Celluloid Diaries: May 2014

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Rome day 2: Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Torre Argentina, Piazza Navona and Villa Borghese

...see part I, HERE.

Our first stop on Thursday was the famous Trevi Fountain, you know, the one from La Dolce Vita in which Anita Ekberg strolls into the water as Marcello Mastroianni pursues her. Just as with the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain took me completely by surprise – bigger and more beautiful than I imagined.

Trevi Fountain

Next came the Pantheon. Dating back to the year 126, the Pantheon used to be the first (pagan) church in Rome. The huge hole, or oculus, at the top lit the entire building.

Pantheon Rome
Pantheon roof

Just outside of the Pantheon was the Caffè Tazza d'Oro. Rumor has it they serve the best coffee in Rome. I'm not a coffee drinker, so I just opted for a café latte. And did I mention how ridiculously cheap the drinks are at Caffè Tazza d'Oro?

Caffè Tazza d'Oro

We then went on to the famous Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary where the cats have a bunch of ancient ruins for themselves and are being fed and cared for. I did an entire series of photos on the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary on Traveling Cats if you're interested. This is also where you can find more information on the Torre Argentina foster program.

Torre Argentina Rome

Next stop: Piazza Navona, with its many restaurants and beautiful fountains.

Fountain Of The Four Rivers Piazza Navona
Four Rivers Fountain
Piazza Navona

We didn't eat at the piazza, though, but opted for the Pizzeria Osteria del Pegno on Vicolo di Montevecchio. Their homemade ricotta and spinach ravioli topped with orange sauce was mouthwatering.

In the late afternoon, we went for a stroll in the park Villa Borghese and found a lovely view overlooking the city.

Villa Borghese viewpoint

We went back to our hotel passing the Spanish Steps. With its 136 steps it's the widest in Europe. The atmosphere was lively.

Too tired to look for a place to eat, we set off for the Lebanese restaurant Mandaloun Caffè in the Spagna area of Rome which we chose only because it was next to our hotel, but it turned out to be some of the best Lebanese food we ever had.

Part three of my trip to Rome will follow in a couple of days. Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Friday, May 23, 2014

Rome day 1: Colosseum, Fori Imperiali, Altare della Patria

Birds of Rome

I haven't posted much lately. Reason is that I've hardly been home over the past months as I've been crossing things out on my bucket list. I just came back from my first Cannes Film Festival, and in between Cannes and the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, I went on a trip to Rome, Italy, with my boyfriend and his parents. Here's an overview of our first day in Rome. Unfortunately, my camera broke down so these are just iPhone pictures.

We arrived in Rome in the early afternoon and headed straight toward the Colosseum. Like most people, I thought I knew what to expect of the largest amphitheater in the world until I went inside. It literally took my breath away. Not the size of it, but its beauty. It's hard to imagine that thousands of gladiators and animals were made to fight one another in this stunning arena. In any case, visiting the Colosseum was enough for me to fall in love with the city. None of these pics do it justice though.

Rome Colosseum
Colosseum Rome Italy
Colosseum Rome
Colosseum
Colosseum Rome Italy

Right outside of the Colosseum we could see the Fori Imperiali which was once the center of the Roman Empire. Speeches, elections, parades – it all happened here.

Fori Romani
Rome Fora
Fori Imperiali
Fori Imperiali Rome
Fori Imperiali Rome Italy

At the end of the Fori Imperiali we arrived at Mussolini's Altare della Patria, which the Romans know as 'the typewriter', since it resembles just that.

Rome typewriter

While looking for a restaurant we got lost around Circo Massimo where the chariot races used to take place. We were so tired we didn't even notice the famous La Bocca della Verità (The Mouth Of Truth), a marble statue that's believed to bite your hand off if you tell a lie.

Finally, we settled for the Enoteca Ristorante Barberini which was on our way back to the hotel. Both the food and wine were first-rate.

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Best New Pet Blog Award goes to... Traveling Cats!

Best New Pet Blog

I'm over the moon. Traveling Cats has received the prestigious BlogPaws Nose-To-Nose award for Best New Pet Blog. A big thank you to everyone who believed in me and my little blog.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

BIFFF 2014 - Bigfoot, aliens, and singing filmmakers

BIFFF Bozar

I can't believe it's already twenty years that I'm hosting Q&A sessions with filmmakers at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF). Over the years the festival has changed locations a couple of times, the audience has become more rambunctious than ever, and filmmakers are now obliged to sing on stage. What remains, however, is the number of awesome people I meet here every year (I made more friends at this festival than at any other place in the world) and how I always go back home feeling recharged and motivated to work on my own projects. And, of course, I saw lots of films, most of which I enjoyed, though only two of them really stood out. Here's a little overview.

Omnivores

A food critic investigates clandestine restaurants and is challenged to re-evaluate what he eats. Is it reasonable to pay a month's income for rare caviar and kobe beef? Is the taste of fugu really worth risking your life for? And what would you if given the possibility to try human flesh? Action and gore are absent in favor of internal conflicts, and the result fascinates from start to finish, mounting in intensity as the film progresses. One of my favorites of this year's BIFFF.

The Fives

An artist who works with human bones slaughters a family. The mother survives, searches for five people in need of an organ donor, and promises her own organs in exchange for helping her execute her revenge plan. Clever and well-made Korean thriller.

BIFFF
Stéphane Everaert

Aux Yeux Des Vivants

The third and best film from Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury (Inside, Livid) imagines a traumatic episode in Stephen King's childhood. This results in an atmospheric slasher with one creepy killer, and many references to Stand By Me and It. Other positives include the clean direction and set-design.

Nymph

Friends vacationing in Montenegro visit a seemingly uninhabited island that once served as Mussolini's concentration camp. Beneath the ruins lures a beautiful siren that regularly turns in a hideous monster, and a man that will do anything to protect and feed her. Trashy and not always well-written, but more fun than any other movie I saw at BIFFF. Reminiscent of Dagon.

Let Us Prey

Solid, violent thriller in the vein of Assault On Precinct Thirteen and Storm Of The Century. The twist at the end is what sets Let Us Prey apart from said examples.

Let Us Prey

The Quiet Ones

A mad scientists and his helpers try to create a poltergeist out of a mentally unstable woman, and succeed. Not innovative for a bit, but good suspense.

Soulmate

A ghost and a woman befriend each other and have long conversations about lost love and the pains of life. The concept works and the misty Welsh landscapes are highly atmospheric. What ruins the film though is the ridiculous white painted ghost and the slow pacing. Otherwise, promising debut.

Torment

The toy animal masks of the killers in this home invasion movie are so creepy they make Torment stand out from many others in the genre. But why do both killers and victims have to be so dumb?

BIFFF 2014
Zombie Parade

Viral

A teenager participates in a reality TV show that forces him to stay locked inside a shop for an entire week in the hopes to reach 10,000 Facebook fans. Of course, it helps that the evil ghost of a child roams the shelves. Highly enjoyable midnight movie.

Goal Of The Dead

Have you ever thought how football supporters resemble zombies? Benjamin Rocher and Thierry Poiraud have and they took that idea quite literally in their film Goal Of The Dead. The film is divided into two parts (or two films if you'd like), referring to the first and second half of a match. The first part of the movie (directed by Benjamin Rocher) was by far my favorite as it had the best pace, the most character development, the funniest scenes and overall the most surprises. The second half (directed by Thierry Poiraud) was merely a continuation of the first part and resembled many other zombie outbreak movies. A diverting film, even more so because the BIFFF audience, known as the noisiest in the world, behaved liked football supporters during the screening.

The Apostles

"The Apostles is a groundbreaking horror film that re-invents the genre. I believe the audience will compare it to Inception," director Joe Chien says during our Q&A session. His film is groundbreaking indeed... in terms of how bad a film can be. Not only is The Apostles painstakingly boring, the actors are obviously playing against fake backgrounds, and some of the alien make-up is laugh-out-loud silly. As for the Inception part: first the story takes place in the main character's imagination, then it's nothing but a bad dream, then it's an alien conspiracy etc. As a punishment, Joe Chien should be sentenced to watch his own film non stop till eternity.

Benjamin Rocher
Joe Chien

Willow Creek

I have to congratulate Bobcat Goldthwait for making the only found footage film I loved. The difference is that the camera is static which makes us feel much more in the moment than when it's constantly shaking. This is especially effective in a 19 minutes scene in which two characters just sit in their tent listening at the nightly noises and possibly Bigfoot lurking closer. One of the most suspenseful scenes I've seen in a long time.

Altergeist

Altergeist starts as your usual ghost story with a couple of ghost hunters investigating the premises of a winery. After a couple of effective jump scares, Altergeist takes a surprising turn by mixing in another genre. While this is the film's strongest point, it's also its weakest one as it destroys much of what was previously built-up. Fun fact: according to the filmmakers, the bizarre winery murders from the film really happened, except that they were even more numerous in real life.

The Pool

Two broken families go on a camping trip and are influenced by a woman living inside a lake. A fascinating concept, but they could have done so much more with it in terms of mystery and conflict.

Bobcat Goldthwait
Chris Mitchell and Jan Doense

The Profane Exhibit

Each segment in this horror anthology centres around a perversion (of family, innocence, technology, ...) and a matching quote by Baudelaire. The entire movie is marked by a dirty, uneasy atmosphere, but as is the case with most anthologies, the quality of the storytelling is uneven. Also, I've only seen a rough cut and some of the most promising segments were missing. Made with the combined efforts of Ruggero Deodato, Sergio Stivaletti, Uwe Boll, Richard Stanley, and many more.

Oculus

Could have been of the creepier ghost movies of the past few years. Too bad it was so mainstream and predictable.

Baby Blues

From the director of The Wisdom Of Crocodiles comes a Chinese 3D movie about a haunted doll. An amusing story, but one you've seen a dozen times already.

David Bond and Manda Manuel
Caroline Munro

Arcana

Based on both Edgar Allan Poe and Yue Kotegawa, Arcana is filled with many interesting ideas, but the film has been entirely erased from my memory in less than two weeks.

Lord Of Tears

I can't decide whether to find Lord Of Tears fascinating or ridiculous as it is both in equal measures. I loved the grey filtered images and the creepy owl man, but downright hated the artificial characters and silly dances.

All Cheerleaders Die

If Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson pretended this was a remake of The Craft, everyone would have believed them. Thing is, they try to be original by making their cheerleaders deliberately detestable, not realizing they're actually no different than the characters of the movies they're trying to outsmart. How I miss McKee's personal and brilliant early films.

The Afterman 3
BIFFF audience

The Afterman 3

I can appreciate efforts like this Belgian, low budget DIY film as it's so different from my usual viewer experiences, but don't try to watch The Afterman 3 if you're even the least bit critical. By the way, I haven't seen the first two films in the series, but apparently the third one was largely an assembly of the previous ones.

Horror Stories 2

I can accept that some films are contrived, but when the filmmakers start explaining every plot twist in this Asian horror omnibus with a "It's just in his head" and "She imagines this because she's dead", I'm done.

Enemy

I discovered Enemy at the Sitges Film Festival last year and immediately fell in love with it. Now that I watched the film a second time, I'm even more smitten than before. I could say how intriguing this doppelgänger story is and how the actors are cast to perfection, but what I truly love about Enemy is how every image, every line of dialogue has a symbolic meaning, how there are even more layers to this film than I originally thought, and how I can discuss this film for hours and still fail to comprehend it entirely. A true gem.

My overview of the BIFFF can also be read at Cult Reviews.