In what might be history’s most audacious case of “dress for the job you want, not the job you have,” Charlie Chaplin plays both a mild-mannered Jewish barber and his exact doppelganger, Adenoid Hynkel, the power-hungry dictator of Tomania (subtle, Charlie, real subtle). Our story begins in the trenches of World War I, where our…
Category: Silent Film, Comedy Starring: Charlie Chaplin Another Chaplin movie (a lot of his seem to make most ‘best movie’ lists and I can start to see why. In this particular one he reprise the role of the tramp and the movie opens with him taking a nap under a tarp that is later revealed…
Category: DramaStarring: Orson Welles Widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time it was hard to go into this fresh as the move has entered and somehow stayed in the zeitgeist (Rosebud is a classic example) and I have seen this movie before a very very long time ago, so it wasn’t like…
Charlie Chaplin Silent Movie / Comedy – 1921 3/5 stars This one starts with an ingĂ©nue who has a baby but the father isn’t interested (doesn’t believe it’s his? Who knows with silent movies) so she is desperate to keep her career so she does the unthinkable and abandons the baby in a rich person’s…
Category: War Film Starring: A pretty visceral World War I movie depicting the horrors of trench warfare. Told from the point of view of the German soldiers it depicted a harrowing experience spoke to the futility of war. It starts out in a classroom in Germany when a teacher is giving an impassioned speech about…
Category: Drama/ComedyStarring: James Stewart A sitting senator dies and a governor needs to replace him. Feeling pressure from wealthy lobbyists to appoint one of their guys to the post he is torn because his constituents don’t want him and he’s worried about his career. He eventually concoct a scheme to appoint a local man, Jefferson…
Silent Film – 1936Charlie Chaplin Another visit to Chaplin’s tramp character. This time he’s working in a factory where everything is regimented and watched over (very big brother like) by the boss via television screens. Chaplin’s character is starting to show stress from the repetitive nature of the work and then goes off the rails…
Mobster Movie / Black and white You have to love a film that starts with the moral message that the film is trying to convey instead of using the movie to tell the story and let the audience infer their intent. No, these guys straight up called out the government and the police for letting…
Silent movie Swashbuckling / Adventure Starring: Douglas Fairbanks The entire length of this movie I was thinking to myself – oh, wait this is what Disney’s Aladdin as loosely based on (silly sidekick, princess who needs to be married off, a flying carpet and a dude who falls in love with a woman he’s met…
Charlie Chaplin Silent Movie / Comedy In a reprisal of Chaplin’s ‘tramp’ persona he heads off to the Alaskan territory with just his cane (and woefully underdressed) looking to capitalize on the gold rush. He runs into a storm and takes shelter in what seems to be an abandoned cabin – but its currently being…