Okay, here’s the red band trailer for David Fincher’s unneccessary offensiveinsulting upcoming version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
If you want, feel free to visit YouTube and read all the comments from fanboys having Finchergasms over it. My position will continue to be that David Fincher is a very talented director, Rooney Mara was rather bland in both Nightmare on Elm Street and The Social Network, Daniel Craig is boring and overrated but then again, so is the character he’s playing, and finally, Noomi Rapace will always be the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
That doesn’t mean that Fincher won’t make a good movie. The trailer is effective and the material seems well suited for Fincher’s vision. In fact, it could allow Fincher to get back to his Fight Club and Zodiac roots after going all boring and mainstream with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network.
Still, perhaps we should remake The Lord of The Rings trilogy next. After all, those first three films are just sooooo New Zealand. We need an American version.
To me, this first offering actually feels more like a parody trailer (like Machete or Hobo With A Shotgun) than an actual trailer. But no, Sweet Jesus Preacherman appears to be an actual film.
This was directed by James Glickenhaus, who directed The Exterminator. According to the commentary track on one of the 42nd Street Forever DVDs, Glickenhaus felt that The Soldier would help him break into mainstream films and, though I’m not a huge fan of action movies, the trailer does look fairly exciting. Plus, if you watch the whole without blinking, you might catch a split-second appearance from Klaus Kinski. Supposedly, Kinski was offered a role in both this film and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kinski chose to appear in The Soldier.
Speaking of Klaus Kinski, he’s also featured in our next trailer, The Great Silence. Directed by Sergio Corbucci, The Great Silence has been acclaimed as one of the greatest spaghetti westerns of all time. This film’s title refers to the fact that the nominal hero (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) is a mute. The trailer also features Ennio Morricone’s excellent score.
There were actually two versions of this film — an explicit one and a slightly less explicit one. I’m guessing this trailer was used to advertise the slightly less explicit version.
In this film, William Shatner, Eddie Albert, Tom Skerritt, and Ida Lupino battle Satanists (and Ernest Borgnine) in New Mexico. Though he’s not mentioned in the trailer, John Travolta made his film debut here. He plays a member of Borgnine’s cult. This trailer — with its promise of the greatest ending of all time — is a drive-in classic.
Let’s end how we began, with a blaxploitation trailer. I do have to say that, as a character, Dolemite looks a bit more interesting that Sweet Jesus Preacherman. Plus, the Dolemite trailer rhymes.
Remember that Monday is Memorial Day so, if nothing else, take a few minutes to remember the men and women who have fought to allow us to live in a country where we can watch movies like Dolemite, Flesh Gordon, and Sweet Jesus Preacherman.
Right now, all the little mainstream critics are busy hating on The Hangover, Part II.
Check out Christy Lemire from the Associated Press: “Giving the people what they want is one thing. Making nearly the exact same movie a second time, but shifting the setting to Thailand, is just … what, lazy? Arrogant? Maybe a combination of the two”
And then there’s Roger Ebert (or L’Ebert as the asskissers at Awards Daily used to call him) who apparently took a break from ranting about politics to actually do his job: ‘The Hangover: Part II plays like a challenge to the audience’s capacity for raunchiness. It gets laughs, but some of them are in disbelief.”
Last night, despite not feeling all that great, I went and saw The Hangover, Part II and you know what? I enjoyed it. So there.
Yes, The Hangover, Part II is basically the exact same film as The Hangover except now Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis awaken from their hangover in Bangkok instead of Las Vegas. Also, it’s not the groom that’s missing. It’s the bride’s younger brother. Oh, and Ed Helms has sex with another prostitute but it’s not Heather Graham. No, it’s definitely not Heather Graham.
Otherwise, it’s pretty much the exact same film, a copy so exact that a character gets shot at around the exact same time that a different character got shot in the previous film.
But, honestly, so what? The people paying money to see this film know what they’re getting into when they buy their tickets. Helms, Galifianakis, and Ken Jeong are still funny in their respective roles, Bradley Cooper is so fucking sexy I don’t even know where to begin, and there’s a cute little monkey in the movie too. Is it as good or as funny as the first one? Of course not but did you think it would be? The film made me laugh and, especially when I’m not feeling well, making me laugh is more than enough to win my heart.
As for the mainstream critics — well, before you take their word for it, just remember that Roger Ebert loved The Conspiratorand raved, “Not many films this smart can be made.” I rest my case.
I’ve been told that guys don’t seem to appreciate being called “adorable” by girls. They consider it a back-handed compliment and seriously, how insecure can you be? Okay, I understand that most guys want to us to think that they’re dangerous and I’ll admit right now that all that stuff you’ve heard about girls liking bad boys — well, it’s true. But adorable is no longer just a back-handed compliment. Why? Because Joseph Gordon-Levitt has made adorable sexy.
I first really noticed Joseph Gordon-Levitt when I saw him as the lead in 2007’s overlooked crime thriller The Lookout but he truly won my heart when I first saw him dancing to You Make My Dreams in (500) Days of Summer. And then came Inception. Some people will tell you that film was about Leonardo DiCaprio entering other people’s dreams to find himself. Nope, sorry, not true. As far as I’m concerned, Inception was a movie about Joseph Gordon-Levitt getting all dressed up and floating through the halls of that dream hotel and beating up every single person who tried to get in his way. What did all three of these roles have in common? Nothing except for the utterly adorable hotness of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
It was this adorable hotness that led me to see Gordon-Levitt’s latest film, Hesher. Despite the fact that the film is massively (perhaps fatally) flawed, this is also the film that proves that, as an actor, Joseph Gordon-Levitt can be something more than just an adorable fantasy boyfriend.
Directed by Spencer Sussman and co-written by Animal Kingdom director David Michod, Hesher opens with 12 year-old T.J. (Devin Brochu) struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of his mother and his family’s subsequent collapse. T.J. and his father (a bear-like Rainn Wilson) have moved in with their grandmother (a perfectly poignant performance from Piper Laurie) who is showing the beginning signs of senility. T.J. spends his days obsessing on the remains of the family car (which was totaled in the accident that killed his mother), trying to avoid local bullies, and dealing with a hopeless crush that he’s developed on a cashier (Natalie Portman) at the local grocery store.
When T.J. first meets Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Hesher is squatting in an abandoned construction site. T.J. accidentally leads a security guard to Hesher’s temporary home. Hesher responds by lighting a molotov cocktail and blowing the place up while T.J. runs away. Suddenly, T.J. starts to see Hesher wandering around the hallways of his school. Walking home from school, T.J. sees Hesher following behind him in what can only be described as a “rape van.” And then, just as suddenly, Hesher has moved in to T.J.;s house and made himself into a part of the family. Hesher quickly becomes a mentor of sorts to T.J. though his lessons primarily consist of doing things like blowing up a bully’s car and then running off, leaving T.J. to deal with the consequences.
Hesher is hardly a role that you’d expect to find Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing. With long, unwashed hair and an extended middle finger tattooed across his back, Hesher isn’t so much an outsider as he’s just a sociopath, the type of guy who you try not to make eye contact out of fear that he’ll respond by shooting you first. How scary a guy is Hesher? He’s so scary that just saying his name causes the film’s soundtrack to explode with a burst of heavy metal. That’s how scary he is. The Joseph Gordon-Levitt that we all know and love (or at least the one that I know and love) is pretty much impossible to find and yet, Gordon-Levitt still gives a great performance here. Without ignoring any of Hesher’s rough edges or trying to reveal any sort of inner decency, both the film and Gordon-Levitt make Hesher into a frustratingly attractive character. This is probably the best performance of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s career so far.
Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t really live up to Gordon-Levitt’s performance. It starts out well and, for quite some time, we’re encouraged to believe that Hesher might just be a product of T.J.’s imagination, a projection of his own anger and depression. That’s an interesting idea and would have made for a far more effective film. Unfortunately, Hesher then suddenly moves in wit T.J. and suddenly, he’s interacting with Wilson and befriending Piper Laurie and, worst of all, he starts to reveal a little bit about his past. In other words, he goes from being a symbol of unrestrained ID to just being another white trash rapist. Once the film makes it clear that Hesher is an actual character then suddenly, you realize that the filmmakers haven’t given you any credible reason why both Wilson and Laurie (not to mention the cops who start to regularly drop by the house as Hesher blows stuff up around the neighborhood) would so easily accept the idea of living with him. Finally, the movie concludes with a sequence at a funeral that just feels so simultaneously wrong, heavy-handed, and maudlin that, at first, I was convinced that it had to be some sort of satirical comment on the clichéd nature of the scene. But no, the rest of the film makes clear that we’re supposed to take this sequence seriously. It’s such a wrong-headed move that it cheapens everything that came before it. The movie ends with a lot of loud music and the credits are decorated with obscene graffiti but it doesn’t make any difference. The film has already revealed that, at heart, it’s hardly rebellious enough to be worthy of a character like Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Hesher.
In the end, Hesher fails as a movie but its partially redeemed for revealing that there’s more to Joseph Gordon-Levitt than just adorable cuteness.
It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been going off on Canada a lot lately, which is odd since some of my favorite Twitter friends happen to live up in Canada. Unfortunately, so does my one twitter enemy. I’m not going to give out his name (though I call him Monsieur Petit Pénis) or go in to all the gory details but oh my God, I hate him so much it’s not even funny. Seriously. Hate him. Forever and ever.
But anyway, just in case I have been tarring an entire nation based on one freaking lewser, I want to take some time to acknowledge the greatest thing to come out of Canada since Ryan Gosling, Hobo With A Shotgun.
Rutger Hauer plays the title character and hero of this nicely demented little film. When we first meet Hobo, he doesn’t have a shotgun. He’s just a vagabond, a proverbial man with no name who finds himself in the most run-down slum of a town ever. Hope Town appears to be located in one of the lesser known rings of Hell and basically seems to consist almost exclusively of burned-out storefronts, trash-strewn alleys, and seedy amusement parks. Seriously, the New York City of Taxi Driver hasn’t got a thing on Hope Town.
As soon as the Hobo arrives, the first thing he witnesses is the town’s local crime boss, the Drake (Brian Downey), decapitating a man in broad daylight while the citizens of the town apathetically watch. The Drake looks a lot like Peter Popoff (a preacher who comes on TV around 2 in the morning around these parts; he sells magic holy water) and he has two equally sadistic sons, Slick (Gregory Smith, who looks like Tom Cruise on extasy) and the idiotic Ivan (Nick Bateman). It soon becomes obvious that the Drake and his sons control the town because nobody has ever previously considered grabbing a shotgun and gunning them down. Nobody until the Hobo that is.
Originally, of course, the Hobo had different plans. He was attempting to raise the money necessary to buy a used lawn mower sitting in the local pawn shop, the idea being that he could use that mower to start a lawn care business. (The joke here, of course, is that nobody in Hope City appears to have a lawn. Seriously, they should have called it Cement City.) However, right when the Hobo is preparing to buy the lawn mower, the pawn shop is held up by two thugs. Luckily, along with the lawn mower, there’s also a shotgun — which happens to cost the exact same amount as the lawn mower — in the sales window. The Hobo purchases the shotgun and soon, with the help of a sympathetic prostitute named Abby (Molly Dunsworth) he sets out to clean up Hope City, one criminal at a time.
Now, it might sound like I’m making fun of the film’s plot but nothing could be further from the truth. This film is perfectly aware of how ludicrous all of this is and director Eisener quite wisely never apologizes for the story he tells or the way he tells it. From the start, Hobo With A Shotgun shows that it is a film without shame and therefore, one that you can watch without shame.
It’s also follows Robert Rodriguez’s Machete as the second film to be based on a fake trailer made for the Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collaborative film Grindhouse. Here’s the original “fake” trailer that led to a very real movie:
Though it’s gotten nowhere as much hype, I actually think Hobo With A Shotgun is superior to Machete. Grindhouse films may have been excessive but they were still films being made by filmmakers and, as Quentin Tarantino has always seemed to understand, the truly great grindhouse films (the ones that we eagerly wait to see released on DVD) never used the art of excess as just an excuse to do whatever they wanted. The best grindhouse films created their own unique worlds with their own unique rules but once those rules had been set, they weren’t broken. (That, of course, wasn’t true of all grindhouse films. Just the good ones.) That is where Hobo With A Shotgun truly triumphs. You believe in this odd, over-the-top world that the film creates. Everything from the graffiti-covered walls to the garish cinematography to even the overacting of most of the supporting cast; it all comes together to create its own unique world. And once you surrender to that the film’s odd “reality,” the film becomes, in its own warped way, quite compelling.
With the exception of Rutger Hauer in the title role, the cast of Hobo With A Shotgun is largely made up of unknowns and that’s quite a contrast to Machete. However, and I may be in the minority here, I actually felt that all the famous faces in Machete actually had a detrimental effect on the overall film. Too many of them seemed to be slumming or treating Machete as a lark and true grindhouse is never a lark. If there’s one thing you can say for sure about Rutger Hauer’s performance here, it’s that he’s definitely not slumming. Hauer seems to understand that a film like this needs an anchor, something steady that the audience can grab on to whenever the film itself threatens to spin out of control. Wisely, Hauer chooses to underplay his character and, as a result, he dominates the entire film. It’s really a performance that all aspiring actors should watch. Hauer might be playing a hobo with a shotgun but that doesn’t keep him from being the most compelling and believable hobo with a shotgun possible. Out of the rest of the cast, Molly Dunsworth does a good job and manages to be believable whether she’s mourning her lost innocence or stabbing a bad guy to death with a fragment of bone.
Hobo With A Shotgun is currently in limited release here in the United States. What does that mean? Well, that means that if you’re living on the West or East coast you’re in luck. However, if you’re like me and you actually live in a city that’s not going to be targeted by terrorists in the near future, things are a bit more problematic. Luckily, for us, Hobo With Shotgun is available OnDemand which is how I ended up seeing it.
In conclusion, allow me to say, “Canada, you rock!”
Hi there! It’s Saturday morning — are you still with us? If you’re not, don’t worry. You have all day to get raptured. Until then, here’s the second part of this weekend’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.
Seeing as this could very well be the last things that I ever post or that you ever read pre-Rapture, there’s no way I can’t start things out without including this trailer for Jean Rollin’s unique, twisted, and very French vampire fairy tale, Requiem for a Vampire. One thing to note here is that when this film was released in the U.S., the American distributor felt the need to emphasize that the two girls were virgins and even went so far as to retitle the film Caged Virgins. However, the original French print of this film makes no reference to whether or not the girls are virgins and, despite all that happens to them in the film, the girls themselves are never presented as being helpless. Whenever I feel the need to explain the difference between American culture and French culture, this is one of the examples I always cite.
8 ) Kenner (1969)
Jim Brown is Kenner! And that’s about all I really know about this film. Well, that and small bundles of heroin are worth millions…
9) The Three Dimensions of Greta (1973)
I was recently reading about 3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, a movie from Hong Kong that is apparently setting box office records because it’s being advertised as the first 3-D pornographic film. And, as the linked article shows, a lot of people are reporting that claim as fact. And they’re wrong. 3-D Sex and Zen might be the first recent 3-D porn film but it’s hardly the first. There was a spate of 3-D porn films in the mid-70s and one of my favorite trailers (which I can’t post here because 1) it’s too explict and 2) I can’t remember the title of the film) features a stereotypical, curly-haired, guy with a mustache type of porno actor going, “Soon, my giant schlong with be hanging right over the head of that redhead in the 3rd seat in the backrow.” And of course, I was all like, “Oh my God, can he see me through the screen!?” Anyway, the 3 Dimensions of Greta was a part of this wave. This is another one of those trailers that will probably be yanked off YouTube in a few more days (assuming there isn’t a Rapture first).
(By the way, why were so many porno films made about girls named Greta? I mean, was that name a turn-on? Were the films of the 70s exclusively made by guys named Hansel? Seriously, boys are weird.)
They’re violent alright! Before the Italian exploitation industry devoted itself to cannibals and zombies, they devoted themselves to ripping off The French Connection and The Godfather. This film from Sergio Martino actually features Don Barzini himself, Richard Conte.
If I didn’t tell you this film was from 1968, you’d guess it just from watching the trailer. The soundtrack was done by George Harrison. Though this film was certainly not designed to be an exploitation film in the way most of the other films featured here were, it definitely is one.
Can you believe I went this long without featuring the trailer for Lucio Fulci’s best known (after Zombi 2) film? Well, I love Fulci, I love this film, and I was waiting for the right occasion to feature this trailer. And the end of the possible end of the world seemed like the right time. Anyway, this is one of those love it or hate it films (and I know that one of our regular readers is not a huge fan of this film but I love him anyway). At his best, director Lucio Fulci made some of the most visually stunning and dramatically incoherent films ever and never was that more apparent than with the Beyond. Out of the film’s cast, Catriona MacColl plays one of the few strong women to ever appear in a Fulci film while David Warbeck (a personal fave of mine) is the perfect hero. My favorite performance in the film (and a lot of this has to do with the fact that she co-starred in one of my favorite movies ever, Beyond the Darkness) is given by Cinzia Monreale, who plays the blind Emily.
And so there you go. If you do get raptured later today, thank you for reading. It’s been a pleasure telling you about the films I love and hopefully, someday, we’ll all meet in the beyond.
And if, as I suspect, there is no rapture today, I look forward to sharing even more.
So, last night, I was selecting which trailer to feature in the upcoming weekend’s edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation trailers when it was pointed out to me that the Rapture is apparently scheduled for Saturday. Now, I have to admit — this kind of annoys me because I really look forward to my Saturdays. So, if I get raptured, I miss out on my favorite day of the week and if I don’t get raptured …. well, it’s just a lose-lose situation for me.
It also annoys me because it means that, potentially, there won’t be anyone around to read my latest post. Well, I guess there will be a lot of atheists, agnostics, heathens, Unitarians, Canadians, and (if it turns out the Protestants are correct) Catholics around but I imagine they’ll be more upset about not being raptured. And since I’m a Catholic but not a very good one, I’ll be screwed twice and not in a fun, college sorta way either.
Anyway, with all that in mind, I’m going to do an early super-sized collection of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers. In order to keep things manageable, I’m going to divide this weekend’s (potentially final) edition into two posts of 6 trailers each.
Since I imagine everyone might be bummed out because either 1) the Rapture happened or 2) the Rapture did not happen, I’m going to start things out with a trailer for Sergio Corbucci’s 1980 comedy Super Fuzz. Now, to be honest, Super Fuzz doesn’t look that funny but maybe people had a different sense of humor back in 1980. The important thing is that the movie stars Terrence Hill and it’s “just for the fun of it!”
But, apparently, crime wasn’t all fun and games in the 80s. I guess when Super Fuzz couldn’t get the job done, they called in the Exterminator. No, not Dale Gribble! That’s King of the Hill, silly. No, the Exterminator appears to be an urban vigilante of some sort. I imagine will see a lot of his type post-Rapture.
3) College Girls (1968)
This trailer is for College Girls which appears to be some sort of late 60s softcore film. I’m not sure that there’s anything really that special about this trailer as much as it’s just always odd to me see these old school sex films and think to myself, “Oh my God, people in black-and-white movies actually do have sex!” Fair Warning: There’s a lot of nudity in this trailer (actually, it’s pretty much just 4 minutes of nudity) along with some out-dated social attitudes so if that offends you, don’t watch it. In fact, I’m kinda surprised that YouTube hasn’t taken it down yet.
(By the way, I checked on Amazon to see if this was available on DVD and oh my God, do you have any idea how many movies there with the words “College Girls” in the title!? Anyway, as far as I can tell, this movie is not available on DVD. Still, searching through all those countless Girls Gone Wild video releases reminded me why I let out a little cheer of delight when Jerry O’Connell got devoured in Piranha 3-D.)
Assuming that we’re all still on the planet after this weekend, I’m going to have to write a tribute to my fellow redhead Erika Blanc, one of the true icons of the European Grindhouse. Until then, here’s a trailer for one of her best films, The Devil’s Nightmare.
I’ve never seen Slaughterhouse Rock though, just judging from the trailer and the year it was made, I imagine that it’s probably not quite as good a film as The Devil’s Nightmare. Just a feeling I’ve got, mind you. However, this film apparently has a cult following because of the film’s new wave soundtrack. I just like the trailer because apparently, choreographer Toni Basil is playing a ghost who can raise the dead by dancing. I’ve actually tracked down the clip of the dance on YouTube and it’s actually pretty cool. I’ve mastered the moves but I haven’t managed to raise the dead yet. But give me time!
Finally, seeing as how the world might be ending tomorrow, let’s close out part one with a trailer for a film that can serve as a stand-in for every misguided decision ever made in Hollywood — 1978’s Convoy. This film, based on that annoying novelty song that some old guy always wants to sing during Kareoke Night, was directed by drug-addled genius Sam Peckinpah and it’s supposedly one of the most cocaine-fueled productions in the history of the movies. (It was also apparently co-directed by James Coburn.) Technically, it’s more of a drive-in movie than a grindhouse film but it’s definitely exploitation.
(By the way, I’ve also read that some people think that the truck in the opening of the trailer is supposed to literally be driving through mountains of cocaine.)
Well, that’s part one of this special edition of Lisa Marie’s favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers. Part two will be posted early Saturday morning. Don’t let yourself be whisked off to another state of being without checking it out.
I’m posting this review of Priest for one reason and one reason only. That reason is because I love you and I know that times are tough and I don’t want you to waste your money. Okay, that’s three reasons but they all come back to the main theme which is that I love you. Though you can’t see it right now, I just gave you a suggestive little wink right after I typed that last sentence.
(I’m winking even though, from personal experience, I know that whenever I post a critical review, I end up having to deal with a bunch of flack from people who feel I’m being too “negative.” And let me ask you this: is that any way to treat someone who loves you?)
So, Priest is the latest movie to come out to feature a stoic, cynical hero making his way across an apocalyptic wasteland so that he can defeat a bunch of vampires. The stoic hero is played by Paul Bettany who I usually kinda lust after and I understand that by doing crap like this and Legion, it frees him up to do things like play Charles Darwin but seriously, Bettany deserves so much better than the material he’s given here. The evil villain is played by Karl Urban. We know that Urban is evil because, whenever his vampire followers are killing people on-screen, Urban moves his hands as if he’s conducting an orchestra. Like Bettany, Urban deserves a lot better than what he’s given to work with here.
Priest, by the way, is being advertised as being a 3D movie. Actually, it’s just a 2D movie that was converted to 3D after it was filmed because the folks at Screen Gems think that they can trick you into wasting your money simply adding “3D” to the title of a thoroughly bland and uninteresting film. As well, probably less than 20 minutes of the film was actually converted to 3D. The rest of the film remains in 2D. Seriously, if you’re going to be this cheap, you should at least be shameless about it. Priest, however, is too bland to feel shame in the first place which prevents it from ever being shameless and, ultimately, from being memorable in any way.
There’s literally been hundreds of film adaptations of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Everyone from James Whale to Terrence Fisher to Paul Morrissey to Kenneth Branagh to Marcus Nispel has taken a shot at interpreting the legend and the monster’s been played by everyone from Boris Karloff to Christopher Lee to Robert De Niro to Srdjan Zelenovic (who was pretty freaking hot and yummy for a creature stitched together out of random corpses in Flesh for Frankenstein).
However, the very first cinematic version of Frankenstein came out in 1910. Produced by Thomas Edison’s film company, this 10-minute, silent film starred an actor named Charles Ogle as the monster. Frankenstein, himself, was played by Augustus Phillips while his fiancée was played by Mary Fuller. The film was directed by a fellow known as J. Searle Dawley. Dawley reportedly directed over a hundred silent films and most of them are lost to history.
For about 6 decades, it was assumed that Dawley’s Frankenstein was lost as well. However, in the mid-70s, it turned out that one remaining print of the film still existed and was apparently sitting up in someone’s attic in Wisconsin. It also turned out that the film was still in viewable condition.
And now, thanks to a combination of YouTube and the fact that every movie made before 1922 is now in the public domain, I’ve had the opportunity to see this movie for free and even better, here’s your chance to see it for free. Understand that when I say better, I’m speaking from the point of view of someone who is fascinated by history in general and cinematic history in specific. In many ways, this film epitomizes everything that makes it difficult for modern audiences to appreciate the excitement once generated by silent film. The acting is overly theatrical and watching the film makes you appreciate the eventual development of the dolly shot and the zoom lens even more. Add to that, the music that was selected to accompany this video is way too obvious and heavy-handed. I would suggest, before watching, that you mute the video and put your own preferred music on instead.
Still, the film does have a lot of historic interest. I don’t think you can truly judge and appreciate the films of today unless you know something about the films of the past. Watching a movie like the 1910 Frankenstein not only makes you realize how far films have come as an art form but also how much of the medium’s inherent earnestness has been lost with each advance in technology.
Anyway, with all that said, here is the 1910 version of Frankenstein…
Here’s a blast from the past: In 1954, James Dean and Paul Newman audition for Elia Kazan’s East of Eden. Dean, famously, was cast and earned his first posthumous Oscar nomination. (His second nomination came for his work in Giant.) Dean was 23 here. Newman was 29.
