"Highlander" is the first movie being shown in the new fantasy series, Fantastique, this Thursday, April 2 at Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in Littleton Colorado.
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Fantastique is Colorado’s first monthly fantasy film series and it launches this Thursday, April 2 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Littleton, Colorado. Curated and hosted by Frank Romero (co-founder of Denver Comic Con) and Jason Heller (Hugo Award-winning editor, author of “Taft 2012”, Senior Writer for The A.V. Club and a regular contributor to NPR), the series promises to reach old and new fans alike and will start with the 1986 British-American cult fantasy film “Highlander”, which stars Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery.
Film Still / Highlander
Movies in the series will show every first Thursday at 7:30pm. The series is an offshoot of an already successful series hosted by Heller and Romero called “Science Friction” which runs every third Wednesday at Alamo. Science Friction has already featured some well-beloved films in the science fiction genre including “Videodrome”, “Darkstar”, “Nausicaa, of the Valley of the Wind”, “Krull”, “Cherry 2000” and “The Fly.” The next Science Friction showing on April 15 will be a screening of “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension”, starring Peter Weller, John Lithgow and Jeff Goldblum.
Both series are sponsored by The A.V. Club. Along with the films, they feature special guests, food and drink specials offered by the Alamo Drafthouse, live music by bands of geek such as Daenerys and the Targaryens andH2Awesome and special giveaways that you won’t want to miss. Past giveaways have included fantasy and science fiction related books and DVDS.
“Science fiction and fantasy are lumped together too often,” related Heller in a press release for Fantastique. “We love them both, but they work their wonders in different ways. They each deserve their own spotlight. And with “The Lord of the Rings” and “Game of Thrones” becoming such a huge part of the culture in recent years, it only makes sense to celebrate the full breadth and depth of fantasy cinema.”
In an exclusive interview with Frank Romero, we learned that the two curators had already shown films with fantasy elements before (“Nausicaa”, for example, and “Krull”). “We had been doing Science Friction already,” Romero said. “We tried to figure out a way to fit fantasy films into Science Friction but then decided that we should spin it off into another series, instead. That way we didn’t always shoehorn fantasy elements into the Science Friction series. We wanted to give both genres their due.”
Examiner: How do you differentiate between science fiction and fantasy elements?
We defined science fiction as stories which deal with some type of issue that comes up in the future or some problem or issue that comes up because of technology, even if it takes place in the modern day. For example, “Her” would be considered a science fiction movie because even though it happens in the modern day, it has to do with our relationship with technology.
Fantasy, on the other hand, is a lot broader. The genre generally has to have -- not just sword and sorcery -- but some element of the fantastical.
So, we can go back to the example of “Krull”, where there is a bit of an Excalibur theme where the pretty hero goes off to receive his special weapon that will save everything.
Exactly. It’s the typical quest structure. “Go save this princess,” basically.
Personally, I think Krull is more of a fantasy movie with science fiction elements than the other way around. But we didn’t have Fantastique at the time. Nonetheless, it fits either way.
When did you guys ask for the Fantastique series? Was it about the time that you showed “Krull?”
Yes. We probably asked for it right about that time. We had always wanted to do the Fantastique series but we needed to see how Science Friction would do first. And Science Friction has been successful, so Alamo has been gracious enough to allow us to host the second series. They seemed pretty happy to let us do it and they’ve been great to work with, so, I think both parties jumped at the chance to do another series. We’re looking forward to working with them twice as much.
How did you come up with idea for Science Friction?
It was really Jason Heller’s idea and he brought me on. The series just grew out of a love of these movies and it was something that really wasn’t being done in the way that we’re doing it. There are some other curated science fiction series going on in town but it seems they are all done with irony and humor and we’re actually really earnest about our love for these films. We don’t go up and make fun of them or talk about how cheesy they are.
They are indeed a lot of fun!
Well, they are fun and while they may not be the greatest movies, we have a soft spot for them. What we really wanted to do to make it different -- and I think this was Jason’s vision -- was to see movies that you aren’t able to see in the theater without jokes being made at their expense. And you know, there’s a place for that but that’s not what we want to do.
And that comes through, especially when there are events like the time you interviewed Steve De Jarnatt before showing "Cherry 2000" last February. It was fun to see because it was a trio of people who were really giddy about old SciFi.
And that’s the thing; there are a lot of people who love that stuff. And like I said, there’s a place for making fun of it, but, gosh, there’s an awful lot of that going on, everywhere.
It seems like snark is the thing.
It’s the currency and we don’t want to trade in that kind of currency. That’s not our shtick.
Do you have any goals when you are presenting the films to the audience? What is it you would most like to share?
One of the things we’re going to do while we’re up there is focus more on what our one absolute thing is that we want to get across about the film being shown. It’s a new format we’re trying instead of going totally freeform. Before every movie, you’ll see what we want to get across -- from us and from our guests, too.
What we really want to get across is just how much these movies shaped us. I know we have been kind of 80s heavy, but we want to show movies from all time periods, too...and will.
Why did you start out with mostly 80s films?
It was easy to pick a lot of 80s movies because the 80s were kind of a mini golden age for fantasy and science fiction films. But we’re expanding because there are some other films from different time periods that are great. For example, after “Highlander”, we’ll be showing Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards.” It’s a film from the 70s. Our next Science Friction on May 20 is going to be “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.” It’s from the early 2000s.
What are people saying about the series?
We’ve gotten a really positive response and Alamo is pretty happy with it. We get pretty big crowds for a movie for a weeknight and everybody that we speak to seems to really like the curation. The fact that we get up and talk about it a little bit seems to go over really well.
We just got a Best Science Fiction Curated Series (2015) from Westword which is really cool because there’s some stiff competition in that field.
Can you tell us a little bit about the prizes and guests that both series offer?
Well, for our last showing -- where we showed “The Fly” -- we had a band come in and play which was a mixture of H2Awesome and Daenerys and The Targaryens . They played a half hour set and debuted the Science Friction theme song which they wrote for us.
For Fantastique, the first guest we are going to have will be Carrie Vaughn who is a New York Times best seller. She’ll be giving out copies of her new book, “Low Midnight”, signed. We try to give away something every time. So far, we have giveaways lined up for months and months. We will be giving away things at every showing to Alamo/Victory members. To become a member, you just go online and sign up; it’s really easy and that’s how the names get drawn. There are a lot of other benefits to being a Victory member, as well. It’s a pretty good deal for free.
What's next?
We’re definitely always striving to push things forward and do something exciting. We want to do something big for the community. Of course, as soon as we get more details, we’ll let people know.
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