A Russian documentary art film by Dziga Vertov.
Scenes from a busy city or town are shown with no explanation.
This is one of those wonderful films that I can't write enough good stuff about. Unintentionally being the first piece of psychedelic cinema, the filmmaker used every effect available. These effects ranged from playing with the speed of the film to multiple exposures and screen splitting. I can appreciate much of what is being done because of some experience with videos and a recent course in photography. The original film was released without sound and supposed to be accompanied by a live musical performance. The version that I saw had a soundtrack by Michael Nyman recorded in 2002. I liked this soundtrack, but I may watch the film again with one of the other 19 soundtracks. Some memorable scenes include the shadow of a doorway with people walking through, athletes doing high jumps, a magic show, stop motion of the camera getting onto the tripod and a scene of women putting a dark substance on themselves (picture, female anatomy points). I rate this best and would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in photography and video.
An American comedy directed by Mack Sennett.
Two men try to stop a wedding. One of them gets bees in his pants.
At only 20 minutes duration, there isn't much to write about. This was mostly physical comedy, although it was a talkie. The production value with audio and video included was not good. There was a cow costume scene, the ending of which included a cartoon tail on a bull. I'm giving it a weird pink rating and announcing that I will no longer review any film under 45 minutes in duration, unless it's just so good that I have to.
An American action adventure film directed by Allan Dwan, starring and narrated by Douglas Fairbanks.
The swashbuckling team of the 3 Musketeers is split up and twins are born to the French royal family. One of the twins is the heir to the throne and the other is exiled to live as a commoner. The rightful heir is then imprisoned and the other twin installed into royal power in his place. The Musketeers must reunite to sort out the problem with the twins and make sure that the right one is king.
I didn't like the last film that I watched in which Douglas Fairbanks had dialogue, but this is totally different. The action star narrates adventure quite well and the music is very fitting. The video looked about how video from 1929 would be expected to look, but there was some style in the a/v combo. The political part of the plot was a little hard for me to follow, but the copious amounts of action made up for this. I must say again that the narration was spot-on as Fairbanks described in an energetic voice, using eloquent words the action that was going on. I rate this adequate.
An art film by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.The plot is a bit murky with surrealist and dada symbolism.I like weird movies, so this is a real treat. From the ants coming out of a man's hand to the guy dragging the ten commandments, 2 rabbis and 2 dead donkeys on 2 grand pianos, they spared no shock value. If Holy Mountain was too tame and Chronopolis was too coherent, then you must watch this. It will rock your fucking world and you will have no clue why. I'm rating it awesome because Holy Mountain actually is better, but for it's time, nothing beats it.
