movie with Stan Lee.
While it’s too bad festivals like this aren’t on the road like marathons and double bills used to go around the country back in the day, but people certainly come in from all over for ComicCon, and I can see fans fanatical enough to come in from out of town to see these flicks with these guests of honor no problem. It promises to be a major superhero orgy right as this country’s about to explode with superhero mania with The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises this summer.
