Sneak Peek - August at the Revue

I was a bit afraid this would happen.  Suddenly, the Revue is doing something like 8 straight days of Kurosawa films in early August, though perhaps ironically not Rhapsody in August.

Getting over there is often a chore, but I will do it for truly amazing films, and I expect I'll see most of these, though I can skip Yojimbo, having just seen it at the Revue about a month back (even though this is a better restoration).  I may or may not go out to see Ikiru.  I loved this the first time I saw it, but the second time I found the framing and over-bearing narration to really detract from the film.  Maybe third time's the charm?  I will likely go back to see High and Low, even though I did see this as the Paradise, but really liked it.

Anyway, I don't appear to have too many conflicts, so I will try to make the series.  I remember being a bit upset that I missed Seven Samurai at Carlton, but this will definitely be a better experience, aside from the travel involved.  (On a side note, seeing Ran at the Fox was a real disappointment - they don't have staggered seats and the slope of the theatre is just too flat, so there were always people's heads in the way.  I think I am just done going out to the Fox.  It really is an inferior movie-going experience.)  I just need to work out whether seeing these five or six films (plus Peter Sellars in Being There this Sunday) makes it worthwhile to splurge on a membership at the Revue, despite it being on the other side of town.  Possibly so, though I would need to go to about 17 films/year to make it worthwhile, and I am quite unlikely to take advantage of a free film on my birthday, whereas at the Paradise it is a free film in your birthday month!

I still haven't buckled down and ordered tickets to TO Summer Music Fest or to Fringe, so I need to do that tonight and tomorrow!

Edit (06/23): I ended up buying a few tickets at the Revue Box Office on Sunday, when I was there to see Being There.  I guess I won't get the membership after all.  I'm still a bit on the fence on seeing Ikiru again, but I likely will.  The trickiest decision is The Hidden Fortress on Aug. 1.  I didn't buy a ticket because I had something scribbled on the calendar.  It was a note that I had planned on going to a TO Summer Music concert that evening.  It turns out it is Mendelssohn's Octet, which I like quite a bit.  If the concert was a bit earlier (or the movie later), or even if they were playing the Octet in the first half of the concert, I would try to do both.  However, I have seen the Octet played at least twice before and perhaps more often than that.  (The decision is made just slightly easier because Jonathan Crow isn't actually performing, though I still wish I could somehow do both...)  On balance I think I should go see The Hidden Fortress, which is not screened very often at all and just hope that the Octet pops up in the next couple of years.  And while I am not a huge samurai movie buff, I definitely should see Throne of Blood, which is Kurosawa's remake of Macbeth, and probably Sanjuro as well, which would definitely be a lot of trips over to the Revue.  I just hope it doesn't rain too much in early August...