Euro Beat: Sitges Wrap, Plus Good News for KLOWN Fans

You notice the difference between Sitges and other festivals immediately. While most genre festivals have midnight screenings, Sitges shows triple features that begin at 1:00 am. Every night. And, depending on the length of the program, you may still get out in time to hit the bars, which stay open until 7:00 am. Films the next day begin around 8:30 am.

Thus, every time I went to sleep, or even took a siesta, I felt like I was missing something. It's a feeling which is sometimes liberating in a lassez-faire, go-with-the-flow type way, and other times, incredibly stressful.

Fortunately, the program included a number of films already covered on ScreenAnarchy at Fantastic Fest and TIFF, as well as a handful movies I had already seen. So, my festival was a grab bag of taking chances on indies and catching up on movies I'd missed.

In this case, the best movies I saw were the films that arrived with little hype like The Conspiracy and The Vampire Spider. Meanwhile, films out of Cannes and Toronto like A Taste of Money and The Lords of Salem ended up being huge disappointments. (Though I should note that one fellow festival goer commented that The Lords of Salem was the perfect hangover movie since it made no sense anyway -- maybe I should have drank more the night before.) Onward to the wrap up, which is the result of 5 days at the festival, plus some help from our Barcelona-based correspondent Guillem Rosset.

Dispatches and News:
Holy Motors Wins Big at Sitges!
Breaking: Mark Lester is Remaking Class of 1984, Plus Bill Lustig Comments on Maniac Cop
Dispatch: Miss Lovely and The Conspiracy
Dispatch: Maniac Crowds, Stitches and Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever
Dispatch: Subtitle Woes and Jennifer Lynch's Chained
Sitges 2012 Preview: ScreenAnarchy Picks 10 Can't Miss Flicks

Full Reviews:
Rurouni Kenshin - By Guillem Rosset
The Lords of Salem - By Brian Clark
The Vampire Spider - By Brian Clark
Blood-C The Last Dark - By Guillem Rosset
The Second Death - By Brian Clark
The Taste of Money - By Brian Clark

News and Box Office

Besides the fact that The Impossible just completely laid waste to Spain's box office, there isn't too much other notable news on the European front. That is, except that Klown star Casper Christensen is about to start work in a new movie working opposite Danish comedian Rasmus Bjerg! As you've probably noticed, we here at ScreenAnarchy love Klown, hence the exclamation point on that news. The film will be called Player. Here's the synopsis.

Scripted by Marie Østerbye, Player follows a righteous, self-controlled and rather boring lawyer (Bjerg), who is sent to Nice on a divorce case. As he arrives, everything starts go wrong - he is cheated out of $2 million company money and the future looks bleak, when he meets his old buddy, a gambler of easy virtue (Christensen).

Said Chistensen, "I have never been on the Côte d'Azur with Villum without getting drunk, I thought this film should be my mission for the autumn." You heard it, folks -- Christensen will not be drunk while making this movie.

Not too surprisingly, Taken 2 dominated the European box-office last frame, taking first place in France, Portugal, UK and Belgium. Most other major countries went to CGI animation like Madagascar 3 or Ice Age 2. However, in Poland, the locally produced film about a best-selling hip-hop outfit, You Are God, beat Taken 2 in it's third week out. It's total is now around $6 million, which is insane for Poland. Also, in Denmark, the Danish family comedy Far til Fir: Til søs beat out Liam Neeson by a margin and in Finland, Vares - Pimeyden Tango also came out ahead of the thriller. I could not find anything in English about these movies on the internet, so feel free to chime in if you know something I don't.