movie news: Movie Fest is back!

I’m not really in the business of promoting other sites on AverageFilmReviews.com (I have enough trouble finding time to talk about movies…) but this really is a fantastic event that’s well worth my time and yours. Next weekend, September 8th and 9th 2012, sees the return of Movie Fest!

If you didn’t go last year I can assure you that you really were missing out. For the very reasonable sum of €22.50 per day I was treated to two days in Cineworld 17, one of the best screens in Ireland, where I got to see previews of some of the upcoming blockbusters for the year.

The films that were screened last year were Drive, Cowboys & Aliens, 30 Minutes or Less, The Change-Up, Final Destination 5 and Fright Night, none of which had been released in cinemas yet. We also got introductions to footage and movies from some A-list stars like Colin Farrell, Jon Favreau, Guillermo del Toro and Jesse Eisenberg. In fact, we saw footage from Total Recall a full year before the film made it to cinemas.

Movie Fest 2012 is building on last year’s legacy. It is slightly more expensive this year at €25 per day but seeing as they have already got Looper, ParaNorman and Premium Rush already announced the film slate is shaping up to be just as good, if not better.

There are other things going on as well. Last year we saw highlight reels from most of the major studios and they have also announced footage from Iron Man 3 and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi plus, this year they will have special guests. ParaNorman is opening the festival on Saturday morning with writer/director Chris Butler in attendance for a Q&A. Keep an eye on the Movie Fest news page for more details as they’re released.

I know this sounds like a bit of love-in for Movie Fest but it really was good fun last year so I wholeheartedly recommend it. I bought my tickets soon as they went on sale.

Actually, the one tip I do have for it is… try to pick up your tickets in Cineworld beforehand. They don’t open the doors at Cineworld till 10am. I ended up queuing for ages to print out my tickets, only to have to queue again to exchange them for wristbands. That was annoying. But that was the only annoying thing.

Book your tickets on the Cineworld.ie site today. I’ll leave you with the trailer for ParaNorman, it’s been lauded by critics all over the place so the preview screening and Q&A will undoubtedly be one of the highlights of the weekend.