After my disapointment with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I decided to look for something a little stranger. What I found was There It Is! It’s a 1928 sureal, absurdist commedy, that’s pretty heavy on Special Effects and stop-motion animation. It’s weird and wacky, and remarkably well done. Far more well executed than many of it’s contemporaries. You gotta check it out.

A few days ago, I posted an article about using Jekyll to power this website. I used a still from the 1920 adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde to illustrate the post, because it’s in the public domain and marginally related. As the film was already on my radar, and I had an hour and a half to spare, I chose to watch the movie last night. It wasn’t horrible, but it had some flaws, and doesn’t live up to the atmosphere of the fantastic poster. You’re welcome to watch it yourself, and read my impressions, below.

Recently, I had the pleasure of re-reading Warren Ellis’ Cunning Plans. It’s an eBook, comprised of transcripts of talks that Mr. Ellis gave at various conferences in 2012. If that sounds boring to you, you might want to go read a little bit about Mr. Ellis. I assure you, when he speaks, it’s because he has something worthwhile to say.

First, let’s introduce the problem in terms that really drive it home: Every hour, more than 2 years of video content is added to youtube. If you were to start watching right now, and didn’t take a break to sleep for the next 2 years, you’d be able to watch all the videos that had been uploaded in the last hour. Obviously this is more content than could reasonably be proccessed in any meaningful way, and there will be two more years worth in an hour. How is anything new supposed to get discovered in that overwhelming miasma of, mostly, crap?

Since we’ve been making movies 100 years longer than I’ve been alive, there are far too many “must see classics” that I’ve missed. Each month, I devote one or two evenings to silent films, and vintage cinema. I try to enter each film with an open mind, and I’ve stumbled on to some real classics. Today, I had the pleasure of re-visiting Buster Keaton’s The General with a friend who was seeing it for the first time. Watch the film, and read my impressions, below.