cricket30 Review of Monkeyshines, No. 2

Monkeyshines, No. 2 (1890)

MONKEYSHINES, No. 2 provides us with a much better idea . . .

[6/10 · 18 July 2013]

. . . of the attributes of the world's first actor, G. Sacco Albanese, such as his face. (Indeed, it is appalling to people who are sticklers for detail that the friends and family of Albanese and John Ott, another employee of the Edison Manufacturing Company which invented movies in their light bulb lab in 1889, cannot be bothered to glance at MONKEYSHINES No. 1 and MONKEYSHINES No. 2 and settle for once and for all whether it is actually Albanes or Ott who WAS really the world's first movie star. With running times of 28.16 and 27.81 seconds, surely the identity of this important entertainment figure can be verified with less fuss and muss than finding all those kids with their faces on milk cartons. Without Albanese or Ott, Chaplin and Sandler would not have been possible, since one of them was the first giant upon whom everyone else is standing (which brings to mind one of those old Flying Wallenda-family pyramids, only much bigger). At any rate, MONKEYSHINES #2 removed movies forever from the elitist realm of abstract representation designed to appeal to effete snobs (see MONKEYSHINES #1), and put it in the ballpark of realism more along the lines of LITTLE NICKY or WATERBOY that the masses can enjoy.