……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.
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