Paul Thomas Anderson‘s The Master could be a major player in this year’s awards season.  It’s got The Weinstein Company behind it, and judging by the trailers, the movie looks terrific.  Usually, if an awards season film is going to make a festival debut, it will be at Venice, Telluride, or Toronto.  However, in 2007, a little film called There Will Be Blood premiered at the Alamo Drafthouse’s annual film festival, Fantastic Fest, and now it’s look like Anderson might premiere his latest picture at the annual Austin event.  Even though Fantastic Fest is known more for its genre-fare than heavy dramas, film lovers are film lovers and I’m sure everyone at the festival would be excited out of their minds to see The Master.

So what’s the evidence for this possible premiere?  Hit the jump for more.  The Master opens in limited release on October 12th.  Fantastic Fest runs from September 20 – 27th.

While Fantastic Fest is known more for its offbeat, non-mainstream genre films, this year’s festival will open with the world premiere of Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated flick Frankenweenie.  “Tim Burton stands as a titan of modern genre cinema,” said Fantastic Fest Co-Founder & Creative Director Tim League in a press release.  “To world premiere the feature adaptation of his early beloved short is a huge honor for me personally and for the festival in general.”  The movie will play on opening night on September 20th at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, Texas.  Click here to see the latest trailer for the film.

Hit the jump for the full press release and to check out Mike Saputo‘s sweet poster for this year’s festival.  Fantastic Fest 2012 runs from September 20 – 27th.  Frankenwenie opens nationwide in 3D on October 5th.

Thousands of film geeks, genre-film enthusiasts, and weirdoes have descended upon the Alamo Drafthouse’s South Lamar location for a week-long celebration of the weirdest cinema in the world:  Fantastic Fest 2011.  In its seventh year, Fantastic Fest has proven—in just 24 hours—that it’s the coolest film festival Austin has to offer (and if you’re at all familiar with the film festivals on offer in Austin, you know that’s saying something).  How’d day one go?  I’ve got capsule reviews of Michael, Borderline, a day-one diary, and video of Tim League and Elijah Wood introducing The Human Centipede 2 after the jump, folks.

This year’s Fantastic Fest is just hours away from kicking off here in Austin, TX, and anticipation is running high:  some of the year’s highest-profile genre films are screening or debuting at this year’s Fantastic Fest, and film geeks all over the world are preparing their livers for the absolutely brutal beating they’re going to receive from all the booze-guzzling that will take place during those all those screenings.  Just this morning, it was announced that both LOVE and We Need to Talk About Kevin would be joining this year’s lineup, which was already pretty damn impressive:  the world premiere of Tom Six’s The Human Centipede 2, Jose Padilha’s Elite Squad 2, Nacho Vigalondo’s Extraterrestrial, and the heavily buzzed-about You’re Next are all already on the list.  What does the man behind all this craziness have to say for himself?  I sat down with Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League to find out.  Read that interview after the jump, folks.

Drafthouse Films is teaming with Timpson Films, Magnet Releasing, and 26 filmmakers to produce the horror anthology The ABCs of Death.  Each director will be assigned one letter of the alphabet to turn into a short film.  Some of the more notable talent involved Jason Eisener (Hobo With a Shotgun), Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), Ti West (The House of the Devil), and Srdjan Sapsojevic (A Serbian Film).  The remaining confirmed are Angela Bettis, Ben Wheatley, Banjong Pisanthanakun, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet, Gadi Harel, Thomas Malling, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Simon Rumley, Tak Sakaguchi and Yuji Shimomura, Marcel Sarmiento, Timo Tjahjanto, Andrew Traucki, Jake West and Adam Wingard.  The plan is to fill one slot with the winner of a worldwide contest, reminiscent of how Eisener got his start as an amateur filmmaker who landed Hobo With a Shotgun in the fake trailers section of Grindhouse.

Production is scheduled for this June.  The plan is to complete filming exactly 6 months, 6 weeks, and 6 days later in January 2012.  Read quotes from the producers after the jump.

The great Austin, Texas movie theater The Alamo Drafthouse is getting into the distribution game.  In a press release, Alamo Drafthouse CEO and Founder Tim League announced he is launching Drafthouse Films and the first film to be released under its banner will be Chris Morris’ Four Lions.  The controversial comedy centers on wannabe-jihadists in UK.

Four Lions will begin a 10-city promotional tour with Morris in attendance beginning in mid-October.  The film will be released in New York, Los Angeles, and Austin this fall and expand over the following weeks.  Hit the jump for the press release and an official synopsis for Four Lions.