Change Your Image
caldoni
Reviews
M'Liss (1918)
I agree, Pickford: great, Movie: so-so
I have little or anything to add the comments of others who have spotted this movie for what it is, a story-vehicle for Mary Pickford, which is okay.
The story itself isn't worthless but it feels a little worn in. I did however appreciate the messages ingrained in about families not being traditional, it's mediations on alcoholism, vigilantism and even pedophilia are interesting peaks into a time and a place we missed, but they don't occupy a lot of screen time. Some of the cinematography is great, but really the supporting cast is excellent, in particular the drunk old dad.
The most relevant story convention is that of the indigent people ousted by cruel capitalist bent on their land, but that story is told better in both "Tess of the Storm Country" and "Heart O' The Hills" (this movie is featured on Milestone's "Heart O' The Hills DVD release.)
Heart o' the Hills (1919)
One of the best
Look, no movie is without flaws, and this film is far from an exception to that rule but often while watching it-I'm an aspiring film maker myself-I felt a major rush of excitement a feeling a get sometimes when watching silent films where one suddenly goes "That's where that convention comes from!" It never fails to shoot adrenaline up my spine and put a smile on my face. As a lifelong fan of Mary Pickford, this film is good meter of her abilities. I think it's easy to write her off as "America's Sweetheart" and it's true-plenty of Pickford vehicles were insipid messes, that showcased her own cuteness more than anything else. A friend of mine once said, "She wore the masks of silent film and wore them well but that's about all." While that may be true she also had some real talent. In this film-I won't bother summarizing-Pickford walks a delicate line between cynicism and innocence, which isn't an easy task. There are also some more subtle choices, I personally feel that Pickford was far ahead of her time as far the idea of "microperformance" goes. There's a scene where she's packing some things into a saddle bag and just before loading in her deceased father's Bible she runs it under her nose to smell it. This isn't a big moment it's not a major point of focus and only a little bit of emotion crosses her face as she does, it doesn't feel forced and I would be shocked if it was scripted, it feels a little like Marlon Brando picking up the white glove and trying it on in "On The Waterfront." It doesn't tell you much about the story but volumes about the character.
I could rant all day about how great Mary Pickford is, but honestly while she's more than up for the task there's an abundance credit due to most angles of the production. The photography is world class for it's day throughout and in moments still striking by even the most modern of critiques. The cast is universally wonderful, i can't complain too much about any one character's acting, which isn't not a usual comment I'd make about a film from 1919. Moreover though, I'd like to mention the themes of the piece, they seem advanced far beyond that pale of most film from the early 1900's, or even from the 1940's or so. There's a revenge plot that feels a bit like Peckinpah storyline. There's a deep environmental angle that's as pressing now it was then if not more, development destroys the older ways of life by obliterating the land it plays out on, the canvas of culture is the earth on which it lives. The characters in Heart o' The Hills are poor, they live in Ramshackle cabins and are by all rights in need of the wealth a coal industry would bring them, but they don't want anything to do with it. And why not? It would end their existence as they know it. The second act culminates with Mavis-Mary Pickford's character-going a ride with the Klan to oust the lowlander-developers-which results in a shootout. It's frustratingly unclear what Mavis thinks about the Klan, but her grandfather seems betrayed when he asks her "You were out riding weren't you?" There's a lot balanced portrayals, of people here too. The wealthy elite of the lowlands are portrayed as having no respect for mountain life or the environment but are also seen to be forgiving and even charitable. The mountain people are portrayed as uneducated but more than capable of understanding their circumstances and the consequences of their world. Other pressing themes revolve around child abuse, classroom, and first loves and the ending of childhood.
This film has aged well and not by chance, the film makers treated the material with dignity and humanity, choosing to dwell on themes eternal and important, and yet still it can make you laugh out loud in parts.
I highly recommend this film.
The Saddest Music in the World (2003)
It ain't perfect but it shouldn't be
I'll be honest, I loved this movie. That being said, I wouldn't recommend it to everyone or even anyone but a few arcane film technique fetishists. The movie has the feel of a lost classic, but it's so damn goofy that it's hard to figure out where it's coming from much less where it's trying to take you. People who watch expressionist films will understand the technique of "just going with it" and seeing how you feel at the end.
Maybe that's Maddlin's flaw? He forgets that modern audiences are always checking in with themselves and questioning the images they see always ready to click away from content they dislike. My friend walked out of "Coffee and Cigarettes" after the second episode, he'd given it a fair shake and didn't see any chance of it improving. But it did. Oh man it did. He would have been rewarded if he would have just went with it for a bit.
So admittedly, I was confused and alienated by big stretches of The Saddest Music In The World. It's true the characters are too ridiculous to care about much and the dissociative camera work does as much to take you out of the scene as put you in. And the brilliant Two-stripped color scenes are so bright and vibrant that the mono-tinted and black and white scenes that follow them don't have much punch. On the whole it pastiche's together more styles than a single movie should: expressionism, musical, silent, early talkie, early color, comedy, even some very documentary looking montages recalling the earliest documentaries. And the sound was as poorly mixed as any major film release i've ever seen. The film's message is obscured in it's own aesthetics so thoroughly that one can scarcely get a footing on anything like meaning or message.
I could go on and on about the flaws of this movie. As for it's graces? its genuinely funny in parts, original in others, it feels like an old distressed classic which is fun for buffs like me. But all this is cursory.
So why the hell did I like this movie so much? I liked it an awful lot. I liked it because it's messed up and it's messy. It seemed to be having fun throughout most of it and if you give yourself over to: stop asking sensible questions and try to have some fun, because really-if you do that you'll have a blast at this movie.
Sparrows (1926)
overrated
Okay before I get any guff, I do want to make it clear: I'm huuuuge Mary Pickford fan and there are good things about this film.
pro's: It looks great! The film is high quality, one of the best looking-best shot films of it's time. the cinematography is years ahead of most of it's peers. though i'm not totally convinced about the German expressionism connection people on here have written about, but it's possible. point is it looks good.
the kids are fantastic! the pre-little rascals group is on point. this is going my unofficial list of best kids ensemble ever.
Mr. grimes is a fantastic villain. he's creepy, malevolent but also believable.
the movie has two flaws, the script and Pickford.
the script is trite bogged down with poppy Christian messages that may have resonated at the time, but today seem like a simplification of biblical messages to my religious side and heavy handed saccharine to my more earthly side. the dialog seems silly and forced, working a little to hard to be southern, when in fact their dialect didn't appear very much like swamp-talk instead a weird mix of vaguely southern and even western cliché's of dialect, and it wasn't consistent in any way. on that note, the title cards go on forever. i know cards lasted longer back then because of high illiteracy rate but really-i think they just got lazy and left them on screen too long.
all of this would be forgivable, but: Mary! geezus, Mary Pickford-like my favorite actress of all time just isn't really "on" i think in this period she wanted to shed her cutsiness, which i can understand, but with it went her goofiness. which what i love about Pickford. don't get me wrong there are a few scenes that highlight it. but really i think her goal may have been to just sort of blend into the background, become a member of the cast, perhaps move away from stardom. she's good, but by this point i'm expecting very good to great from miss Pickford.
bottom line: i recommend this film to fans of little rascals, people who like 1920's Christian kitsch, and students of arcane film techniques, and hardcore Mary Pickford dweebs like me. otherwise, check out best girl, or suds, or love light, pretty much any of her other major movies.
Cinderella (1914)
man, film makers used to have more fun.
Really this film isn't very good, but echoing another comment I made somewhere on here, don't you think making movies used to be more fun? The ugly sisters played by a bunch of ridiculous men? The gaggle of silly kids that are the forest fairies? they must have had a blast! I guess because these weren't considered art there was no pretension that they should be classy. the tone of it was a little like a john waters film. The trick to enjoying a film like this is to forget how important movies are to us, as people, as a culture, as individuals. I tell people I'm an independent film maker and generally the regard that either like I must be crazy or like I'm doctor or something, which is cool, but imagine back in the days when you'd have been treated like hustler like a pimp, how could you treat yourself that seriously? Anyways, this movie is pretty much totally dumb, but so is Cinderella. The whole shoe thing? He falls in love with a girl who he's never met and doesn't even get a name out of, and decides to track her down by having every woman in the land try on her shoe? so why didn't the shoe turn back into a pumpkin or squash or whatever? no one in the kingdom had Cinderella's shoe size? if he never met her but she was dressed like princess wouldn't it be a safe assumption that she's not actually in your kingdom? royalty tends to know the other royalty nearby. and also if he's so damn in love with why can't he pick out her face? it can't have looked that different without the accoutrement of the ball. also: he's going to marry a peasant? is he crazy? the king and queen don't want him to use that marriage for something beneficial like making peace or pooling power with allies? all the while everyone knows he probably could have just hired poor Cinderella, put her up at the castle and had his way with her any time he felt like it, which is pretty much what royalty did back then. for example henry the... what the crap was I saying? I got distracted. oh, yeah. I would give anything to have worked on a movie like this. but that doesn't mean you'll enjoy the movie per Se.
Through the Back Door (1921)
Pickford's great, but this movie? not so much
So the story of this film is preposterous at best, even for it's time. A girl meets a rich guy who talks her into leaving her baby in another country for like a decade or so, then decides she wants her back but the woman she left her with pretends she's dead, then she goes to America and for some reason doesn't tell her mom but instead goes to work for her, entangling her in some scam against playboy step-dad and oh-yeah, she meets a totally not-so-charming man who she falls for because he helps her up when falls face first in the mud. and she's got a duck and two orphan children as pets. did i miss anything? I really can'tsay anything for the story of this movie, but when she's aloud run amok, Pickford is as as great as ever, I just Barely recommend this movie for those moments. everyone knows the famous scrub brush-skating scenes. but i'll list a few more for good measure.
1. the sequence in which she impresses an old man by fishing a massive sturgeon from a puddle, turns out it was her family's dinner for the evening and when the maid finds it missing she nearly kills the cat.
2. She cleans her dirty feet off by laying on her back on a table and rubbing them on a towel on the wall as if she was walking up the wall.
3. Mary's character is elated at having smuggled a duck into the US raising it triumphantly over her head and marching away like victorious general.
4. Falling in the mud she tries to clean herself off and only winds up leaving two suggestive hand prints over her breasts. When a cute rich boy arrives to see if she's all right, in embarrassment she tries to cover it up by grabbing herself suggestively, actually doing with hands what the mud hand prints suggested. (probably really racy for the day.) 5. the suitor asks of the Bellina orphans she's picked up along a road after their mother died: "Are the children really yours?" she says "Yes. I found them." she says. To which he makes a face to suggest. "oh, good enough for me." so yeah, I wrote a lot about a movie I'm not that into, but those moments and a few others make the film worthwhile. Mary Pickford is a giant supernova of charm and a fantastic performer, she outshines her directors unfortunately.
Wilful Peggy (1910)
really good if you like slapstick
I'm a film maker and silent films have become my guilty pleasure lately, a lot of people watch 80's films or dumb action flicks or whatever, but me I like old silents, reason being, you can often feel the fun they had making them.
DW Griffith is remembered-by those who remember him-as a racist and/or film innovator which is probably a fair assessment either way. I will say that this shows his abilities to not just play stereotypes.
In a way Peggy is a feminist heroine, if someone offends her she breaks a piano stool over their head, she dresses like a man and at one point tries to seduce a bar maid, also the Lord is an interesting characters, he's unhindered by her stand-offish attitude and in fact likes it-even if it does seem a little condescending.
I guess though I'm being to thoughtful. It's quick paced for it's and genuinely funny.
Suds (1920)
Actually, One of My Faves
Okay, so I've checking message boards and after seeing pretty much all of the Mary Pickford films one can get on video-which is just a small percentage-I have to say Suds is one of my favorites. It's really goofy, and yeah, a little uneven, but in a way that's it's charm. It has some real goofy charm, I like that Pickford plays a total screw-up. Most of her intentions are good, but she's also a liar, she's a very dynamic person. Often I get bored of Mary Pickford films because she would get stuck playing one-note characters. Amanda is an interesting character because she's such a dork. It's a little sad because seeing odd but charming choices she makes as Amanda, such as the scene where she can't stop scratching the itch on her arm, or the scene where she stitches a portrait of guy she likes into his own shirt show that while she got more opportunities than most women of her time if things had been different she may have been female Charline and not a footnote in cinema history-a title she doesn't deserve anyway. it's a good film.
Starlight Hotel (1987)
i'm a huge dork
so when i was eight this film came out. i don't remember much about it. crazy thing: though i remember nothing about it. not even that it was set in new Zealand. i remember liking the characters and believing in whatever their adventure was. i'd grown up watching old films on the weekends with my grandfather and had seen a lot of movies for a kid my age but for some reason watching this film i said: "i have to-have to-make films like this! and i can, i just need the means." well years later i'm an indie-director and have just embarked on the process of actually having one of my scripts optioned and sold... for no reason at all i was walking home tonight from a script meeting and this film popped into my head after nearly 20 years! i plan to rent it soon and will probably be embarrassed by it's quality or lack there of but hey, i think i can say it had a big influence on my journey to wherever i'm going... heh. oh well.
just thought i'd post this before i had the chance to regret it.