An intense magician and his hardworking assistant crams as much as they can into their uptempo act.
No story at all, only lots of reasonably well-made cinematographic tricks. Not in my book of skeleton-bashing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwTlHPlQRKU
Odd pairing of combatants, and no apple is shot on anyone’s head.
Doesn’t impress technically, and the fighting is only mildly funny. Not in my book of filmed variety numbers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfCTSq_jImg
A couple of almost irritatingly spunky little commedia dell’arte characters leads the way in this slightly bizarre mix of projections, magic, dancing, and mild grotesqueries.
Interesting early use of movies within the movie, but too much jolly »bensprattel« for my book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXqvSJX6sx4
Reverse gravity! Humanoid trees! Cruel giants! A rotating house!
Funny, inventive, silly, clumsy. Not in my book of space travel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np7VImsSMQM
– The working class is such a great disappointment to me.
Highly unnatural kitchen sink melodrama that stumbles between powerful, funny, and cruel. Race, class, gender, love, sexuality, age, political views – everything is tainted, nothing is clean.
Very eighties, very british, and strangely Fassbinderian by the esteemed Mr Frears. Argues that imperfection is all you can hope for, and convinces by not being at all perfect in itself. Still in my book of both washed and unwashed.
– But that country has been sodomised by religion.
More Méliès magic when the pages come alive!
Far too repetitive, though. Therefore not in my book of books.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OmqWrn6EMs
Unhappy, unlucky, and exceedingly clumsy astronomer, continuously tormented by all kinds of strange and weird obstacles.
Arresting, however not in my book of dreams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SMIiQZUcs
