A few days ago I proclaimed my devotion for Vudu’s vast HD library, particularly their HDX (super highdef) quality images and numerous classic black-and-white titles. Last night I learned that John Frankenheimer‘s The Train is rentable or purchasable as an HDX file…magnificent! And Point Blank and Gunga Din! I’ve done some searching and can report that the following films (none currently on Bluray) are being offered as HDX files:

A Man and a Woman, A Man for All Seasons, A Place in The Sun, After Hours, Alfie, The Americanization of Emily, Atlantic City, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Captain Blood, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Catch-22, Death Wish, Destination Tokyo, East of Eden, From Here to Eternity, Giant, Gone With the Wind, The Gunfighter, Gunga Din, Warren Beatty‘s Heaven Can Wait, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, Hombre, Horror of Dracula, Klute, Lust for Life, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, McCabe & Mrs.Miller, Out of the Past, The Philadelphia Story, Play it Again, Sam, Point Blank, Rebel Without a Cause, Ride the High Country, To Have and Have Not, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Witness, The Year of Living Dangerously.

Yesterday TheWrap‘s Steve Pond reported that Sony Pictures is disputing Tom O’Neil‘s Gold Derby report (since corrected) that George Clooney‘s Monuments Men “will not be waging an Oscar campaign this season, saying that story jumped the gun and is incorrect.” Translation: After it gets shown around Monuments Men may settle in as (a) a smart, engaging, spottily humorous World War II ensemble drama (i.e., an art commando version of The Dirty Dozen or Kelly’s Heroes) or (b) the final version may convey something more than the sum of its parts and it may become an awards player…who knows?

On the set of Monuments Men in Bad Grund, Germany on 5.6.13: Producer & co-writer Grant Heslov, star-director-producer & cowriter George Clooney. (Photo snapped by yours truly.)

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A quote from Steadicam inventor and operator Garrett Brown contained in an 11-month-old Pajiba.com article by Cindy Brown suggests that Warner Bros. Home Video and former Stanley Kubrick assistant and confidante Leon Vitali erred when they decided to master the 2011 Bluray of The Shining at a 1.85 to 1 aspect ratio. I don’t know the source of the Garrett quote (obviously not Brown), but he is quoted saying that Kubrick, director of The Shining, “insisted [that] every image be framed in [a] 1.66:1 ratio.”

Boinnnngggg!

Brown had “many, many arguments” with Kubrick over the camera’s crosshairs being in the middle of frame,” the article states. Kubrick’s order was that “if it hit on an actor’s left nostril, that’s exactly where it had to be [because] framing had to be symmetrical. Kubrick insisted every image be framed in 1.66:1 ratio, something between widescreen and Cinemascope [so that] people fill the frame.”

If valid, the Brown quote would be analogous to Kubrick’s famous 12.8.75 letter to projectionists (provided by Jay Cocks, posted by Glenn Kenny) stating unequivocally that Barry Lyndon was shot at 1.66 and that it should be projected at this aspect ratio, “and in no event at less than 1.75 to 1.” This contradicted a 2011 claim by Vitali that the proper Barry Lyndon aspect ratio was 1.77, which is how the 2011 Bluray was issued.

Sometime in October ’95 I did a phone interview with Kyle Cooper of R/Greenberg & Associates about his legendary Se7en main-title sequence. It was for my L.A. Times Syndicate column, which I’d been doing since mid ’94. It just hit me that this was nearly two decades ago. Okay, 18 years but still a long time. Jett was only six at the time and Dylan wasn’t yet seven. I remember attending the Se7en all-media at the Westwood Village, and talking to Don Murphy before it began. The whole world was there that night. And the historic 1995 Sundance Film Festival was set to happen five months hence.

Last January’s Sundance reactions to Joshua Michael Stern‘s JOBS (Open Road, 8.16), which I saw last night at the L.A. Live premiere, indicated I might feel underwhelmed or even irked. But I wanted to savor some of that old-time Cupertino Steve Jobs hey-hey. I knew JOBS wouldn’t be The Social Network but I was into it anyway because Apple technology is threaded into every aspect of my life except for vocal conversations, eating, exercise, sleeping, cat-petting, laundry-cleaning, bike-riding, grocery-shopping, cafe-sitting and amour, and it makes me happy every day. So I went in saying “look, just don’t piss me off…that’s all I’m asking…just don’t piss me off.” And it didn’t.

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We all drive selfishly or obnoxiously from time to time. But there’s another kind of driver who’s in a whole ‘nother league. The mark of a truly loathsome driver is one who doesn’t even realize that he/she is blocking others or causing traffic jams or whatever. They’re so fixated on their own needs or frustrations that it never even occurs to them that they’re making things difficult for others. In a word, they’re sociopaths.

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I say this every year before the Toronto and Sundance film festivals, and nobody ever listens. I’ve just listed roughly 60 films that I’d really like to see in Toronto next month, and I’ll be very impressed with myself if I wind up seeing half of them. One obvious remedy is to catch some of these in New York or Los Angeles before Telluride/Toronto begins. I’m therefore begging all L.A.-based publicists representing these films to please screen some of them for select L.A. critics and columnists. Doing so will obviously provide time to tap out reviews that will be a little more thoughtful and won’t be adversely influenced by furious, gut-instinct, teeth-chattering deadlines.

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With the the major U.S. studios doubling down on bullshit CG comic-book fantasy destruction porn, it’s a glorious thing to be facing a Toronto Film Festival that will be showing roughly 62 intelligent, quality-calibre films aimed at people like myself. I’m not exaggerating — I’ve scanned the final list and that’s how many films I’d like to see up there. As usual I won’t be able to fit in much more than 30, and more likely 25 or so. I will have seen at least a few of these at Telluride when Toronto begins, but if I wasn’t doing Telluride the following would be my early picks with unmissable powershot films in bold italic:

Gala Presentations (9): The Art of the Steal (d: Jonathan Sobol); August: Osage County (d: John Wells); The Fifth Estate (d: Bill Condon), Life of Crime (d: Daniel Schecter); Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom (d: Peter Chadwick); Parkland (d: Peter Landesman); The Railway Man (d: Jonathan Teplitzky); Rush (d: Ron Howard); Words and Pictures (d: Fred Schepisi).

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Today’s announcement of the full 2013 Toronto Film Festival slate confirms what I was told and reported on 8.5, which is that three presumed Telluride Film Festival headliners — J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost, Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis and Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska — will not make the trek to Toronto. No one will know for sure if these three will play Telluride until 8.28, but if confirmed it’ll certainly be a huge feather in Tom Luddy and Gary Meyer‘s cap. It will also launch a relatively new fall-festival phenomenon — the Oscar-contending, Telluride-only, Toronto-blowoff movie. I presume this has happened before, but have three Telluride heavy-hitters ever skipped Toronto en masse?

I ran a rave review of Lucy Mulloy‘s Una Noche 16 months ago, after catching it at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. It’s opening in New York on 8.23 and on iTunes on 8.26. Una Noche “is a little raggedy at times, but always straight, fast, urgent and honed down,” I wrote. “It’s not quite on the level of Fernando Meirelles‘ brilliant City of God but is a contender in that urban realm, for sure. It’s a fine first film, and Mulloy is definitely a director with passion, intelligence and promise.

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Ryan White‘s Good Ol’ Freda is said to be a likable enough portrait of a nice lady by way of some Beatles nostalgia. The two video reviews after the jump indicate that. I shouldn’t say anything more, but…okay, here it is. I don’t like the idea of young and attractive girls turning into older, heavy-set women. I’m obviously not addressing the spirit, personality and heart that are almost certainly evident in present-day Freda. I know this sounds lame. I just don’t like the weight metaphor, and because of this I’ll probably skip the film. I would feel the same way about Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr if they had put on 20 or 30 pounds, but they haven’t. I’m sure other people feel this way but they keep it to themselves. It’s just my cross to bear to get ripped to shreds for being honest.

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