What I've been watching
What I've been watching:
Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Absolutely hilarious.
If you only see one comedy about Hitler this year, this is it.
If you only ever watch one Charlie Chaplin movie ever, watch this. Now, before I get hate mail, this was made before Hitler's atrocities became known. A great satire on dictators everywhere. It's a talkie to boot. Plenty of slapstick, but some verbal humour too. Highly recommended.
D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms
One of those silent melodramas. Interesting to see the early development of certain visual techniques. More enjoyable than I thought it would be. The emoting seems a lot more toned down than say The Wind. An interesting departure from his epic features.
Still I much prefer something like Orchids and Ermine, one of my favourite Silent comedies. Those flappers were something else.
What I found most interesting is that I usually get restless when watching silent movies, but watching on my computer I had no problem. When I played it on my normal DVD player I started to get fidgety after a while. I'm sure this has something to do with the sound intimacy of headphones versus the lesser sound
quality of a standard TV. Normally not an issue with movies, but Silent movies are different with only a dodgy instrumental soundtrack. Though I did manage to see The Wind with a live ambient band which was great. Even when I'm enjoying
them, the lack of spoken dialogue makes me restless.
B-Grade Sci-Fi movie: Mammoth
This one's a winner. A undead vampire mammoth is defrosted and goes on a rampage.
Just digest my new two favourite word combination:
vampire mammoth
Hmmm.
Add a couple of agents straight out of MIB, then Vincent Ventresca as the absent minded scientist with Summer Glau as his daughter and some guy who looks like Kris Kristofferson as his father and how could you go wrong? Well, pretty easily, but in this case they got it right.
After BSG stuck the bug back up sci-fi's ass, it's good to see some people didn't get the memo.
Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Absolutely hilarious.
If you only see one comedy about Hitler this year, this is it.
If you only ever watch one Charlie Chaplin movie ever, watch this. Now, before I get hate mail, this was made before Hitler's atrocities became known. A great satire on dictators everywhere. It's a talkie to boot. Plenty of slapstick, but some verbal humour too. Highly recommended.
D.W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms
One of those silent melodramas. Interesting to see the early development of certain visual techniques. More enjoyable than I thought it would be. The emoting seems a lot more toned down than say The Wind. An interesting departure from his epic features.
Still I much prefer something like Orchids and Ermine, one of my favourite Silent comedies. Those flappers were something else.
What I found most interesting is that I usually get restless when watching silent movies, but watching on my computer I had no problem. When I played it on my normal DVD player I started to get fidgety after a while. I'm sure this has something to do with the sound intimacy of headphones versus the lesser sound
quality of a standard TV. Normally not an issue with movies, but Silent movies are different with only a dodgy instrumental soundtrack. Though I did manage to see The Wind with a live ambient band which was great. Even when I'm enjoying
them, the lack of spoken dialogue makes me restless.
B-Grade Sci-Fi movie: Mammoth
This one's a winner. A undead vampire mammoth is defrosted and goes on a rampage.
Just digest my new two favourite word combination:
vampire mammoth
Hmmm.
Add a couple of agents straight out of MIB, then Vincent Ventresca as the absent minded scientist with Summer Glau as his daughter and some guy who looks like Kris Kristofferson as his father and how could you go wrong? Well, pretty easily, but in this case they got it right.
After BSG stuck the bug back up sci-fi's ass, it's good to see some people didn't get the memo.
posted by darkbhudda at Thursday, November 23, 2006
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