Critic-filmmaker-teacher, failed flaneur, video essayist (Arrow, Criterion, Masters of Cinema).
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The Dog Outwits the Kidnapper 1908
In some ways (the ones that matter) the best thing I saw on my first day at the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival in Bo'ness this year was THE DOG OUTWITS THE KIDNAPPER (1908), Cecil Hepworth's follow-up to the iconic RESCUED BY ROVER. Neil Brand showed it as part of his marvelously entertaining and thought-tickling talk/presentation on silent film accompaniment.
This film repeats the winning formula of ROVER but something new has been added -- the miracle ingredient: insanity! Proven to…
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Nosferatu 2024
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
To the Vue Ocean Terminal — maybe a mistake, that choice — to see Robert Eggers’ NOSFERATU. Good crowd, well-behaved. Very dark projection. I’d be willing to believe the film is meant to be that dark, but Fiona had read about specific details (spoilerizing the movie in her very ADHD way) which just weren’t visible. So maybe we need a rewatch somewhere else. The Cameo has it in 35mm, but much as I love celluloid the main difference as a…
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He Who Gets Slapped 1924
This is my favourite film.
I knew that after watching only about fifteen minutes of it, but what followed only affirmed my initial enthusiasm.
I think I liked right away the melodrama of it - kind of Sirkian. I didn't believe for an instant that Lon Chaney was a scientist with remarkable new theories about the origin of the world. If they were so remarkable, why were we not allowed to learn them? Everything in this film is a flimsy…
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