When it comes to silent cinema, I don't have much experience with it. But thanks mostly in part to a friend of mine for introducing me to "Metropolis" about a couple years ago (Now one of my favorite films of all time), I've always wanted to see more.

So I figured after reviewing nothing recent works, I'd take a step back in time to talk about some forms of film I've always wanted to get a better eye on, and what better way to start then with what many would probably call the master of silent cinema, Charlie Chaplin?

"Modern Times" marks my first impressions with the man, and they're fairly good you could say. It follows him as a…

I love animated films, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, but I remember when my daughter exclusively watched only that genre at a very young age and I was thinking to myself, at what point can I show her more? When will she be ready to explore cinema beyond talking animals and snappy songs?

While she has been beyond that point for a while now, something happened the other day while watching the Charlie Chaplin masterpiece Modern Times that I was not anticipating. There I am, lying on the couch mesmerized by the film when I realized I wasn't alone. Not in the literal sense, I knew the soon to be seven year old was sitting across the…

I should start this review with these lines: “A tramp more shining than a lamp – Is all I thought since I was kid – More polite than any kind; more clean and honest and truth than any elegant gentleman dressed with fancy hat and using long canes for his roaring period; a poor man with gentle soul under the light of the cities. A noble man. -- My plan was to write this after watching City Lights. And I DM to my friend and I message to him: “look, what I wrote right now…” and he said to me “great lines” – But, I decided to not review City Lights (I love but I’m not so familiar with it.…

Letterboxd Season Challenge 2018-19
Week 11: TIME IS A MEANINGLESS CONSTRUCT CREATED BY MAN
Silent Comedy Week

1. Yeah, I fell off the boat with this challenge quite a bit, though at least the rules for this are flexible. More on that below these review points. :p

2. Admittedly, this is sort of breaking the rules of this week's theme because there is actual voiced dialogue and sound effects present in here, but for the most part this is actually played as a straight silent film, interstitial dialogue and all. I was actually expecting this to be a sort of commentary on the transition from silent film to "talkies" since it was mostly the rich connected with technology being voiced…

Charlie Chaplin is, has, and always will be the greatest pioneer of cinema. He has an incredible power to charm and endear audiences from all walks of life with a simple flash of his iconic smile. You could argue any one of his greatly acclaimed films as his singular masterpiece: The Gold Rush, City Lights, The Great Dictator, etc. If you ask me, the greatest of them all is Modern Times. This is a very special film, as it is the bridge from Chaplin’s work as the brightest star of the silent era to the fantastical new world of synchronized sound. You might consider him stubborn at first for continuing to make silent films when they had long been passed…

The text down below is an excerpt belonging to an assignment for History class, where I compared Légier's Ballet Mécanique with Chaplin's Modern Times. The text here was taken from the sociological analysis of Modern Times. When I wrote this I was reading:
Educating Rita and Other Philosophical Movies, John K. Bramann
Karl Marx's Economic and Philisophical Manuscripts, 1844

A perspetiva individualista que o filme toma não deve ser vista como algo que vem desvalorizar a obra por estar a descartar uma visão mais compreensiva mas sim como a intenção da obra de ir ao encontro das perspectivas singulares e restringidas do comum mortal do seu tempo, perdido entre as massas e dependente da indiferença dos que desfrutam da classe…