Proving again that there’s always more to learn about film history, Marc J. Perez’s documentary tells the story of a major American film capital before Hollywood. Milestone surrounds it with a couple of hours of early silent films made in the cinema Mecca of . . . Fort Lee, New Jersey.
The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town
DVD
The Milestone Cinematheque
2015 / Color + B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 35 min. main documentary; many more short subjects / Street Date October 17, 2017 / available through The Milestone Cinematheque / 34.99
Film Editor: B.B. Enriquez
Original Music: Ryan Shore
Based on a book by Richard Koszarski
Produced by Tom Myers, John L. Sikes
Directed by Marc J. Perez
Milestone’s new crash course in film history is a two-disc set centered around a 2015 documentary, The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town. ‘The Champion’ was the name of a short-lived but significant film company,...
The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town
DVD
The Milestone Cinematheque
2015 / Color + B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 35 min. main documentary; many more short subjects / Street Date October 17, 2017 / available through The Milestone Cinematheque / 34.99
Film Editor: B.B. Enriquez
Original Music: Ryan Shore
Based on a book by Richard Koszarski
Produced by Tom Myers, John L. Sikes
Directed by Marc J. Perez
Milestone’s new crash course in film history is a two-disc set centered around a 2015 documentary, The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town. ‘The Champion’ was the name of a short-lived but significant film company,...
- 9/23/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It's arrived -- thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign, this nearly comprehensive compendium of American 'Race Films' is here in a deluxe Blu-ray presentation. Pioneers of African-American Cinema Blu-ray Kino Classics 1915-1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 952 min. / Street Date July 26, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 99.95 Directed by Richard Norman, Richard Maurice, Spencer Williams and Oscar Micheaux
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Black Cinema History? We didn't hear a peep about any such thing back in film school. Sometime in the 1980s PBS would broadcast a barely watchable (see sample just below) copy of a creaky silent 'race movie' about a 'backsliding' black man in trouble with the law, the Lord and his wife in that order. The cultural segregation has been almost complete. It wasn't until even later that I read articles about a long-extinct nationwide circuit of movie theaters catering to black audiences, wherever the populations were big enough to support the trade.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Black Cinema History? We didn't hear a peep about any such thing back in film school. Sometime in the 1980s PBS would broadcast a barely watchable (see sample just below) copy of a creaky silent 'race movie' about a 'backsliding' black man in trouble with the law, the Lord and his wife in that order. The cultural segregation has been almost complete. It wasn't until even later that I read articles about a long-extinct nationwide circuit of movie theaters catering to black audiences, wherever the populations were big enough to support the trade.
- 8/6/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Dorothy Davenport becomes a judge and later State Governor in socially conscious thriller about U.S. women's voting rights. Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Will women's right to vote lead to the destruction of The American Family? Directed by and featuring the now all but forgotten Willis Robards, Mothers of Men – about women suffrage and political power – was a fast-paced, 64-minute buried treasure screened at the 2016 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, held June 2–5. I thoroughly enjoyed being taken back in time by this 1917 socially conscious drama that dares to ask the question: “What will happen to the nation if all women have the right to vote?” One newspaper editor insists that women suffrage would mean the destruction of The Family. Women, after all, just did not have the capacity for making objective decisions due to their emotional composition. It...
- 7/1/2016
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
All hail Buster Keaton! The Great Stone Face's pre-feature output is a comedic treasure trove that allows us to watch a performing genius perfect his filmic persona. Lobster's all-new restorations debut some alternate scenes and fix a number of broken jump cuts. It's the whole shebang -- the earlier Fatty Arbuckle shorts and Buster's later solo efforts. Buster Keaton The Shorts Collection 1917-1923 Blu-ray Kino Classics 1917-1923 / B&W / 1:37 flat Silent Ap / 738 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95 Starring Buster Keaton, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. . Original Music Robert Israel, Donald Sosin, Stephen Horne, Timothy Brock, Neil Brand, The Mont Alto Orchestra, Sandra Wong, Günther Buchwald, Dennis Scott Directed by Roscoe Arbuckle & Buster Keaton
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What's this, a full compilation of Buster Keaton Shorts? Kino has released sets of these before, including a 3-disc Blu-ray package from back in the summer of 2011 and overseen by Kino's Bret Wood.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What's this, a full compilation of Buster Keaton Shorts? Kino has released sets of these before, including a 3-disc Blu-ray package from back in the summer of 2011 and overseen by Kino's Bret Wood.
- 5/21/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Audiences still had Monday to look forward to, with a somewhat lighter schedule: four programs rather than the five or six available Friday through Sunday, after a from-all-accounts rousing and sold-out opening night performance on Thursday of the rarely-seen silent version of Lewis Milestone's "All Quiet on the Western Front," accompanied by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. Normally I sit down on Thursday night and for all intents and purposes do not leave the venerable 1922-vintage Castro Theatre until the curtain comes down on Sunday night. The festival, with the extra day, brought masterpiece after masterpiece, re-viewings as well as films new to me, in every case accompanied with witty and apposite live music, ranging from the solo performers Stephen Horne and Guenter Buchwald to the initial appearance of the more-than-a-dozen member Berklee Silent Film Orchestra, with its student-composed-and-conducted score for Murnau's "The Last Laugh,"...
- 6/4/2015
- by Meredith Brody
- Thompson on Hollywood
Lon Chaney fans can revel in Kino’s Blu-ray transfer of The Penalty, featuring one of the thousand faces that first catapulted the extremely talented performer into one of the most celebrated careers in film history. As a double amputee, Chaney is in top form, the motif of the disenfranchised, the butchered, the mutated, the unloved outstretched in full glory here, once again, to the detriment of his own health.
The film opens with a title card announcing that there’s been “A victim of the city traffic,” and we see a young boy has been seriously wounded. A young Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary), however, has mistakenly amputated the boy’s legs, a fact indiscreetly announced by the physician’s older colleague, Dr. Allen (Kenneth Harlan). The young boy overhears their discussion and Dr. Allen’s plan to lie to the boy’s parents by saying that the amputation saved the boy’s life.
The film opens with a title card announcing that there’s been “A victim of the city traffic,” and we see a young boy has been seriously wounded. A young Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary), however, has mistakenly amputated the boy’s legs, a fact indiscreetly announced by the physician’s older colleague, Dr. Allen (Kenneth Harlan). The young boy overhears their discussion and Dr. Allen’s plan to lie to the boy’s parents by saying that the amputation saved the boy’s life.
- 10/17/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s official: The Denver Silent Film Festival is now an annual event! An opening gala—at the Seawell Ballroom on September 21st—heralds the start of its second year. This time last year, I was lucky enough to be in Colorado for its launching: three days of screenings (personal favorite: Josef von Sternberg’s 1927 gangster drama Underworld), with musical accompaniment (by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Hank Troy and Donald Sosin) and lively conversation. Alexander Payne took time out from his Descendants commitments to participate in presenting his mentor, David Shepard, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Payne’s speech, about being a young...
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- 9/17/2012
- by Darwyn Carson
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and "Baby Peggy" Diana Serra Cary will be attending the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival, scheduled to take place in Hollywood from April 12-15. Film noir actresses Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt will also be on hand. This year's TCM Festival (which costs a pretty penny to attend) presents the North American premiere of a 75th anniversary restoration of Renoir's 1937 war drama "Grand Illusion," as well as a screening of the Douglas Fairbanks silent film, "The Thief of Bagdad," accompanied live by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. The festival will kick off with a gala (and world...
- 2/1/2012
- Thompson on Hollywood
Passes Now on Sale Now for Four-Day Festival,
Coming to Hollywood April 12-15, 2012
Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and “Baby Peggy” Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.
Also announced today, the festival will feature the North American premiere of a new 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir’s powerful Pow drama Grand Illusion (1937), widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. And the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will provide a live musical accompaniment for a screening of the silent Douglas Fairbanks fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
Minnelli and Grey are slated to join TCM’s own Robert Osborne to kick off the four-day, star-studded event with a gala opening-night world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration Cabaret (1971), the film for which the...
Coming to Hollywood April 12-15, 2012
Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and “Baby Peggy” Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.
Also announced today, the festival will feature the North American premiere of a new 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir’s powerful Pow drama Grand Illusion (1937), widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. And the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will provide a live musical accompaniment for a screening of the silent Douglas Fairbanks fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1924).
Minnelli and Grey are slated to join TCM’s own Robert Osborne to kick off the four-day, star-studded event with a gala opening-night world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration Cabaret (1971), the film for which the...
- 1/31/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Your Weekly Source for the Newest Releases to Blu-Ray Tuesday, August 30th, 2011
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
The 5th Quarter: Special Edition (2010)
Synopsis: In February, 2006, young Luke Abbate accepted a ride home from a fellow student following his high-school team practice. In a severe case of irresponsible and reckless teen-age driving, and over the objections of Luke and the other young passengers, the driver lost control of the car at nearly 90 miles-per-hour, spinning off a narrow road and landing in an embankment some seventy feet below. Luke suffered irreparable brain damage, and died in the hospital two days later – just four days before his sixteenth birthday. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features: Making-of Featurette.
Bereavement (2010)
Synopsis: The horrific account of 6 year old Martin Bristol, abducted from his backyard swing and forced to witness the brutal crimes of a deranged madman. (highdefdigest.com)
Special Features:
Commentary track with director/writer Stevan Mena Behind the scenes featurette Deleted...
- 8/29/2011
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
As young Chicagoans slink back to school and the rolling rainstorms begin to eclipse our sunny summer days, this weekend is primed for heatstroke-free entertainment. Whether you prefer it in a shipping crate, in the nude or in Klingon, here are our picks for the as for one of the last summer weekends as August gets underway.
Let us know if there's anything we missed and be sure to pack an umbrella!
All Weekend
Comic Con
If you’ve dreamed of talking time travel with Doc Brown or brushing up on your Klingon with Captain Picard, haul your Betazoid behind to the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con in Rosemont. Christopher Lloyd and Patrick Stewart are only appearing Friday and Saturday, but they’re joined by a cast of sci-fi celebrities including Vivica Fox, LeVar Burton and Mimi Rogers. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan stops in his hometown from 5-7 p.
Let us know if there's anything we missed and be sure to pack an umbrella!
All Weekend
Comic Con
If you’ve dreamed of talking time travel with Doc Brown or brushing up on your Klingon with Captain Picard, haul your Betazoid behind to the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con in Rosemont. Christopher Lloyd and Patrick Stewart are only appearing Friday and Saturday, but they’re joined by a cast of sci-fi celebrities including Vivica Fox, LeVar Burton and Mimi Rogers. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan stops in his hometown from 5-7 p.
- 8/12/2011
- by Lizzie Schiffman
- Huffington Post
People on Sunday Directed by: Robert Siodmak & Edgar G. Ulmer Written by: Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak & Curt Siodmak Starring: Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen In the late 1920's, a group of young filmmakers would marry documentary techniques with fiction to create People on Sunday, a silent film utilizing non-actors to tell a scripted story about a relaxing weekend in pre-Hitler Berlin. The project is considered a work of genious by many and jumpstarted the long and illustrious careers of those involved, including a young Billy Wilder. When tracing the lineage of the French New Wave [1] and New Hollywood [2] eras of filmmaking, you're likely to end up coming across this seminal piece of German cinema. The story is simple: four friends plan to meet for a day at the beach on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Wolfgang is a wine salesman who courts a young girl named Christl, a film extra.
- 7/31/2011
- by Jay C.
- FilmJunk
Copyright© A.M.P.A.S.
Beverly Hills, CA . The 1926 Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Beau Geste. will be the next film screened in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. .Summer of Silents. series on Monday, July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The evening will feature live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Ronald Colman and William Powell starred in this first film version of Percival Christopher Wren.s classic adventure novel about three brothers who join the French Foreign Legion to protect their family.s honor. Film historian Frank Thompson will introduce the feature.
At 7 p.m., .Saturday Afternoon. (1926), starring Harry Langdon, will be screened as part of the evening.s pre-show festivities.
The Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®, was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine...
Beverly Hills, CA . The 1926 Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Beau Geste. will be the next film screened in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. .Summer of Silents. series on Monday, July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The evening will feature live musical accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
Ronald Colman and William Powell starred in this first film version of Percival Christopher Wren.s classic adventure novel about three brothers who join the French Foreign Legion to protect their family.s honor. Film historian Frank Thompson will introduce the feature.
At 7 p.m., .Saturday Afternoon. (1926), starring Harry Langdon, will be screened as part of the evening.s pre-show festivities.
The Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®, was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine...
- 7/19/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Chicago – One of the most important home entertainment releases of the year is Criterion’s high-definition restoration of Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer’s “People on Sunday,” an extraordinary filmic landmark from 1930 that is a must-see for any self-respecting cinephile. Watching it for the first time, I felt like I was witnessing nothing less than the birth of independent cinema.
Coming out on the heels of “city symphony” pictures such as Walter Ruttman’s 1927 opus “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City,” and Dziga Vertov’s 1929 classic “Man With a Movie Camera,” “Sunday” blended the stylistic flourishes of avant-garde documentaries with experimental narrative structures. At its core are five non-actors playing characters loosely based on themselves, and the film’s witty prologue notes that after production wrapped, they all returned to their regular jobs.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
A triumphant success with critics and audiences alike, this silent German masterwork united a group of brilliant unknowns,...
Coming out on the heels of “city symphony” pictures such as Walter Ruttman’s 1927 opus “Berlin: Symphony of a Great City,” and Dziga Vertov’s 1929 classic “Man With a Movie Camera,” “Sunday” blended the stylistic flourishes of avant-garde documentaries with experimental narrative structures. At its core are five non-actors playing characters loosely based on themselves, and the film’s witty prologue notes that after production wrapped, they all returned to their regular jobs.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
A triumphant success with critics and audiences alike, this silent German masterwork united a group of brilliant unknowns,...
- 7/7/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
DVD Playhouse—July 2011
By Allen Gardner
The Music Room (Criterion) Satyajit Ray’s 1958 masterpiece looks at the life of a fallen aristocrat as a metaphor for an India that is not only becoming Westernized, but modernized technologically and culturally beyond recognition. When the beloved music room, where he has hosted lavish concerts in the past, starts falling into disrepair as attendance drops steadily, the man realizes his way of life is vanishing. Stunningly shot in black & white, one of Ray’s finest works. Bonuses: Documentary on Ray from 1984 by Shyam Benegal; Interviews with Ray biographer Andrew Robinson and filmmaker Mira Nair; Excerpt from 1981 roundtable discussion between Ray, critic Michael Ciment, director Claude Sautet. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
Beauty And The Beast (Criterion) Jean Cocteau’s sublime adaptation of the classic fairy tale become a beloved classic upon its 1946 release, and hasn’t faded since.
By Allen Gardner
The Music Room (Criterion) Satyajit Ray’s 1958 masterpiece looks at the life of a fallen aristocrat as a metaphor for an India that is not only becoming Westernized, but modernized technologically and culturally beyond recognition. When the beloved music room, where he has hosted lavish concerts in the past, starts falling into disrepair as attendance drops steadily, the man realizes his way of life is vanishing. Stunningly shot in black & white, one of Ray’s finest works. Bonuses: Documentary on Ray from 1984 by Shyam Benegal; Interviews with Ray biographer Andrew Robinson and filmmaker Mira Nair; Excerpt from 1981 roundtable discussion between Ray, critic Michael Ciment, director Claude Sautet. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Full screen. Dolby 1.0 mono.
Beauty And The Beast (Criterion) Jean Cocteau’s sublime adaptation of the classic fairy tale become a beloved classic upon its 1946 release, and hasn’t faded since.
- 7/7/2011
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Beverly Hills, CA .The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner .Humoresque. (1920) will kick off a summer-long screening series of silent films at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, June 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. A restored 35mm print from UCLA Film & Television Archive will be screened with live musical accompaniment composed by Michael Mortilla, and performed by Mortilla on piano and Nicole Garcia on violin.
Directed by Frank Borzage, .Humoresque. is the film version of Fannie Hurst.s short story about a young violinist who rises from New York.s Jewish slums to international fame with the help of his doting mother. The film was the first to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. The Medal of Honor was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and...
Directed by Frank Borzage, .Humoresque. is the film version of Fannie Hurst.s short story about a young violinist who rises from New York.s Jewish slums to international fame with the help of his doting mother. The film was the first to receive the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor, the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. The Medal of Honor was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and...
- 6/7/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Beverly Hills, CA . The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will kick off its summer screening series, “Summer of Silents: Photoplay Award Winners of the Silent Era,” on Monday, June 13, with a big-screen presentation of “Humoresque” (1920) with live musical accompaniment. The eight-film series, which will run through August 8, will showcase silent films of the 1920s, all of which were Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor award winners. All screenings will be held on Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Pre-show festivities will begin at 7 p.m.
The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor was the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. First awarded in 1920, it was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and given to the producer of the year’s winning film.
The evenings also will feature live musical accompaniment as well as pre-show presentations of such...
The Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor was the first significant annual film award, pre-dating the establishment of the Oscars®. First awarded in 1920, it was voted by the readers of Photoplay Magazine and given to the producer of the year’s winning film.
The evenings also will feature live musical accompaniment as well as pre-show presentations of such...
- 5/23/2011
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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