Fan Expo 2009, Part 2: Kier for a Good Time
[This is Part Two of my 2009 Fan Expo wrap-up. Part One is here]
There was no way I was going to top meeting Roger Corman at this year’s Fan Expo, although I suppose if he would’ve introduced me to Vincent Price’s ghost (who could have signed my Masque of the Red Death poster), that would’ve done it. That said, a close second was my encounter with Udo Kier, but you’ll have to read on to get the story behind the ridiculous picture.
Before that: Max Brooks (pictured below – sorry man, Udo gets top billing on this one). I hosted his Q&A on the Saturday, and it was a snap because basically he ran it himself like a spoken word/stand-up routine (in case you didn’t know, he’s Mel Brooks’ son, so the guy's a natural; iin the pic below he's pretending to get high). The author of the comical Zombie Survival Guide, he also penned one of my favourite novels, the zombie epic World War Z, about the aftermath of a global undead apocalypse, told first-hand by survivors around the world. Brooks, who also has an academic background in history, explained how he conducted extensive research in order to tell the most epic zombie tale to date.
The film rights were the subject of a bidding
war and it’s currently being turned into a film by Brad Pitt’s production
company. And as far as the movie goes, Brooks told us that he saw a first
draft of the script, which was penned by
In better news, Brooks did give
everyone a lesson in how to deal with a heckler. When one young guy called him
“Mel,” he made the kid come up on stage and tell us all what projects he had been working on lately. Nicely
done, sir.
I also took part in three panels over the course of the weekend. The first was on genre film programming, as I program for Rue Morgue’s monthly CineMacabre movie nights. Basically, a bunch of us film-loving dorks talked about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of finding films prints, getting the rights to play them, bringing in special guests and how to turn a screening into the type of event that you can’t experience by simply watching a DVD or Blu-ray at home. I learned from more than one person on the panel that Crispin Glover is a loose cannon, so think twice about booking him for an event. Apparently the guy made one of the panelists drive all over town for a special meal that consisted of tuna seared for exactly 32 seconds per side, and he accused another panelist, who'd booked him on a completely separate occasion, of stealing a single frame from his film! That’s a special kind of crazy that I never want to deal with. (Although I’d probably take a lot of crap to hear just one George McFly bit.)
As a celluloid enthusiast, I found it very encouraging to see such a packed room of people who love the idea of seeing a movie on film in an old theatre with an rawkus crowd. There’s just no substitute for that kind of atmosphere. But I digress…
My second panel, on Sunday afternoon, was in conjunction
with the SPACE network, and was called Sci-Fi in the Mainstream, and it was hosted by
SPACE’s Teddy Wilson. I joined other journalists, writers and various “experts”
to talk about what “genre” means, how that’s changed, where the boundaries of
genre are and how that affects the fan community. It just didn’t get any
geekier than this and I had a blast talking about the film side of things,
arguing that sci-fi went mainstream with the release of Star Wars. I really love these sorts of discussions because genre
fans are so passionate and protective about what they love. There was
much mwaaaugh-glavin spilled in that room, rest assured. Again, I was surprised at the
standing room-only house, and pleased that all these Fan Expo
goers – of all ages, walks of life and, um, costume preferences – held a vested (and
spandex jumpsuited, for that matter) interest in exploring the definitions and
meanings of their subculture(s), whether they’re really into Star Trek movies, Star Wars comics or Starbuck/Battlestar
Galactica fan fiction.
Lastly, I hosted a second panel on Sunday how to make a
short horror film, along with American short filmmaker Mark Steensland and
I could see this evolution throughout the events of the weekend. It's like this: the Max Brooks panel was full of fans who loved a particular piece of art; the film programming panel hosted fans curious about the process of bringing art to fans and creating a fan culture for it; the Space panel welcomed fans curious about what it means to be a fan of particular types of art; and, lastly, the short film panel saw fans who wanted to make their own art.
Oh yeah, that Udo Kier picture...
Kier was one of the Fan Expo Festival of Fear guests and he attended the parties over the weekend. He even hosted the horror costume contest for Saturday night’s Dance of the Deadites party. I met him at the party and he told me about how he was new to the convention experience and loved meeting the fans but was having a hard time with people constantly taking his picture without him being prepared for it. He was very animated and happy to be the life of the party, if expectedly, well, odd in a German actor stereotype kinda way. (I was mostly hoping he wouldn’t incinerate me with his crazy laser eyes.) When someone suggested a photo, he hopped up and voila: here I am holding onto one of the world’s coolest cult movie actors. (Indeed, he’s known to goof off at fan conventions, and here’s proof.) Of course, moments later, he turned into a timber wolf and ate the camerman, but c’est la vie.
So yeah, panels, Q&As, buying cools stuff and meeting your favourite artists is all good, but you gotta make time to party too. Geek hard, play hard after all...
[Thanks to Jovanka Vuckovic for taking the Udo Kier pic, and Marie-Eve Larin for the Max Brooks panel pic]
-Dave Alexander
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