Official Fantastic Selection opens with Let me in

Should England serve us up another kick in the nether regions on Wednesday (a concern for Spain too until last night) we can at least draw some comfort from the fact that the organisers in Sitges have begun opening the drip feed of information for films featuring at this year’s festival.

A somewhat controversial choice here at CS sees the Official Fantastic Selection opening with LET ME IN.

Having been blown away by the original Swedish version LET THE RIGHT ONE IN at Sitges in 2008 we were dismayed at the announcement soon after that Hollywood thought Tomas Alfredson’s film was sooooo good that they couldn’t wait to remake it for him, no doubt correcting his mistakes and giving the film that X factor it was obviously missing………….hmmm!

We’ll try to remain open minded and give LET ME IN the benefit of the doubt, however, I imagine we’ll ultimately find something better to watch while this remake is screened. Now if only we could find someone who could remake the 1986 World Cup quarter final so that the hand of Peter Shilton actually gets to the ball before the hand of God

Los ojos de Julia to open Sitges 2010

Ever ready to lend it’s support to Catalonia’s film industry, the festival have announced that the Guillem Morales film LOS OJOS DE JULIA will open this year’s festival.

Morales made an impressive debut (writer/Director) at the festival in 2004 with his film EL HABITANTE INCIERTO picking up a nomination for best film and a best actress award for Monica Lopez. Los ojos de Julia stars Belen Rueda who featured at the festival in 2007 with EL ORFANATO, a film produced by Guillermo del Toro who again lends his weight behind Ojos.

Here’s a little taster with the trailer for Los ojos de Julia:

Potential Sitges Film Speculation Number Two

The reason for thinking that PIG might have a chance is that all of Director Adam Mason’s previous films have been shown here, and we even sat pretty close to him and screenwriter Simon Boyes in a cafe at the festival one year without realising it.

I’ve not seen either Blood River or Luster but we did quite enjoy ‘The Devil’s Chair’ when we saw it at Sitges, and after reading this interview it looks an interesting enough concept for us to give it a whirl.

Potential Sitges Film Speculation Number One

We’ll be absolutely honest, we have no insight whatsoever into what’s actually going to be showing at the festival this year but who cares – it’s getting closer and time to get excited! Over the coming weeks we’ll be posting details of more films we think could be there

The first film we think might have a chance is the Korean film ‘I Saw The Devil’:

Ok…take the stars of Oldboy and  A Bittersweet Life (two of our all-time favourites) and add in the director of The Good, The Bad, the Weird and I think the only way we’d be more excited about a film is if they gave you free beers on the way in.

It looks to have all of the moodyness of The Chaser and A Bittersweet Life and  with Lee Byung-Hun playing a vengeful husband  and Choi Min-Sik playing the killer of his wife, if it is on at Sitges it’s already guaranteed to be one of our must sees.

There’s usually a healthy supply of Korean films at the festival and there’s a couple more on the horizon we’ll be letting you have details of over the coming days, and if they all make it they could make this year’s fest the year of the moody Korean drama.

Fingers and everything are definitely crossed!

We’re Back!!!

So, like a family of small woodland animals we appear blinking into the spring daylight, still dazed from our six month hibernation.

And we’ve actually got some news for you……..the dates for this year’s Sitges Festival Internacional De Cinema De Catalunya have been announced. It’s a little later than usual,7th to 17th October, and the first issue that has immediately come up is that, as this clashes with Hispanic Day on October 12th, hotel rooms appear to be more expensive and very much in demand so get ’em booked up early.

As usual we’ll be bringing you news and previews of as many of the films that are being shown as is humanly possible and once the festival begins we’ll be blogging (eventually!) and tweeting all of our exploits and thoughts on the films we’re seeing.

Keep an eye out for more news as it comes.

Sitges 2009 – Our Festival Review

Sitges09Well we just about kept you up to date with our festival daily Blog (it was technically delivered daily, it just happened to be 4 or 5 days late) and those of you who made it to Sitges will have no doubt formed your own thoughts and opinions on the success or otherwise of this years event.

For the record, here’s how we think things turned out with OUR 2009 FESTIVAL REVIEW

It’s a long wait until the 43rd edition of Sitges so, in the meantime, we’ll revert to posting our general thoughts on all things cinematic, musical, artistic or pretty much anything we damn well please. Pop in from time to time or follow us via Twitter or RSS . We’re never the most prolific of posters but when we do, we’d like to think that it’s from the heart.

Shaun’s Top Five From Sitges ’09

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Just thought I’d chip in with my thoughts on my favourite films of the festival. I’ve got to be honest, for me it was one of the weaker years in terms that nothing really rocked my world, but there was still plenty to get excited about.

So, in order of number one being the best, here you go…

1. Paranormal Activity

2. Panique Au Village

3. Enter The Void

4. Moon

5. Heartless

Special mentions should also go to Mr Nobody, Splice and Dogtooth, the wooden spoon definitely goes to Park Chan Wook’s ‘Thirst’ which in hindsight probably wasn’t the worst film we saw, but definitely most disappointing.

I also suspect that Moon would have been top of the pile if I hadn’t seen it beforehand.

9.10.09 – Day 7 – It’s Over Johnny, It’s Over…NOTHING IS OVER!!

It’s a weird one. Normally, at this stage in the festival I’m barely able to function as a human being. Through a combination of four films a day, copious amounts of red wine and chorizo sausage and a night’s sleep that even Margaret Thatcher would wince at, I’m normally not able to make it through a whole film and there’s every chance I might nod off while standing in the queue.

But this year, something’s definitely different. It’s been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips me, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. But enough of that, we both managed to make breakfast and aimlessly ambled around Sitges before we took in our first film of the day…

COLD SOULS – AUDITORI – 14:45HRS

First looks at this made it look like a remake of Being John Malkovich starring Paul Giamatti. Thankfully, that was a far too simplistic view on what this actually was. A clever story about removal and swapping of a person’s soul, it could have got bogged down in trying to be very deep and meaningful but actually kept it light and extremely enjoyable with stand-out performances as usual from Paul Giamatti and David Strathairn.

With barely enough time for a cold one, we were back in the press queue for the second film of the day:

ACCIDENT – AUDITORI – 17:00HRS

As the producer was Johnnie To, hopes weren’t high for this one (see yesterday’s blog post) but were were fairly pleasantly surprised. Colin was a bit keener on it than me but this tale of a team of elaborate contract killers who make all of their hits look like accidents was pretty good, although my own personal thoughts were that it tailed off a bit in the final third.

So, in ‘pleasantly surprised’ mode we legged it past the massive queues that were already forming for our third and final film of the day…

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY – AUDITORI – 18:45HRS

As we took our seats in what had now been coined “Corridorstyle Row” (at least by us) there was a fair bit of nervous excitement in the air due to a trailer that looked terrifying in a [REC] / Blair Witch kind of way, and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I don’t think I’ve ever been as uncomfortable in a cinema as I was watching this film, and that includes the castration sequence in Hard Candy. A well acted, written and shot film, they have a really clever way of cranking up the atmosphere in the ‘non-scary’ parts so that by the time the scares actually arrive, your trousers are already full.

So, with a final festival bonus of free ice-cream on the way out (thanks to both Ben and Jerry) we headed off in the night to say goodbye to all of our friends and local haunts and talk rubbish into the wee small hours.

It’s been emotional Sitges. In the words of Richard Ashcroft “See you in the next one, have a good time”.

08.10.09 – DAY 6 – It´s The Year Of Filth

Boom! Like a bullet from a gun we´re up and out early to the Auditori. Breakfast is a luxury for one of us, particularly when there are supermarkets on the way that sell crisps and chocolate, so it´s with full stomachs and open minds that we check out Gaspar Noe’s controversial and highly anticipated mind-blower….

ENTER THE VOID – AUDITORI – 10:15HRS

This was a total visual extravaganza and whilst we were already anticipating a well shot and visually impressive film, the reports and feedback we’d seen on the web were that it was an over-long, pretentious film with a highly disjointed story. In our opinion, the stuff we’d seen before couldn’t be more wrong. A full review will eventually be HERE, but essentially it’s the story of a brother and sister who end up running with the wrong crowd and Noe’s film draws you into the story with an incredibly clever use of flashback and first-person camera views. It’s definitely not for everyone as the graphic sexual scenes, overhead camera shots, flashing high colour images and a 2 1/2 -3 hour running time will definitely divide audience. As far as we’re concerned, it totally rocked our world.

…..So, with minds totally blown and the feeling that we were just coming down from an acid trip we sought solace in familiar things – beer and a sobresada and cheese baguette. With just enough time to throw these down us and split a brownie (oo-er!) we got back in the press queue and headed in for the film that we were probably looking forward to the most…..

PANIQUE AU VILLAGE – AUDITORI – 15:15HRS

In the words of Tom Cruise (sort of) you had us at the trailer. You can check the trailer out at our preview page here, it’s essentially a stop-motion animation of a horse, a cowboy and an indian and the scrapes they manage to get into. Although the joke does wear a little bit thin over the course of 75 minutes, it’s still definitely worth a watch, and when else are you going to see a toy donkey laying out a funky drum beat?

……With a couple of hours to kill until our next film, we headed back into town and indulged in some beachside tapas and traditional Spanish wine in a bodega. Unfortunately the tapas and beers meant that time completely got away from us and with seconds to spare we made it to the Retiro to watch Johnnie To´s latest effort VENGEANCE. We´ve got to be upfront and admit that we´ve given his films plenty of opportunity to impress us in the past, and he always seems to flatter to deceive, so with this in mind, we weren´t expecting much.

VENGEANCE – EL RETIRO – 20:30HRS

And he so nearly pulled it off…The first hour of this film had some great setups, was brilliantly shot, excellent performances and a really good story but it definitely was a game of two halves and revisiting familiar ground of slow-motion gunfights on wastelands of floating paper debris meant that we ranted our way out of the cinema and straight into the queue for our next film – Duncan Jones´s MOON.

…..Unfortunately, it was late, we´d had a few beers and Rick Skywalker´s spanish was spoken far too quickly so we have no idea why the screening was delayed for 30 minutes just so we could see the DVD ´Making Of´ for CORALINE. Anyway, after some vociferous booing from the Spanish crowd, MOON began and they weren´t dissappointed.

MOON – EL RETIRO – 22:45HRS

Harking back to such ´70s classics as ´Silent Running´and ´Space1999´, Jones´s impressive debut wins through due to an outstanding performance from our man, Sam Rockwell.

…..We ended the evening on a high, and retired to The Corner Bar to discuss cloning, Japanese LSD trips and talking Belgian Horses that play piano.