Thrills and chills mixed with comedy has been a cinematic staple since movies began—even before, as optical toys and magic lantern shows used ghostly specters and apparitions to startle and amuse their audiences. The first person to use macabre imagery for comic effect in a wholesale way with films … [Read more...] about The Gorilla
The Joker
Not all heroes wear capes. But when they do, few perfect the ensemble with a jester’s hat trimmed in jingle bells. Still, Peter Carstairs, the debonair savior of distressed damsels played here by Henry Edwards in a pan-European production from 1928, dresses up as a court fool to carouse in Riviera … [Read more...] about The Joker
Sherlock Jr.
Preceded by ONE WEEK (1920, d. Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline, 23 mins) with Buster Keaton, Sybil Seely, and Joe Roberts When Sherlock Jr. opened, in April 1924, it was only a modest success, and Buster Keaton regarded it as not one of his big pictures. It had no developed storyline and the … [Read more...] about Sherlock Jr.
The Style of the Export Film
Is there really a particular style that we can designate as the “style of the export film”? Novices and amateurs in film production receive kindhearted advice from all sides: “They won’t understand that in America!” “This could be embarrassing to a Scandinavian!” “That will not relate to the … [Read more...] about The Style of the Export Film
The Street
In the ongoing cataract of cultural history retrospection, ebbing and waning as it does, the silent German films of the Weimar era have come to be solely represented by the famous screaming-mimis of German Expressionist genre-film hyperbole—the in extremis launch of Caligari, the waxworks and … [Read more...] about The Street
From Godzilla to Gish: Hisashi Okajima Embraces His Film Destiny
When film enthusiasts discuss their first encounter with Japanese cinema, they often name the big (really big) stars—Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, and other menacing creatures that were staples in movie theaters in the 1950s and ’60s. It is certainly true for this year’s recipient of the SFSFF Award for … [Read more...] about From Godzilla to Gish: Hisashi Okajima Embraces His Film Destiny
I Was Born, But…
There is, about two-thirds into Yasujiro Ozu’s I Was Born, But…, a cinematic mise-en-abyme: a triangulation of gazes between a father, his two sons, and his boss and coworkers, as they watch a home movie. In the film, a family of four moves to the suburbs as the father, Yoshii (Tatsuo Saito), takes … [Read more...] about I Was Born, But…
Hell’s Heroes
See how far yuh can throw it,” suggests the outlaw leader after mulling over what to do with an abandoned newborn. He and his two surviving accomplices from a bank holdup have stumbled across the infant with its dying mother in a lone covered wagon at a dry waterhole. Hell’s Heroes was far … [Read more...] about Hell’s Heroes