Letters From the Big Man: First Look Preview

There has been preview release of a few scenes from the Christopher Munch's film Letters from the Big Man



Today the New York Times released an article covering Christopher Munch's presentation of his Film at the Sundance Film Festival. Below is an excerpt:

They believe in stories at Sundance, to be sure, usually with three acts, sympathetic leads, closure, teachable moments and sincerity, which makes sense for a festival where filmmaker Q. and A. sessions can feel like religious revivals. Do I hear an Amen for the brave young filmmaker down front? Hallelujah and pass the audience ballot! It’s easy to mock Sundance and its pretensions to purity, but it’s also hard not to be moved when these filmmakers find communion with their audiences. One of my fondest memories from this year was trying to decide if Christopher Munch — who was there with his pleasurably eccentric feature “Letters from the Big Man” and, after one screening, read a letter from the Sasquatch “people” in perfect deadpan — was pulling our collective leg. The polite audience didn’t blink, and neither did he.

It’s possible that Mr. Munch’s film — with its lapidary landscape photography, off-kilter environmental theme and up-and-coming starlet, Lily Rabe, who plays an outdoorswoman collecting samples for a field study and attracts a benevolent hirsute stalker — will find distribution. I hope so. “Letters From the Big Man” drifts a bit after its absorbing first hour, but it’s the kind of off-Hollywood production that still makes Sundance surprising. (Curiously, it was the first of two Big Foot movies I saw. The second, “Sasquatch Birth Journal 2,” from the Zellner Brothers, was a self-consciously crude short that purports, with irreverently comic effect, to show the birth — shake, drop and roll — of one of these creatures.)

Even if its finds a distributor, a film as willfully independent in its vision as “Letters From the Big Man” is unlikely to enjoy the relative commercial success of Lisa Cholodenko’s “Kids Are All Right” or Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone.” Both were at Sundance last year and went on to become art-house hits with stories that were, in their different fashions, calibrated for uplift. With its crystal-meth hillbillies, “Winter’s Bone” looks and talks tougher than “The Kids Are All Right,” a winning comedy-drama about a lesbian couple trying to keep the family peace. One reader, responding to something I recently wrote about Sundance, insisted both are corporate products — but really, these are mainstream narratives.

EXTERNAL LINKS
New York Times: Still a Home for Directors, and Big Foot
Screen Daily's Review of the Movie

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Award Winning Director, Christopher Munch, Premiers "Letters from the Big Man" at Sundance
Bigfoot Film Premier at Sundance Film Festival: Update

If its Monday, it's Thom Powell's ThomSquatch

Full disclosure; Its no secret we are big fans of Thom Powell, but that doesn't mean we can't share what we think makes his blog unique. He seems to have fallen into a regular post on Monday evenings and we thought you would want to know.

Since it's launch, Thom Powell's ThomSquatch.com has had the feeling that it is building up to something. We think it has a lot to do with the continuity from post to post. Unlike other Sasquatch blogs, Thom seems to be telling a continual tale. Similar to the classic Saturday serials, Thom leaves us on the edge of seats as to what he is going to reveal next.

You don't have to take our word for it. Thom seems to be consistently posting on Mondays now, so make sure you tune in each week for something new. Below is a montage of his post so far. Consider the blurbs below theReaders Digest version of ThomSquatch.

Bigfoot Research: Intel not Science (Sun, Dec 12, 2010)
If you consider yourself a "bigfoot researcher" and hold out hope that one day you will gather the evidence that proves the existence of bigfoot creatures, you may be searching the internet for information and advice that will help you succeed. The modern era of bigfoot research began in 1958 when Jerry Crew presented track casts to the Humboldt Times as evidence of mysterious bigfooted creatures. Science requires replication of any successful scientific result as a necessary aspect of a correctly applied scientific methodology. Bigfoot researchers, then, are like the CIA and the spooks at CIA are not utterly focused on unassailable proof when they evaluate the information they gather. Indirect and uncertain sources of information are still valued and exploited. Read the Rest >>

The Future of Bigfoot Research (Tues, Dec 21, 2010)
There are three basic approaches to gathering intelligence: electronic surveillance, inserting trained operatives (spies) into enemy camps, and gathering info from witnesses, captured agents and defectors.
Electronic surveillance is expensive and difficult to install but it produces the most empirical information. Information gathered by our own trained agents is more reliable than the information offered by captives, defectors, or civilian observers, but the latter is much more easily obtained. In my own pursuit of bigfoot research, I don’t do the electronic surveillance much anymore. If nothing else, bigfoot researchers are supporting the economy. Read the Rest >>

Spy vs. Spy (Wed, Dec 29, 2010)
As was suggested in a previous blog post, bigfoot researchers are basically spies. That includes the sasquatch. The biggest surprise of my entire experience in the strange world of bigfoot research was the realization that, while I was attempting to study 'them', they had been studying me...
...The timing was uncanny. Then someone handed me the book, The Mothman Prophecies, by John Keel. First key idea John Keel puts forward: In the study of paranormal matters, the phenomenon you are studying changes in response to your study of it. Read the Rest >>

The Whole Enchilada (Mon, Jan 10, 2011)
If one conducted an investigation of the sasquatch in a very active location, like Mount Ranier for example, that this guy or gal would gather a great deal of human experiences that would be useful toward understanding the phenomenon even though it would be utterly unprovable information. Sometimes, this leads to more unverifiable observations, but this time they are my observations, not somebody else's. I figure I'll concentrate on gathering proof later, and just concentrate gaining a little understanding first. At some point, one does get enough material that it becomes necessary to check with other serious field people to find out whether my observations, tentative conclusions, and suspicions match the stuff they've been getting. I did this by writing everything down in one book, 'The Locals', and got that published in 2003. Read the Rest >>

The Coconut Telegraph (Mon, Jan 24, 2011)
"Okay, Steve, you think you've logged on to some kind of coconut telegraph to the sasquatches. Fine. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to ask them to step in front of the cameras we have up at Allen and April's place up in Washington. Tell 'em we really need them to do that."
Steve thought for a moment. "It would help if I knew more about the area where the cameras are."
"No way, Steve," I insisted. I want to do this scientifically. That means 'double blind' as the researchers say. That means you can't know the location and you can't know the results of the experiment. That way, you cannot be suspected of faking the results. The residents can't know what you're doing either. . That way, they can't be accused of wishful thinking or outright faking, either." Read the Rest >>

Killing the Messenger (Mon, Jan 31, 2011)
I guess if I'm going to be a good little scientists, even in my pursuit of such non-scientific matters as bigfoot, I must go where the path leads me, even if I don't like what I'm finding out. When it comes to my mission of gathering better bigfoot evidence, the problem with John Keel's path is that he leads me right into a friggin' brick wall.
Since I don't like the John Keel's message maybe I'll just tell myself that John Keel wasn't such an authority on bigfoot after all.
If I don't like the message, can't I just kill the messenger, instead? I guess not. He died two years ago. Rest in peace, John Keel. Read the Rest >>

You can count on Thom having a lot more to say. You can visit his weekly posts at thomsquatch.com.

You can also subscribe to his Facebook page Below


Thom's Twitter Account @thomsquatch

EXTERNAL LINKS
ThomSquatch the Blog
Thom's Facebook Page
Thom's Twitter Account

You May Also Like
Powell's 7 Tentative Conclusions
Cliff Barackman's Post on Powell: Trying Something New

Bigfoot: The Definitive Guide on the History Channel

**Newer Update (2/1/11)** Finally got an actual image from the show (see below). SRC: Seattle Times
Plus read Loren Colemans contribution to the show at Cryptomundo.



**UPDATE (1/31/11)** One of our astute fans provided us with a link with more info. Experts on the show will include: Drs. Jack Rink, Anna Nekaris, William Sellars, Jeff Meldrum, and Ian Redmond. Click on the ISU link below to get more info.

This is what we do know. It will be on the History Channel on Feb 2nd, They shot most of the footage in a Canadian town named Harrington, and they are using a scene from Jack Links Jerky to promote the show.



There is the official description as well:

A team of top scientists come together with one goal to create the definitive guide to Bigfoot. Does the creature exist? And if it does where is it? And how can it survive without being detected? Using a new interactive map the team has plotted more than 10,000 Bigfoot type sightings from around the world. These sightings are of an unidentified creature which walks on two legs and is covered in a thick layer of hair. Many of theses sightings date back over 100 years. With their expert knowledge of the natural world they are able to dismiss nearly 90% of the sightings, but what emerges is a series of global hotspots that cannot be explained which indicate that something is out there. The team examines these global hotspots and searches for explanations including new theories that suggest we may have been looking for the wrong creature all along?

You can check your local listing here

In Ontario, Quebec, a local paper asked the Production manager about the show.

The documentary will focus on prehistoric times and will include discussion about "mythical" creatures such as the Sasquatch and Yeti.

According to Helen Conlan, production manager for the United Kingdom-based company, Dangerous, the documentary will not make light of the myths and legends that surround the creature, but will instead explore the possibility that such creatures might actually exist.

"We brought numerous experts from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom together to research this," she stated in an e-mail interview. "Our goal is to retrace the steps of early man and shed some light of the legends that surround Bigfoot and the Yeti. I think the end result will be a very interesting and enlightening film."

Conlan said the show will be called Bigfoot: The Definitive Guide and was co-produced with Handel Productions, one of Canada's leading producers of factual television and documentary programs.

She said numerous experts on the subject were interviewed in an attempt to find a scientific base for Bigfoot.

We can't wait to see what will make this show different than the other shows out there.

EXTERNAL LINKS
Ontario Paper: Is Bigfoot calling Harrington home?
Handel Productions
ISU Voice: Meldrum to discuss sasquatch for History and Discovery on Feb. 2