Growing up I was always a huge fan of short stories. I was a voracious reader and they helped make me feel like I was getting more bang for my buck (or my parent’s buck as it were) when I read compilations. But even besides the fact that I could read more stories, and thus go on more adventures, I loved how they provided small snap shots into the character’s lives. They allowed me more freedom to come up with a continuation on the narrative, allowing me to fill in the gaps and construct worlds that only I would experience.
But while short stories have allowed authors to flourish, short films seem to be a slightly different animal. Too often festivals focus only on the ultra short films that have to rely on ironic or O’Henry style endings to drive the film, resulting in an all to often seemingly manufactured and formulaic genre.
Thankfully, the Flyway Film Festival cares not about running times, preferring instead unique tales and wondrous characters regardless of if the film is three or thirty minutes. Because of this, it is the audiences who benefit if they decide to attend this festival.
In what is one of the most interesting ways to promote film, The Talkies is an event that invites a director to perform a live commentary track while the audiences watches. The Heights previously hosted this event for Cameron Mitchell and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and hopefully this time proves just as successful.Though unlike the previous directors, Guy Maddin has been cutting his commentary teeth for some time now, performing several live narrations along with actors and musicians for Brand Upon the Brain! and My Winnipeg in all sorts of exotic Canadian locales. Just think, now Minneapolis and Canada can share more then Ice Hockey and Poutine!
Saddest Music in the World
Thursday, June 18
The Heights
7 PM (movie only) |$7
9 PM (with live commentary from Guy Maddin)|$18.50
Following the story of Canada’s preeminent metal band, a band that was once touring and influencing the biggest metal bands in the world but now resides in obscurity, this documentary focuses on the seemingly dashed hopes and dreams of the band Anvil. This film has won multiple awards on the festival circuit and has been generating rave reviews wherever it has played and looks to be a film that should not be missed.
Now I have been fairly slow to hop on the High Def bandwagon for many reasons. I don’t like being forced into buying a new technology, nor have I fallen for the claims of how HD is the new standard bearer. HD still is vastly inferior to film, and no amount of campaigning by Sony is going to change that fact. But that all being said when it comes to home viewing HD is the best option. And my 25 inch analog set has hit 15 years old and is ready for a well earned retirement, leading me to have a less then ideal home viewing environment for the oodles of movies I watch on a weekly basis. So while I wasn’t ready to proclaim my undying love for all things HD, that didn’t change the fact that I needed a new television set.
So this week Anna and I have begun to do some shopping. Unlike most shopping, for example the kind where I have to find clothes that I don’t particularly like but try on simply because a certain someone thinks I look good in them only to discover that I feel even less attractive and by the third or fourth trip to the dressing room I have what could only be described as a meltdown in which I threaten to buy a Family Guy t-shirt or some other ridiculous advertisement of stupidity if I am not allowed to immediately leave the store, I quite enjoy shopping for televisions and home theaters. Probably because I don’t feel the need to immediately go on a diet after completing the entire ordeal.
Since we are just finishing up the tail end of summer, I thought it might be fitting for me to finally get around to reviewing a superhero movie for the site. And while Super Fuzz was certainly tempting, I decided to go with a little known Canadian superhero film instead, called Sidekick. But since it is so little known it has proven quite difficult for me to find a trailer for the film, but thanks to the official site there is at least one way to watch the trailer.
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