Showing posts with label 1920s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1920s. Show all posts

05 August 2009

Safety Last (1923)

This was my first Harold Lloyd movie, and I absolutely loved it. This dude is one bad motherfucker, plus he is a total babe. Do you see his Daria James Joyce glasses? Babe!

Safety Last is Harold's most famous movie because it features this clock sequence. He actually climbs a twelve-story building and dangles from the hands of this clock. You can tell Lloyd actually does this because the cars are moving below him. This is so awesome and unbelievable! It's even scarier than Buster Keaton having a house fall on him or get tossed around as a football as a baby in Vaudeville.

I like that Harold Lloyd's character in the movie has the same name -- very Jerry Seinfeld-esque. He's a comedian too! One thing that sets Harold's movies apart from contemporaries Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin is that Harold the character is very lucky. Things seem to work out for him -- like when he makes his friend smack a cop, he doesn't get in trouble. When he pretends to be his boss at the store to impress his girlfriend, he doesn't get caught. He's also very smooth. For example, he writes the reflection of "Kick me" with chalk on a wall and then gently nudges a cop against this wall. Thus, the imprint is written correctly on his back, and the cop gets kicked! Awesome. I'm trying this goof as soon as I can.

5/5 pizzas

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)


Once in a while German Expressionist filmmaking is totally rad. Sometimes it is not. Since this movie is German, and Wiene's style is "expressionistic," then by the transitive property this movie is rad. Most of it, at least. I generally have trouble watching silent dramas, as I usually get antsy throughout the film, yet I very much enjoy silent comedies and shorts. I know this does not bode well for my career as a professional movie watcher, but I am practicing my silents. Plus I've seen a bunch at this point, so great job. Anyway, besides this movie being melodramatic [which is inevitable for a flick of its ilk] and for me feeling antsy, Caligari was splendid. The scenery was so slanty! That totally set the eerie tone. Plus, the film dealt with death, desire, murderous gazes, vocabulary with Latin roots [somnambulist] and extra round glasses. Good show.

4/5 pizzas