Why We Keep Coming Back For More 2005

Although we were already hooked 2005 gave us yet another reason to love Sitges. This was the year the festival moved from its temporary December slot back to its original October date and with that came the bonus of glorious weather. Sun, sea and sand obviously the perfect combination to then go and spend 8 hours a day in a darkened theatre.

2005 served up some classic Sitges films too. Still staggering around in a daze from the previous year’s Korean baptism and OLD BOY, Wook again nocked us off our feet with the vengeance trilogy closer SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE. However, it was his compatriot Kim Ji-woon and the simply brilliant A BITTERSWEET LIFE  that stole the Korean limelight. If this film doesn’t grab you in the first 60 seconds then you best have the nearest person check to see if you have a pulse.

We can pretty much take all the graphic violence the Koreans can throw at us but when it comes to jumps and scares we’re the biggest pair of girls at the festival. We therefore must have been drunk when we decided to take in THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE. Skirts held over our eyes for most of the film. Equally uncomfortable in subject matter but with more left to the imagination HARD CANDY had us cringing and wincing to all manner of testicular threats.

We don’t know much but we already knew what we’d be doing come October 2006.

 

 

 

 

And we can’t leave 2005 without including a look back to the absolutely f*cking bonkers film from Shinya Tsukamoto, HAZE.

In A Mediterranean Town Far, Far Away

Although some may regard the town of Sitges as nothing more than the venue for the worlds greatest film festival, jetting in for the red carpet premier, being whisked away once the champagne is drained, there are others such as ourselves who have long since realised there is another, equally fantastic world beyond the flash of the paparazzi’s camera.

And while we try to cram as much “Sitges-time” into our relatively brief visit during the festival we know that life in the town continues after the curtain has fallen so we like to keep an eye on what’s going on between Octobers. Sitgesbarcelona.com allows us to do just that.

We’re hoping that Obi Funk Kenobi will again be performing at the Lizard Club when October comes as the festival buzz usually has us reaching for vino and vibes wherever Sitges cares to lay it on.

Nothing Concrete But Could Brad & Bale Be Back?

Perhaps our disappointment at Brad Anderson’s latest effort VANASHING ON 7TH STREET can again be traced back to that vintage Sitges year of 2004, where three directors promised so much and yet only one (The Wookie) has delivered any kind of follow up to date.

That year we were mightily impressed by Anderson’s THE MACHINIST, however, in going over our 2004 notes we can see that it was more the combination of Brad and Bale that left us wanting more. Good news then with this piece over at Jo Blow where the word is that the dynamic duo could soon be reunited on the J.G.Ballard inspired CONCRETE ISLAND.

Good To Know We’re Not The Only Ones

Though not necessarily what we expected we liked Gareth Edwards’ MONSTERS when we saw it at Sitges this year. We unfortunately didn’t bump into Gazza at the festival otherwise we would have bought him a beer but it’s nice to know he enjoyed himself while he was there:

(From an interview by Kurt Halfyard (www.rowthree.com) posted at  Twitch (www.twitchfilm.net)

Kurt Halfyard: Hi, How are you doing today?

Gareth Edwards: I’m good, how are you, are you doing OK?

KH:  Fine.  I am glad we finally got a chance to sit down and talk, because I missed you in Toronto and then I just missed you again in Spain.  How was your Sitges experience?

GE:  It was great!  I think that out of all the festivals they have it down the most, everything run so well in one location!

Day Eight – Achtung Maybe…


It’s pretty standard that by this point in the trip Shaun is missing breakfast to give himself an extra few minutes in bed but today he excelled himself by also skipping a shower. Subsequently this meant that that anyone who even dared to think about sitting close to us was greeted by the aroma of stale beer, sobrasada and two day old pants and socks which allowed us a rare treat of plenty of space to spread out into our first film, Red Hill…

RETIRO – 10.00hrs – Red Hill

Australia’s Patrick Hill chose a pretty standard revenge thriller for his first film. The clever twist he put on it is that it’s essentially a modern-day western set in rural small-town Australia. It’s a pretty standard story of a big city cop on his first day after being re-posted to a small town and being thrown into turmoil immediately as a convict escapes from a nearby prison and returns to town to get his revenge on the people who put him there.

Shaun was more impressed by this than Colin but it’s a pretty taut and well paced thriller with good acting performances from True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten as the newcomer and veteran Aussie actor Steve Bisley as the grizzled old cop.

…so, after our Aussie western fix we headed back to the hotel for Shaun to shower and get rid of the flies that were following him around like Pigpen from Charlie Brown. Once we were a clean, lean, film watching machine again, we headed up to the Auditori for our second film of the day, Korean revenge horror Bedevilled…

AUDITORI – 13.45hrs – Bedevilled

Really, we should have probably done a bit more research on this before we saw it. It was Shaun’s choice mainly based on the fact that it’s Korean and had been shown at Frightfest but wasn’t really what we were expecting. What we got was a film about a woman who, after losing her job and needing to re-evaluate her life, retreats to the remote island she grew up on but finds herself dragged into the issues her childhood friend is experiencing and the events that then occur.

This was pretty much treated with indifference by the pair of us as it was very slow moving and you could find very little sympathy or empathy for any of the characters and therefore didn’t really care what happened to them….

So, bidding farewell to the Auditori for the final time this year we headed down to the Retiro for our next film, barely making it in time…

Retiro – 16.00hrs – Jackboots On Whitehall

We were a little surprised that this puppetised (is that a word? it is now!) version of World War 2 wasn’t more of a hit when released in the UK as it had a stellar voice cast and quite a bit of publicity. I suspect that the reason is the same problem we had with this and also last year’s Panique Au Village – they might make a great trailer / short film but stretching them out to a full 90 minute feature film is just a bit too much to ask….

So, with aching backsides from the seats in the Retiro we did the one thing we probably shouldn’t do when we have an extended period of time between films – went  straight round to Cafe Del Mon and got straight on the wine. Cut to 6 glasses each later and we were legging it back to the Retiro to watch our final film of the festival, Spanish horror chiller Atrocious…

Retiro – 20.45hrs – Atrocious

Another one of Shaun’s choices, the decision was made due to the fact that it was made in Sitges and looked Paranormal Activity-style scary. Unfortunately, only one of these was true and although we respect the director’s attempt at purely making a film to get into the Sitges festival, it wasn’t really good enough. It was a fairly standard setup of a found footage hand-held documentary story, but unlike Paranormal Activity, didn’t follow through with the scares and just ended up being a bit silly. Also the fact that we were drunk, hot, a bit giggly and sat up in the gods didn’t help and this really struggled to hold our attention, which for a horror film is unforgivable.

So, wandering out with a buzz on into our final night in Sitges, we rounded up Em and Laura and set about visiting our regular haunts to say adios and drink wine and eat tapas until the early hours.

Day Seven – Snabba Cash And The Reggae Smash Single “Chaka Demus Have You Seen My Pliers?”

…..These (relatively) early morning starts were helping Shaun follow a diet of sorts as the hotel’s sumptuous buffet breakfast was forgone in favour of an extra 30 minutes kip. Colin, on the other hand, continued to break new personal bests in bacon consumption and was slowly becoming addicted to the Bloody Mary mini shots on offer.

A stroll up to the top of town at this time of the day is a pleasant one and we all too often take the views out to sea for granted. Perhaps we would have seen monsters had we been looking…..

AUDITORI – 10:15hrs – MONSTERS

This turned out to be not-really-a-creature feature and more of a road movie about two strangers reluctantly thrown together trying to find their way through the hazardous infected zone of Mexico to the US border and home.

Fortunately there was good chemistry between the two leads Samantha (Whitney Able) and Andrew (Scoot McNairy) so their screen time felt natural and never dragged. Team CS developed a bit of a thing for Samantha and Andrew had a touch of early Bruce Willis about him so both were easy to watch. The dialogue too fit the characters and this helped the many non-eventful scenes still play out with some success.

The film’s theme about monsters (alien life forms that had accidentally arrived on Earth 6 years previously) was never really explored and served merely as the driving force for our duos perilous journey, although it did provide some decent special effect moments and set pieces.

An enjoyable watch without challenging for any awards.

…….it was a back-to-back big screen bonanza again at the Auditori as we were straight into our next film.

AUDITORI – 12:00hrs – A SERBIAN FILM

This had been highly anticipated by the team although with slightly differing reasons. In recent years there has been a spate of films that have dared audiences to go and see them, challenging them to have an opinion. Some films have done this with an inventive approach and some have done this with pure shock value.

The filmmaker here may have had genuine intentions to use the film and some of it’s more shocking scenes as metaphors for the recent history of his country but it’s unlikely audiences will take that with them when they leave the theatre.

This tale of a fading porn star legend who is given one last chance to make his masterpiece and secure his family’s financial future provides a perfect platform for the director to roll out scene after scene of unflinching extreme sex and violence.

While film critics may look to dig deeper beneath the story’s surface, audiences will no doubt remember this director’s debut purely for its set-pieces of shock, in particular we’re guessing the now-coined “newborn porn” will attract the most attention.

Ultimately the team thought this became silly and its attempts to continuously one-up itself to the very end rendered any other intended sub-story meaningless.

……Colin tried to find reason behind the gratuitousness of our Serbian encounter whereas Shaun was just bemused (and a little angry) at how pointless it was. With a couple of hours to kill until our next screening it’s possibly a reflection of how much the film failed to make its mark that we spent no more than 5 minutes discussing it. Even films that are bad but for a reason provoke more debate than that.

We have, however, always got time to discuss Sobresada baguettes and that was first on the agenda at the Auditori’s outside café…….

AUDITORI – 16:00hrs – THE HOUSEMAID

Our cinematic favourites, The Koreans, were somewhat thin on the ground this year and the one film that we wanted to see above all, I SAW THE DEVIL, was being screened the day of our departure. It was good then to finally get our first Kimchi kick in the form of this Korean remake of a (also Korean) 1960 cult classic, where a newly appointed housemaid becomes an unwitting player in her wealthy employer’s game of infidelity and deceit.

A beautifully crafted film employs a lush look for the “dripping in money” setting of the family’s palatial home. The home was virtually the only location and that gave the film a sense of theatre, fittingly played out with great performances from the five main characters, and with each of their nuances captured by excellent camera work. The score was also used to draw out the drama to great effect and although the ending perhaps dropped the ball a little this was overall a great story.

…….Having shuffled our schedule the previous day our fourth and final film of the day was also up at the Auditori so once we’d secured tickets for the following day’s films it was once more to the café to write but mainly eat/drink. What can we say, we’re sociable guys…….

AUDITORI – 20:00hrs – SNABBA CASH (EASY MONEY)

Although Shaun had pointed out that the film’s original Swedish title sounded more like a Jamaican reggae artist than a gritty crime drama both CS team members had ultimately singled this out as one to watch

This adaptation of Swedish Jens Lapidus’ best seller by the same name plays out in Stockholm’s gritty underworld and follows several gangster characters from rival gangs, the director using each of their viewpoints and position within the gang hierarchy to expose the greed and mistrust prevalent as the self is put ahead of any real sense of loyalty. Easy money this ‘aint.

This solid story played out well although could have benefited from losing 20 minutes or so of unnecessary dialogue and side story. Good performance helped keep the drama real, in particular the excellent Dragomir Mrsic as Mrado and Matias Padin as Jorge.

…….the aforementioned schedule reshuffle had been undertaken to give us a reasonably early end to the cinematic day and subsequent early start to the team’s nocturnal activities. The last day of the festival was fast approaching and we needed to say all our farewells to bar and person alike…..

Day Six – Chicken Breasts. They’re A Canteen/Special FX Double Act


…..O.K. So technically this post is only making it onto our site the day after the festival has finished, five days after we actually watched the films we’re blogging about. In this day and age of instant information we’ve decided on a more old school retro approach. It’s our two fingered salute to all those festival goers who insisted on tossing about with their phones during just about every screening we attended. They were often the people who arrived 10 minutes after the film had started and were no doubt twittering that very fact to their army of 3 followers. Sort it out Angel……..

A last minute adjustment to the schedule saw us shifting from Swedish gangster flick SNABBA CASH to a cerebral pro-life advertisement for extra terrestrials.

PRADO – 10:30hrs – EARTHLING

Hats off to writer/director of this film (Clay Liford) for at least finding the passion/motivation to make a film about a concept (we assume) he was interested in. For us this one goes into the box labelled “why would anyone go to the time, effort, and expense to make a film like that”. It’s a box that gets pretty full during the Sitges festival.

A story of a group of people finding out that their lives up to that point had been a lie as their human forms were merely vessels for aliens that had been stranded on earth. Some of the aliens want to return home while others have kind of become attached to their new home and tensions rise within the group as a result.

Whether this was a vague attempt to raise the question of what it means to be human we’re not sure but a film that was mediocre at best then fell off the charts when the special effects team broke out the old chicken breasts for aliens routine. At this point Shaun was asking someone to open a window.

……With a little over an hour to burn until our next film it was two dudes, a beer and an iPad time in Café “yeah’ Roy. It was good to see that old folk still look out for the best interests of today’s younger generation. While Shaun and I were enjoying the innocent pleasure of a bit of G-String action out of the back of the voluptuous young (but old enough) lady at the adjacent table, a nearby granny poked her in the crack of her builder’s bum with the tip of her umbrella to show her disapproval. Spoil sporting old hag……

RETIRO – 13:45 – VANISHING ON 7TH STREET

The vintage Sitges year of 2004 and the masterpiece that is THE MACHINIST seemed a lifetime ago after enduring this faltering effort from Brad Anderson. At least he didn’t write it so perhaps it was thrust upon him and he merely saw it as a break from all the tivo work he appears to have been doing lately. Whatever the history this had an estimated budget of $10 Million bucks which once more begs the question “why?”

The story follows the last hours of what could be the remaining few souls on earth. Daylight is diminishing and darkness is busy consuming anyone and everyone that falls under its shadow. There is a brief reference made to “dark matter” at the beginning of the film and the ending has heavy-handed religious tones. Is someone trying to tell us that the Universe of science/nature will ultimately consume itself in the “big crunch” of the “big bang”, and the only way to save your soul is to seek out the light of God? Am I reading too much into this?

This was neither well scripted nor acted and appeared to be undertaken with little thought or care. Please Brad, stick to tivo and don’t sully the memory of Sitges 2004.

……. confused and grumpy we turned to the comfort of alcohol. Our next film had the potential to go either way so we were staring a possible three-on-the-bounce stinker of a day. No man should be asked to face that sober so a fruity blanco was called for at Café Del Monde and CS team members 3 & 4 were filled in on Plan B, that is, we asked them to keep our seats warm as we expected to be in and out of the next film in 5 minutes……..

RETIRO – 18:45hrs – GALLANTS

Having earlier posted our disenchantment with Hong Kong cinema (see FIRE OF CONSCIENCE) and staring at strike three for the day’s films we dragged our heels into the Retiro. We needn’t have worried. This old school martial arts comedy grabbed us from the start and left us feeling a touch of ARAHAN about it (high praise coming from us).

This Karate-Kid style tale sees our not-yet-a-hero Chung join up with a kooky band of martial arts old-timers to save their old school from being torn down and redeveloped. Regardless of any morals it may contain the story is really only there to give screen time to the brilliant kung fu pensioners Tiger (Siu-lung Leung), Dragon (Kuan Tai Chen), and Master Ben Law (Teddy Robin Kwan). These three worked so well together and their comedic timing is matched only by that of their (still) amazing kung fu. Teddy Robin in particular was outstanding and we love that fact that he used to front a band called “Teddy Robin and the Playboys” back in the 60’s

As if all of this wasn’t enough the film’s wardrobe appears to have been sponsored by Adidas Originals gaining it a near perfect score from the team (that’s 2 ¾ asterisks in case you were wondering)

…..What a turn around for the day with GALLANTS threatening to take the team’s top honours for film of the festival. There was little time to discuss however as we were back to back at the Retiro and straight in to our next film……

RETIRO – 20:45hrs – LES 7 JOURS DU TALION

From such comedic kung fu highs it was going to be tough to switch moods for 7 days of Canadian torture. Indeed we only had to wait 10 minutes before facing some of the grimmest and most realistic visions of the aftermath of a child rape and murder. From here on the tone was set as the child’s father sets about exacting his revenge on his daughter’s captured murderer. Planning and executing 7 days of methodical torture culminating in his version of the death sentence.

The film lost its way a little and, apart from one unbelievably realistic scene involving nifty work with a scalpel,  the anticipated torture sequence didn’t quite fit the build up it was given. The ending too left a lot to be desired unless there’s a subtle meaning here we’ve missed.

…….we chose to forget the day’s low points and instead carried the GALLANTS good vibe down to Hernan’s where Colin got dragged into a seemingly endless conversation on the virtues of Humphrey Bogart (who Colin can not stand) with a local Scottish drunk. Colin’s misery was compounded when Shaun later told him that exactly the same thing had happened last year with the same Scott!! Colin must have pushed last year’s miserable memory so far to the back of his mind that he’d forgotten completely. Or perhaps he was just pissed…….

Day Five – I’m Playing The Right Notes, Just Not In The Right Order 

……having sweat the late shift in Barcelona the night before it was always going to be slow to rise in the morning. Matters weren’t helped by watching NITRO CIRCUS into the wee small hours but when the tivo in your hotel room only has two channels in English watching dudes ride BMX bikes off cliff tops into the Caribbean seems like a good idea….

RETIRO – 12:00 – ANIMATED SHORTS MARATHON

As budding short film makers we wanted to take in a few of the festivals curt offerings to see if we could get a handle on what’s currently being made. A few of the feature film offerings up at the AUDITORI were preceded by a short film and, to be honest, we weren’t overawed when comparing it to Shaun’s recently completed short film, ALEX.

We also wanted to check out the animated short offerings and this marathon threw up a few gems. Namely;

Shaun Tan’s THE LOST THING
Victoria Mather’s STANLEY PICKLE
Niki Kindroth Von Bahr’s TORD TORD
Suren Perera’s SCARY THERAPY

….our next film was up at the AUDITORI so we jumped at the opportunity to hit restaurant CAN XAVI as Shaun could no longer deny his taste buds the flavour temple that is the ham and cheese bikini (the sandwich that is, not the swimwear). At an attempt at professionalism we hit the iPad with all the enthusiasm we could muster but we were conscious that Beat Takeshi was waiting to unleash his rage at the cinema and excitement had the better of us….

AUDITORI – 16:30hrs – OUTRAGE

We love a bit of Takeshi but he doesn’t always return the love. This time he delivered with style in this Yakuza (read gangster) tale of back-stabbing and betrayal. Takeshi himself employs his trade mark distant stare to great effect as the moody underboss with the tough task of manipulating those above and below him to the tune of the chairman, though not always to his knowledge

The film does a great job of navigating the complex world of Yakuza families whilst maintaining forward momentum on a story that will underpin the violence that unfolds in the film’s final third. Really well put together and a pleasure to see Beat Takeshi back on fine form.

…..tough decisions are tough for a reason. Faced with the difficult choice between an England international against Montenegro and the film STAKE LAND we put on our team hat on and reverse spliced ourselves so that we could cover both. We didn’t know who had drawn the short straw until both had finished. The general consensus was that Colin got stinky finger by catching STAKE LAND while Shaun sat through Ferdinand’s less than convincing reinstatement as captain.

RETIRO – 20:45hrs – STAKE LAND

We’re suckers for a road movie here at Corridorstyle and that’s ultimately what “Stake Land” is. Sure there are vampires. Yes this is post apocalyptic. However, when you look for the reason why this film worked you need look no further than Nick Damici. As co-writer of the film he’s responsible for kick-ass characters moving through a world inhabited by characters who want their ass kicked. And as bad as this near future world is, the director make’s it a fascinating world to view from the safety of your cinema seat. One of the festival highlights.

…… The team reunited and Colin was secretly thrilled to learn that the England game had thrown up a less than enthralling 0-0 draw. As is now customary, and something that had already been done with RUBBER, Colin let Shaun know he’d just missed the film of the festival. There was no time to talk 4-4-2, we had horror to see, and it was none other than SAW’s James Wan dishing up the scares…..

RETIRO – 22.45hrs – INSIDIOUS

Despite absolutely hating the last film of Wan’s we saw at Sitges (Dead Silence) the cast and synopsis for this were enough to make us give this a chance. For the first two thirds it was a tight, tense horror with enough scares and jumps to have our arses twitching like rabbit’s noses. Unfortunately, like other recent horror films (stand up The Last Exorcism), it’s really let down by it’s final act where the introduction of a poorly conceived ‘demon’ almost ruined the good work done previously.

Good performances by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne and enough early scares to get the adrenaline pumping mean that it’s definitely worth giving this a go, maybe just leave half an hour before the end.

…and with that we decided to forego late beers and head back to the room for an early(ish) night, allowing ourselves the time to check out the genius of Morecambe & Wise on YouTube before finally drifting off to sleep.