by lhb412 » Mon Jul 25, 2011 1:16 pm
Three Ages
One of Buster Keaton's earliest feature films, and he decided to play it safe: it's really three different short films that could have been split up into such had the feature been a total flop. Buster stars in each story about a love triangle that follow basically the same structure: one in the stone age, one in ancient Rome, and one in modern day. The film cuts back and forth between the three stories. As a result of this it doesn't quite play well as a movie, and because all three stories have to follow a simple story and be easy to follow so we can compare them to one another it prevents them from being as sophisticated and brilliant as Keaton's best shorts - still, there's a whole lot of funny stuff and stunts in this.
The Mark of Zorro
Another silent film! This 1920 film started it all: the first Zorro (who's pulp novel was only published a year before) and the first Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler - basically kick starting the entire film genre! I liked the 1940s film version of Zorro, and nothing tops that film's big climax, but this film is superior. For one thing, in the '40s films Diego just used Zorro as a bogeyman to scare the bad guys. He's not really serious about the whole masked avenger thing. It's only temporary ruse, we only see him as Zorro a few times, and he drops the persona by film's end. The Fairbanks film, on the other hand, is wall-to-wall Zorro and lots of action. Zorro is not only a great swordsman, but a trickster, who often pulls pranks while he's fighting to humiliate and infuriate his opponents.