In many ways, I considered Comic-Con to be the anti-Cannes. Technically speaking, it's not a film festival, but it hosts a few (anime, children's films, along with nightly film screenings). I lump them together in a category I call "Geek Havens." Comic-Con is the geek winner, for sure. Many people go to Cannes without a real passion for movies, just a hope that they can sip champagne with someone famous. I think the Comic-Con goers were as interested in drinking champagne as the yacht-goers were in theorizing about Lost (oh, have I mentioned that Lost is my favorite television show of all time?) At Cannes, the rich and famous are the ones catered to. Everyone else has to shuffle along the sidelines, standing tip-toed to see the pretty people on the yachts. Well, at Comic-Con, the consumer is the one catered to. Whether you like a movie or not has no effect on its winning the Palme d'or, but it has a huge effect on profits. The companies at Comic-Con want nothing more than to make you happy so that you will go on to your blog and write about how much you can't wait for Fringe, how much you liked the pilot, and how it is nothing like the X-Files (ahem). The companies are scrutinizing and watching and surveying and sweating, hoping they can please the crowds. Superficially speaking, I don't fit the "demographic" so I like throwing wrenches into the works. I like discussing Herzog and Brakhage as much as I do pop culture. I liked and hated both Cannes and Comic-Con. Mostly for different reasons, but crowds were the common element of the "I want to go home" feeling.
I'll be posting some of my favorite (and least favorite) moments from Comic-Con over the next few days.