Boxing is hard. I imagine it would be hard even if I wasn't a huge fat load, and even if I wasn't boxing at midnight on a day when I woke up at 8am and after I had drank a number of beers. At least that's what I like to tell myself.

Monday, September 28th was the best day of my life, and it capped off with a debate and boxing match, both of which I lost (spoiler warning, I guess). You can read the previous two installments in the saga of this greatest day here: Part One, in which I fired machine guns, and Part Two, in which I met Eurosleaze genius Jess Franco.

After seeing Venus in Furs and getting the autographs of Jesse Franco and Lina Romay, I headed into the Fantastic Fest Awards. I had served on the Horror Features jury this year (in fact, before I went shooting machine guns I had a jury meeting where we picked our winning films), and I would be needed on stage to announced the winners. The Fantastic Fest awards are quite different from any film festival awards you have ever imagined. For one thing, the winners get a golden belt buckle and a stein of beer. For another, they must chug the entire stein of beer at the podium. Substitutions are allowed, and when the winners are not in the house the presenter or the emcee - Tim League, the big papa behind Fantastic Fest - drain the stein. That night Tim drained many a stein, despite the fact that he was just hours away from stepping into a boxing ring with Dr. Uwe Boll himself.

Post awards (our jury handed two awards to The Human Centipede (First Sequence), which I think helped it become the breakout buzz film of the fest. I'm incredibly proud of this, and I hope that the movie goes on to find the sick and twisted audience it deserves) I headed to the boxing gym that shares a strip mall with the Alamo Drafthouse and the Highball, Tim's new bowling alley/bar/karaoke joint that has changed the very face of Fantastic Fest this year. At the boxing gym I was outfitted in head gear and a cup and boxing gloves (but didn't sign a waiver, something I had to do last year at the same event. I could have sued!) in preparation for my debate and fight.

The Fantastic Debates were a huge success last year, but they were done quite differently. The format was this: two people would get in the ring and debate a topic. The audience would choose the winner. If the audience response wasn't clear in either direction, the two debaters would fight it out, with a no-face punching rule. This year the organizers changed it up: this year everybody fought. And everybody got punched in the face.

I was up first. My topic: "Resolved: Michael Bay Is More Deserving of the Death Penalty Than the Oscar." My opponent: Scott Mossman, a local Austin teacher and the founder of a Google Michael Bay fan site and a contributor to the Michael Bay blog, Bay-Watch.org. Or so I thought. See, Zack Carlson, Fantastic Fest programmer, good friend of mine and sneaky asshole, had actually set me up with a ringer. There is no Scott Mossman. There is no Bay-Watch.org. There is only John Erler, a professional comedian who participates in Master Pancake Theater, an Alamo show where Erler and his partner Joe Parsons make fun of bad movies live in the theater. I should have suspected this - the idea of Zack finding this random dude was too weird, and Zack had pulled the same switcheroo on Matthew Kiernan, the Fantastic Fest Sponsor Coordinator, the year before.

Yes, I got Kiernaned.

I guess I believed it because the organizers had not intended to have me debate/fight on that topic or with that opponent. They had tried to get Alex Billington of First Showing in the ring with me, a debate and fight that surely would live on in internet infamy. Alex, though, wouldn't do it and punked out on the opportunity to settle our beef with both words and fists (and I actually think Alex would have had the advantage in boxing - he's younger and likely fitter than I am, and much taller than me. I would have ground him up in the debate, though). I just sort of thought that Scott Mossman was the best they could do at the last minute.

Totally believing that Scott Mossman was a person, I went up to him in the locker room as we were getting geared up. The lesson I had learned in the first Fantastic Debate (when I had debated Twitch's Todd Brown about CGI, but had not boxed (thank Christ. Todd would have killed me)) was that the audience wants hilarity, not facts, so I was planning on getting in the ring and unleashing jokes more than positions, although I would try to actually make a semi-strong case. I didn't actually believe the position I was debating (I was pro-Death Penalty for Bay), but it's performance, so I was willing to take the stand and be funny while doing it. But I feared that Mossman would be unable to keep up and I didn't want to seem like a big bully in the ring, so I told him that anything was fair game, to please feel free to make fun of me at will, that I wouldn't hold anything against him or take any offense. The comedian, keeping character, thanked me for the advice. What a dummy I am.

Finally the match was on. I was first in the ring, triumphantly parading down the aisle, full of false bravado. "Mossman" and I had talked a bit about the boxing, and since neither of us have health insurance neither of us was all that interested in getting a broken nose (Congress: please pass a public option so that next year I can freely get my nose busted. I think the audience, bloodthirsty beasts they are, will love it), and were both sort of nervous. At least I think the guy didn't have health insurance - where Mossman ends and Erlman begins I do not know!



Mossman took the podium as well, and as soon as I saw that he had notes I knew I was in trouble. One lesson I hadn't learned at the first Fantastic Debates will now be my cardinal debating rule: COME PREPARED. I had entered that ring supposing I would improv, but now I saw that my opponent had done lots and lots of research. What I didn't know was that my opponent had come really prepared with lots and lots of great jokes.

I had the opening remarks. You can listen to the entire debate at Cinematical by clicking here; keep in mind that my first priority was to entertain. I actually like a number of Michael Bay movies and I like Shia LaBeouf, but you have to know your audience, especially when they're the ones deciding if you win or lose. And at the end of the day my take on the Fantastic Debates is this: have lots of fun. It isn't like the topic at hand was one that invited subtlety or nuance.

When Mossman's opening remarks started I knew for a fact that I was finished. And since the guy had a good foot on me, with plenty of reach, I knew that I was in trouble when it came to the boxing match as well. But what are you going to do? I toyed with doing the pro-wrestling thing and acting super aggressive and angry and ignoring all of Mossman's jokes, but they were just too good. His line 'Saying that Michael Bay hasn't won an Oscar is like saying the Steelers haven't won the Special Olympics' is a flat out fucking classic, and you have to give such a talented opponent the respect of a hearty laugh.

At the end of the debate the audience's wishes were pretty damn clear: Mossman had taken the Mind portion of the evening. Now to decide the Body.

We began weakly, and the audience turned on us. There's something primal about being in a boxing ring and getting booed from a bloodthirsty audience; as someone who likes to play to the crowd it's tough, but there's something deeper that kicks in. There's a combat switch in all of our brains, and it's easy to get that combat switch turned on.

I tried to get Mossman to tag me in the head, but we were just throwing pretty ineffective body blows. I was actually giving it a shot, but couldn't get in past his arms. I also couldn't breathe through the fucking mouth guard; after just thirty seconds of wimpy dancing around I was sweating and not getting enough oxygen; my chest was on fire and I imagined that I might meet my end in the boxing ring at Fantastic Fest. There are worse ways to go.

Finally I managed to get a punch in on Mossman's face, and that worked. It triggered his combat switch and he began raining fists down upon me from on high. Don't ever box a guy who is a foot taller than you - it's going to result in you getting punched upside the head a lot while you vainly try to pop him in the nipples.

I gave it the old college try, but being this out of shape (and having spent the last week sitting on my ass in movie theaters, eating nothing but fried food and drinking nothing but Dr. Pepper and beer) meant that even the thirty second time out between rounds was no good for me. In round two I just spit out the mouth guard, and finally able to fill my lungs with hot, sticky gym air, I went at Mossman with renewed ferocity.

He kicked my ass.



That was the decision of the judges. I think I made a comeback in the second round, but they were counting punches that connected, and I guess that one flurry when he punched me in the face forty times really hurt my chances. Slightly dazed from being beaten up by a tall, gangly comedian, I stood in the center of the ring and accepted my defeat.

But I was just the undercard! After our bout was the topic "Resolved: Vampires Are So Gay" with Brad McHargue from Horror Squad arguing the gayness of vamps while Chivonn Anderson, the founder of Hey Homo!, a gay night at the Alamo, took the other side. Chivonn destroyed Brad in the debate, ensuring his defeat by recounting the tale of her first lesbian threesome. And then she utterly dismantled him in the ring, beating him so solidly that his headgear kept flying off. Brad was visibly enraging, swinging so wildly that he all but spun around; the very fit Chivonn danced around him, raining punches upon his form. In the end the decision was simple: Chivonn won handily.

The third debate had Scott Weinberg of Cinematical and Chris Cargill, aka Massawyrm of Aint It Cool News, sparring on the topic of "Resolved: Fuck you." There was some bad blood between the two critics, so the decision was to allow them to simply spill it all. Massawyrm came at Scott with a lot of one liners - very Friar's Roast material. I thought it was pretty funny, and some of it was quite mean. While I love Scott with all my heart, I do heartily approve of mean jokes being slung around, so I have to give props to Cargill. But Scott rebutted by simply reading Massawyrm's reviews back to him, dancing about like an aggressive Philly street tough, getting right in Cargill's face. The audience fell for Scott, and while his later rap portion of the debate didn't quite kill, he took the verbal crown. Things weren't quite as thrilling in that fight, though, and Scott, a very heavy smoker, essentially threw the fight by simply laying on the mat in the second round.

All of this was prologue for the big debate and fight: Tim League versus Dr. Uwe Boll, who had brought his surprisingly not-shitty film Rampage to Fantastic Fest. The topic: "Resolved: Indie Film is Dead." Boll would debate that it was done for, while Tim was its champion.

Things started poorly, though. Boll stepped into the ring and complained. He hadn't realized that the debates were comedy and had been prepared to do a real fifteen minute debate. His anger, he said, meant bad things for Tim in the boxing match.

Now, I love Tim League (he showed up to the match in a star-spangled unitard. Wonderful!), and I was actually worried. Boll's a trained boxer and Tim's a drunk film programmer. The disparity is obvious. And the idea that Boll was mad made me more worried - I didn't want Tim to get hurt. It would ruin the whole party.

But I underestimated Tim. He looked Boll right in the eye and agreed to a real, comprehensive debate. Which he then went on to completely and totally win.

This, to me, is Fantastic Fest in a nutshell. It's fun, it's crazy, it's drunk, it's silly - but it's also really smart, really passionate, really committed to film. In a lot of ways I think this is the film fest that Werner Herzog would love the most, since it's equally about living life and loving movies. It's a festival that isn't afraid to have a good time but understands that having a good time doesn't mean being stupid.



Boll and Tim were sort of on different levels with the debate; while Boll was talking about bigger indie films - ten million bucks, Fox Searchlight movies - Tim was talking about real indie films, the movies that cost a few hundred thousand or a couple of million. But I think that Boll was arguing the wrong thing, since those small-budget films are fake indies. Tim was talking about a thriving world of alternative distribution where indie films had a chance to be seen in ways that arthouse films never had before. Modern indie films, with a good budget, a smart marketing campaign and some enthusiastic support from folks like me, can really go big places (comparatively). In the end, even Boll ceded to Tim.

And then came the boxing. Boll, in a display of graciousness to the head of the only film festival on Earth that would ever take him seriously, only punched Tim with his left hand. While the judges called it a tie, I think it was obvious that Tim walked away the winner of both the Mind and Body sections of the evening.

By then it was damn late. We headed over to the Highball for some post-boxing booze, and John Erlman (aka Scott Mossman) came up to me and we both agreed that we were the best debate of the night. It was nice getting compliments on my timing and humor from a professional comedian, and it was certainly a nice salve on my slightly wounded ego. Still, I think being gracious in defeat is an important trait, so I was more than happy to tell Erlman that he had soundly trounced me in the debates.

What a day. I had been going since 8AM, and it was now 2:30. My body ached from punches and weapon kickback, my mind reeled from unbelievable experiences and my heart swelled from being around such amazing people and having them call me friend. It's unlikely that I'll ever have another day where I do so many new things and have so many strange, wonderful experiences, but if ever such a day were to happen again, it would happen at Fantastic Fest.

All photos Fantastic Fest 2009 Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Austin Texas davidhillphoto.com