Yesterday I had two films.

COLD SOULS



I loved it. It's funny, it's intrigging and it makes you think about such things as the soul, happiness, feelings and what makes us unique. Paul Giamatti is great in it. I recomend it. Very good film.

The other one was CARRIERS, by the brothers Pastor



Correct post-apocaliptic tale about the last survivors of a pandemic thatr is killing all humankind. It's an Opera Prima, which makes it quite impressive for two catalan guys. Their first film and it's already on American Money. I think we'll hear more about them. We'll see.

I spended the time in between at the beach again, and drawing, and reading... well, the ordinary stuff.

Here are some pictures.

Today I thought I had two films but in fact I had just one... Yes, I've been in Sitges three hours ahead of time because I've mistaken a date. That tends to happen at least once a year, so I'm happy I thought a film I have to watch tomorrow was due today and not the contrary. I feel lucky if stupid...

Anyway, what film did I watch today? DORIAN GRAY



The film is not as great as it could have been, but it's not bad, really. Only it had great standarts to live to (a magnificent book and a great film adaptation in the forties) and that always makes it hard for new challengers.
The best about the film is wardrobe, sceneary and cast. Ben Barnes, for one, is perfect for the role. He is beautiful and elegant, with a hint of inocence in his eyes and a touch of cruelty in his mouth. We really get to see young Dorian get from confussed youngling to depraved grown up. The portrait itself is quite good too, but still, nothing as the old one.
I think the worst is... I don't know, a lack of conection, perhaps. I mean, I didn't really care much for any of them, except perhaps poor Basil, whose fate I knew from the start and felt a bit sad about it.
Really, is not a bad film, but it's not the film I was expecting either. Still, I think I wouldn't mind to watch it again, if only see again the beauty of fake Edwardian London..

Afterwards, Olga and I had made pictures of the sunset like mad (today the sky was jusnt stunning) and then we've headed to Barcelona, because we had tickets for the Theatre. We've been nearly late because some poor man has jumped in front of a train. We have been spared the gorier bits, but we have still been able to watch the Scientific police at work while we waited for the train. It hasn't been nice.

Luckily, we were going to see two comedians (JUlián Lopez and Raúl Cimas) that we admire a lot and their antics and jokes have made us forget about the horrible suicide at the station.

And now it's quite late and I'm really sleepy, so tomorrow I'll post the pictures of the sunset and everything.

G'night.

Some pics from day 4
(weird art show thingie included)

sitges09-dia4

so... today I've woked up realtively early to pick the train en go to Sitges because I had a film at 11:00 a.m.

This film was THE FORBIDDEN DOOR (ìntu terlarang), by Joko Anwar, an Indonesian film.



It's a weird film. The story is not bad, the actors are quite good and some scenes are really disturbing, but something is missing. It's not a bad film, really, but it should have ended earlier (it has too many "ends") and somethings made no sense at all. I mean, the story could have been just the same without the babies, couldn't it? As I said, weird. At least the opening credits were one of the coolest things I've seen in some time. I really couldn't belive my eyes. XDDDDD

Anyways, afterwards, as I had three hours before the next film, I've wandered a bit. I've watched an art exhibition called "No me despiertes de mi sueño gris", or somethign like that, with giant bugs and weird pencil sketches. Curious at least.

Then, a bot of sand and sea. Today I've only wetted my feet. I've been drawing by the sea, and reading a bit, and when the heat has reached it's maximum, I've gone to look for someplace to eat. Eggs, chips and meat. All very healthy :P, but it was sooo good and tasty...

Then, I've visited the cemetary (yep, I like cemetaries) and, finally, I've gone to the cinema to watch...

VALHALLA RISING, by Nicholas whatever (I didn't get the name).


Bad-ass-looking-man about to do nothing at all for another hour

So, you have a film about vikings, with a one-eyed main character who is as bad ass as a viking can get, with christian vikings wanting to go to the crussades but getting lost and ending somewhere else, fighting indians and discovering "it's not Kansas, Toto"... and you manage to make a boring film? An stupid, meaningless, sodding bore of a film? Nothing makes sense in the film, nothing! But I can stand a film not making sense as long as it entertains me, but sadly, that's not the case. Man! Vikings!! Fucking Vickings, for Odin's sake!!
I think I've never been so disapointed with a film in all of my life, and I'm including Episode 1, Matrix Reloaded and the new Indy film.
Really, what a shitty film!

Sigh.

Ce'st la vie! Què hi farem! Anyhow, I've composed myself and decided to take my frustation to IKEA. I haven't found what I was looking for, bu I have a new colorful cushion.

On Sunday, 4th October, I woke up relatively early, to go watch another film. Me and Olga prepared some sandwiches (we didn't want to spend more money!!) and went to the train station, were we found Mar. The three of us had tickets for the same film.

This time it was THE CHILDREN, by Tom Shankland.


An average angry teenager soon to be really scared of her lovely, lovely cousins

Film is efective. Scary and most disturbing, it tells the tale of an average english family whose winter hollidays end horribly wrong. I when I say horribly I mean it. You know I like horror films and books and you know I don't get easily disturbed (ok, I avert my eyes in the gory bits but it's not out of fear but out of simpathy), but psichothic children just tick a nerve. The children are all lovely and adorable, which doesn't help a bit. The film touches one of our most basic fears, what if everything we hold pure and good turned suddenly and surprisingly evil? What if we had to fight (and perhaps kill) what our most basic instict tell us to protect?

Yep. That bad. But as I like to be disturbed by fiction (I find it cathartic), I had a great time.

Afterwards we went to the beach (yeah!! The weather was just perfect!) and I swam. Olga and Mar prefered to stay on shore, which was good to me for I had soemone to look after my belongings. So i swan (or rather, walked in the water, it wasn't that deep) for some minutes in clean, warm, transparent waters, amongst little blue fishes and tourists until my parents called. It was probably my last sea splashing of the year, so I'm glad I decided to bring my bikini with me (an to hell with seasons!!)

We had a coffee with them and then headed home, to rest and wait for the next film, which will be tomorrow morning, really early in the morning.

Yesterday, straight out of work, I headed to Sitges, to the Fantastic Cinema Festival, to watch the first film.

It was THE COUNTESS, a historical account of Countess Erzbeth Bathory's life and death, with all the madness in between.


Directed by JUlie Delpy, is a wonderful film. It's not as gory as it should be, because the director prefers to center our attention in other things, as the power of money, superstition adn greed. In the end, even if Erzbeth is clearly mad, the real evil in this film are her political enemies, all of them men, willing to prove how a woman can't handle her affairs on her own.
Very interestign point of view.

After that, we wandered a bit, because Sitges ins a lovely place and I never seem to get tired of it, met cazarrabo and monimusume and some friends of theirs and waitied for the next film to start.

Well, in fact they had a film in between and I did not, so I had supper while I listened to some street musician, had an ice cream by the sea and queued for the next film.

It was YATTERMAN, by Takeshi Miike.


Bizarre is the word for it. It's a film that sometimes is a parody of a genre, sometimes is an homage, sometimes is just... er... well, Japan is the country of the weird stuff and Yatterman is prove of it. It's based on an old series (from the 70's) abotu a boy, a girl and their robot and theiir fight against the forces of evil, incarnated on the gang of the skull, a bunch of losers wh are defeated everyweek (aroun 6'30p.m.). Theay are geniouses, but their plans are lousy, even more than Team Rocket's plans.
The film was fun, really, and the Mechas were cute and imaginative, but... Miike-san is weirder every passing year.

After that we went to sleep (this has been the first year that I decided to book a room and sleep there, because I had a film really early today and wanted to sleep properly). Mar and I shared a room and it was funny enough.

This morning we'd met Olga again (yep, she had left before Yatterman) and had breakfast and then it was time for another film.

This time it was THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM.


Yes, the Roger Corman classic. It has everything a gothic film needs: love, death, traumatic childhood, premature burial, treason, madness and torture. Plus, it has Vincent Price in it, so it's simply perfect.

Afterwards Olga and I have picked everybody else (they were in another film) and headed to the Auditori to watch SUMMER WARS.



A wonderful, wonderful film, about family, about perseverance, about willpower, about friendship and love and the little things that matter, all in between quotidianity and sci-fi. I've cried, which perhaps means not much as I'm a softie and all filsm with either children or eldery made me cry, and this film had both.
The anymation is wonderous, awesome, and the character desing so perfect and detailed... I'm buying it as soon as it gets on DVD. I mean, I want to watch it again already!!!

Ant that's it for today. I add a link to some of the pics taken during this days.



Tomorrow I'll tell you more.

day 6_ 9/10/08
Festivaleros: Myself

So, on.. er... Thursday? Was it thursday? Yeaah... I think so.
Anyway, that day I woke up a bit later, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to do it in some days, cleant my room, got a shower and ran to my folk's place, to have lunch with them and see Esther and Jordi, who I hadn't seen in a long time.

Then, I ran to Sitges ( I seem to be always running), because I left my ticket at home and had to ran to get to the train in time, and then I had to get to the cinema in time... Just to arrive there and discover the film was going to be a bit late.

The film in question was Tokyo!, a compilation of three stories around the city, each weirder than the previous one. It was a nice watching and a thrilling experience.

( TRYING NOT TO SPOIL THE FILM FOR THE ONES INTERESTED )
All in all, a good film. One of the best of the festival, at least at a technical level.
I would recomend that one to nearly anyone who doesn't dislike a little weird on their films.

Also, before the film, they gave an honorary award to the woman who played Nova on THE PLANET OF THE APES. She was a beautiful (really beautiful) 61 year old woman and rather nice too. And his translator was one of the most profesional translators I've ever seen at Sitges. He translated her words one by one instead of inventing them.

Then I walked a bit, made rather beautiful pics and, finally, wnet to watch some amateur short films at the Brigdoon section. It was really funny and geekish. Afterwards, really late, I went home. I arrived just in time for watching CQC. It was a nice day,

day 7_ 10/10/08
Festivaleros: Myself, Mónica and David

I.. mmm... I'm not really sure what I did on friday morning... Oh, yes! I met mónica and had a coffee and some nice chat and bought some birthday presents. Then I got home, had lunch and watched SE LO QUE HICISTEIS and rushed to Sants.
There, I met Mónica again, and David, and we went to Sitges to watch 20 CENTURY BOYS.



The film, based on a manga by the same name, it's really, really nice. Perhaps it's not the best performed film of the year, and the direction is simple and classical, but it's a really good adaptation from the manga and the characters are so alike it's scary. The story is really interesting and as the climax approaches you have completely forgot about bad actors. All that matered was the stoy unfolding in front of you. Sadly, as the film was longer than we thought, we had to leave before it ended and we couldn't watch the giant robot, neither the big cliffhanger.

Then I had supper with some friends and went to sleep rather late.

Oh, it was also the day of the ZOMBIE WALK, but we had to queu and I got tosee very few of it.
it must have been great, though. And it was funny to see the zombies acting normal afterwards. Make up was really impresive.
day 8_ 11/10/08
Festivaleros: Myself, Mónica, David, Mar, Raúl, Olga and María

Wow. What a day.
I woke up early to go to sitges to watch PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA, the last of Miyazaki's films. It's so sonderful and soothing to watch a film were everything is beautiful and everything is good and cute...

( again, spoilers )

Afterwards, I bought my ticket to the Zombie Marathon (yes! I found tickets in the end!) and went home. I had lunch, slept a bit and, with Olga, María and Mar headed to Sitges again, this time to face the big end.

We had supper and some laughs, drank lots of caffeine and queued a bit so we could get some nice seats in teh thater. There were going to be seven hours on a row.

( not only spoilers, but lotta films and shorts )

Then we got home and you know the rest already (or you can read a pair of entries back to find out).

It's been a great week in spite of everything and I enjoyed every minute of it.
And now I'm finally done explaining everything and once all teh pics had been posted in Picassa I'll be finally done ^_~

Today I've come back from sitges to barcelona at 9:00a.m. aprox.
I've been all night long in a cinema, watching zombie movies and having a general good time.

Sitges Festival is over. The awarded films have been:

the good, the bad and teh weird (best director)
Tale 52 (best script)
Survelliance (best movie)
Martyrs (best make up)

And some more that I don't know right know.

I know I still have to tell you how days 6, 7 and 8 went, and I'll do it. Perhaps later, perhaps tomorrow. But I just can't do it right now as I'm fighting not to fall asleep (I don't want to sleep all sunday long).

I've watched this week's heroes episode, some little britain sketches and know, after a shower, I'll go for a walk to avoid the sofa and the bed.

See you later.

OMG by ~braen on deviantART

I couldn't help it!