got 'em, got 'em, need 'em..........

There are a myriad of ways on the old interweb to while away and hour or two or three. I was introduced to another one the other day. Oh this is a bad one, an hour will fly by before you even look up from the screen. it's a little bit of web opium known as icheckmovies.com. And that's exactly what it is , a site that presents a wide variety of movie lists and you check the ones you have seen. That's it- many lists, you check off titles you have viewed. Go there, try it, I dare you.......I warn you. Nah, it's harmless fun.......hahahahahahahahahahaha (evil satanic laughter) You can also mark off which are your personal all time favorites. I have only marked a few- but the first I marked was Buster Keatons , 1927 masterwork The General. As far as I am concerned it is the greatest of all the silent pictures. They showed it the other night on TCM and I had planned on watching just a few minutes and of course I watched til the end. It is extraordinary- I will go as far to say it is one of the most beautiful pictures ever made. You really feel as if you are watching something that was made during the civil war. Every frame feels authentic. After the initial set up the movie basically becomes a chase. A train chase. On tracks. you can only go one way. You have to follow the tracks. It is exciting and funny and breathlessly entertaining. There are no "special effects" the trains only do what they physically CAN do, right before your eyes without camera trickery. He does a long extended bit of business on the front end of the locomotive, right there on the cowcatcher. A single long shot, with a number of very tricky bits of physical comedy. Had he fallen he would have been crushed by the train. But there he is. out front. At one point a full size locomotive tries to cross a burning bridge and goes crashing into the river below. One locomotive, one bridge, one chance to get it right. But surrounded by hundreds of extras and horses and battles and trains and explosions there is a love story. Sweet and simple and at times riotously funny- There is a moment so shocking and so funny that i laugh just thinking about it. It starts when......... no I won't tell you, I don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't seen it yet. It is a moment during the chase in the locomotive with the engineer (Keaton) and his lady fair. In one fleeting moment it tells you all you ever need to know about love. Orson Welles once said that Keaton was the most beautiful man ever to appear in movies. When you first hear that you giggle, he must be kidding, but then as you watch him in his great silent films you begin to see what Welles meant. It is also very interesting to see how few "title cards" Keaton uses during the film. The story is told through the images not through the words. The best silent films used words very sparingly. That was a problem I had with Mel Brooks "Silent Movie" the physical comedy was wonderful , but he couldn't resist adding , words, lot's of them. Many times they would break the rythym of the great visual jokes he had created. Ah well- I'll be back in a few hours, I have to go check off some more movies.