The internet ate my essay! No really, 70 minutes of work down the drain and even the draft cannot be retrieved. Which is why I’ll use WordPress from now on to write my articles: at least it saves the latest draft every five minutes. So no article on the BIFFF today (there’s only so much energy in my body and I can’t waste another 70 minutes tonight), but a toned-down version of the original text. The 28th BIFFF (or Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival) has closed its doors, but not without awarding lots of prizes. Let’s take a look at the winners… (the blurb comes straight from the BIFFF site).
The jury, fronted by The Howling‘s Dee Wallace, awarded the Grand Prix (Golden Raven) to Jaume Collet-Saura‘s Orphan, a film already reviewed on DV. The film never got a cinema release in Belgium, despite being bought by a distributor, so the BIFFF decided to add it to their line-up and the jury really liked it.
The jury also awarded a Silver Raven (Special Prize) to two other films, Thirst by Chan-wook Park and Symbol by Hitoshi Matsumoto. Symbol was also given the 7th Orbit award.
The award for the least fashionably titled award goes to the Best Thriller Award. The winner is a Spanish-French co-production: Cell 211 (Celda 211) by Daniel Monzon. The jury also gave a special mention to Uwe Boll, for the “Bingo scene” in Rampage.
The Silver Méliès is the award given to the Best European Film. The German film Die Tür (The Door) by Anno Saul was the winner and a special mention was given to Cargo by Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter.
And finally the viewers’ say: the audience liked a fake documentary on vampires best: Vincent Lannoo‘s Vampires.
Two “So wh…?” questions you may be asking right now…
1) So when is the Avenue returning with new updates? Pretty soon as promised: in fact we can pin a date on it: Easter Sunday. Today is the 1st of April and for the rest of the month there’ll be one post every three days, so expect the next article on the 4th, then the 7th, the 10th, … and then your basic math skills should help you out to complete the cycle.
2) So why hasn’t there been a review of the third Millennium film? Because the Belgian distributors in all their managing wisdom have delayed the film to mid May, mainly because the Millennium films aren’t Easter holiday material or something. Yes, why go and see something decent if you can watch the latest Jennifer Aniston vehicle? Oddly enough, the two-month long delay was considered press material and made it into several newspapers, proving only how popular the Larsson books are (but not popular enough to be shown around Easter then…).
This delay may just be the stupidest decision since they ditched Orphan in favour of Alvin and the Chipmunks 2. Granted, that is some kind of horror too… Anyway, see you in May for the review of Luftslottet som sprängdes (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest).
And see you on Sunday for the next brand new Avenue update!
And so – after a long period of recovering from illness(es) – we return to Delirium, with a couple of films already viewed and a pile of dvds still waiting for their chance in the limelight. The Avenue returns in a couple of days…
Welcome back to December. Could you believe it’s been eleven months since we last spent a day in December? Time sure does fly…
Anyway, regular readers of DV and/or Avenue Kurtodrome know that December is a month where I’m generally less than available. Usually I try my best to anticipate by writing a couple of posts in advance, but November 2009 proved to be a bit more demanding than normal Novembers, so now there’s a post buffer of… zero.
The next update will be on Friday, but I’m unable to tell you when the one after that will be (or indeed, what the topic will be). I’ll try and keep the blog regularly updated on my Mon/Wed/Fri schedule, but it’s more than likely there will be a couple/handful of missed updates in the next three weeks.
As ever, thanks for reading and see you on Friday!
Robin Hardy, who directed The Wicker Man, said of Woodward: “He was one of the greatest actors of his generation, without any question, with a broad career on American television as well as British film.
“He was the absolute star of The Wicker Man. He was an extremely nice human being.”
This would’ve been the update for 30 October (had I not fallen ill). It would’ve been a lot more topical then, as these events had taken place only one day earlier. Never mind that, it’s still worth a post.
Horror is a frightening thing. Watching a horror movie generally means you’re seeing something happening to a main character that hopefully would never happen to you. Watching a horror movie has an advantage: when things get frightening, you can still close one or two eyes and whisper to yourself “It’s only a movie” (a phrase commonly associated with Wes Craven‘s Last House on the Left, although it was used eight years earlier by William Castle in Strait-Jacket). Real-life horror does not have this advantage. You can squint as much as you like, but it is not a movie.
Some say watching images from wars is real-life horror. It is, but much more than that is someone who’s forced into an extreme situation. Tennis player Caroline Wozniacki is the real-life equivalent of a horror heroine who’s entered the house of a madman. She’s suffering from an injury that has been plaguing her for a couple of weeks now. Her body is so tired it can no longer keep up with a long game of tennis. Last Thursday’s game was long: by the time the video starts we’re already two hours and 43 minutes into the game.
At the next point her body caves in. Wozniacki gets cramps so awful she falls to the floor. She asks if someone can help her up, but that is against the regulations: if she wants to continue the match, she’ll have to get up by herself. Somehow she finds the energy to get up on her feet and play on. Three minutes later she manages to win the match, thanks to an amazing display of will power (and a bit of sheer luck her opponent never thought of playing balls Wozniacki wouldn’t be able to get… not too difficult if your opponent can barely walk).
But look at that face the moment she’s won: there’s no happiness here, this is just pain. She can hardly walk back to her bench but somehow she managed to win this match.
It was as if I was watching The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
It may seem like ages the question was asked on DV, but don’t think we ever forget a question here. DV asked its members which movie scared them most when they were young and after an excruciating long time a top ten was compiled. Just in time for Halloween. So here it is:
10. David Cronenberg Oh, allow us to cheat for the tenth place. Yes, we know David Cronenberg isn’t a movie but a director, but we have good reason to add him here. First because his movies are apparently so scary nearly every movie was mentioned in our poll but none stood out as the scariest (which is why you won’t find Alfred Hitchcock in this list either). And because we genuinely like his movies. Surprisingly it wasn’t Jeff Goldblum slowly turning into a fly or James Woods inserting video tapes and guns into his belly, but Naked Lunch that was mentioned most. I must admit having given typewriters suspicious looks myself after watching the film. David Cronenberg, scarring audiences since 1975. A tenth position most definitely deserved!
9. The Wizard of Oz Now there’s a film I wouldn’t expect here, but a lot of members remember being forced to watch The Wizard of Oz by their parents and getting scared by the Wicked Witch.
8. Nightmare on Elm Street
Many members recalled how Freddy popped up in their dreams the night after they’d watched the first Elm Street movie. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 managed to get zero votes, proving not even Freddy Krueger remains scary.
7. Alien
Number seven is another classic and for some reason it’s the film that members felt least necessary to explain why they found it so scary. Let us guess: the monster that kept hiding in the dark? The creature that broke its way out of a stomach? Alien is constant creepiness.
6. Irréversible
“Uncomfortable”, that’s the word that popped up most when members described this film. The vicious rape, the fire extinguisher… they found this film brutal and graphic. I Spit On Your Grave was mentioned in a lot of comparisons, but Irréversible was allegedly even more uncomfortable. (No mention of Extremities then, the rape revenge movie that was so awful I found myself turning against the revenging victim.)
5. The Shining It seemed scary too, ending up on the 11th spot (joining Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead), but nothing could beat Johnny being “here” and several other scenes that made our membership hide behind the couch. Even the hallways looked scary.
4. Threads
It’s not just monster movies in here. This BBC movie made in the 80s showed the fallout of a nuclear attack in such detail it managed to scar nearly everyone who ever watched it. It’s not a pleasant trip to sit through, but it packs enough punches to make you join the next anti-war movement. Threads at 4, because nothing is scarier than humanity.
3. A Clockwork Orange
Which brings us to number three. If we’d made a list of the scariest directors, George A. Romero would’ve ended up third, Cronenberg on the second spot, but noone is scarier than Stanley Kubrick who’s ended up twice in this poll. Rape, violence and Beethoven: does anyone know a scarier combination?
2. Jaws
It made our members afraid to swim in the sea and, let’s face it, isn’t that a sign of powerful horror? (Good thing they didn’t watch Psycho on the same night or our members would only wash themselves with soaked washcloths.)
1. The Exorcist
Mark Kermode would’ve been proud of us: The Exorcist ends up on top again. And two more votes would’ve made The Exorcist III end up in our top ten as well. So apparently DV’s members like pea soup, scary stairs and novel ways of using a crucifix. We’re catering to a sick bunch, we are.
This time from 1967. The name of the film is 1999 A.D. and it predicts some sort of machine on which we’ll be able to shop, read mails and pay our bills. A bit more accurate than last time’s video then.
Fashion designers of the 1930s were asked to imagine what men and women would look like in the year 2000. And… were they accurate? Watch this short clip and find out. Also admire the phrase “containers for coins, keys and candy for cuties”.
