Late for the Sundance

Really, really must remember to check out the favorites from last month's Sundance Film Festival.

This guy - Adam Palcher - has a decent list of films to watch out for. At a glance, I'd like to see:

• The Guard - any dark comedy with Don Cheadle would naturally make my list
• Martha Marcy May Marlene - for the wonderful title and the possibly unsettling intrigue 
• Circumstance - for a story of character and location
• Life in a Day - a doco collated from YouTube content

While the study intensifies, I am distracted by the looming Alliance Francaise French Film Festival in Melbourne next month. It will be my first encounter with the AFFFF and I am just a tad excited! Hopefully I'll get tickets to all 5 films of choice - would love to see more if I had more time.

And then there is MIFF in the winter months. I recall seeing a few shorts at MIDFF many years ago which is quite dismal considering how much I love going to the movies, and the fact that it's been running for oh, around 60 years now.

No excuses this year - I plan to attend as many film festivals as I can manage, even if it means only a movie or two at each festival. It the experience of watching films that I know very little about, or have only a snippet of narrative that sounds a little bit interesting. Yes, it is time to step up the Festival-game.

Mental note: Senses of Cinema

When it comes to conducting online research for my assignments, I tend to stumble across a lot of new (to me) websites and online journals that I simply don't have time to read. Hence the need for a post like this one.

Mental note: must delve into Senses of Cinema...

The article on Citizen Kane would have come in handy about 3 months ago.

Meanwhile, back to the essay at hand about a specific cultural site - in this case, my favourite little boutique cinema the Sun Theatre.

Screening: The Big Trail

Last week's screening for Uni included the 1930's Raoul Walsh film 'The Big Trail' starring a very young John Wayne (only 23 for his first leading role). It's a fabulous example of early sound: thankfully the technology has improved and my TV speakers didn't blow up in the process due to the excessive volume I had it set for basic audibility.

It's also a great example of early widescreen. As it was a difficult film to track down in time I purchased the boxed set above which unfortunately includes the traditional 1.33:1 aspect ratio. On the plus, the set includes this week's screening 'Red River' and is nicely packaged in a white tin container.

Mythical Monkey posts an interesting essay on 'The Big Trail' and Wayne's involvement including his original name (go there to find out...) and Wikipedia have some great trivia in the 'Production' section (including the legend that the director had Tyrone Power Sr. beaten).

Although the movie was considered a flop, John was a fine young man in his day:

Photo from 'A Mythical Monkey writes about the movies'