Watch 100 Years at the Movies For Free

I'll tell you why so serious

Good concept, poorly executed.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

CAREFULLY ASSEMBLED, AND without any visible signs of favouritism toward any period or genre, this one reeler does its best in evoking the steady evolution of the motion picture from humble beginnings in peep show novelty, to the Nickelodeon days, the Silents, the Talkie Era, the Great Depression, World War II and right up through the post-studio system and the advent of the shopping center multiplex.SANS ANY NARRATION, be it flowery and self-congratulatory or not, the 9 minutes of pure cinematic heaven flows by much like a beautiful dream. We aren't sure just how many micro-clips of archival scenes from how many other a film are included and quite frankly, we don't even care to guess.SERVING AS SORT of an audio catalyst in melting all into a single, coherent screen montage, we have a section of the soundtrack of the score for CITIZEN KANE, by Bernard Hermann. The musical quotation used is from the scene where we see a very happy, young 9 year old enjoying his playing in the snow in Colorado. It is repeated several times and is well used in its function in blending it all together.WE'VE LONG BELIEVED that Hollywood oft takes itself far too seriously and tends to exaggerate its own importance as an art form. This ever so brief 9 minutes of shear cinematic pleasure does more than all of the awards shows, red carpet events and gossip could ever hope to accomplish! AS FOR THE rating for this, both Schultz and I say maximum stars allowed!

This was put together in 1994 to celebrate the first 100 years of the movies. It starts with the silents and moves all the way up to 1994 ending with "Schindler's List". For a movie fan like me it's pure magic and loads of fun figuring out which clips come from what movie (I'm proud to say I got 95% of them). They reference and show classic clips from just about every famous film in Hollywood. Some go by a little TOO fast but I can understand that. Also the clips of music from various movies is fantastic. My favorites are the title music from "Gone With the Wind" and "Rocky" and "We're in the Money" from one of the Gold Diggers films. My only complaints (and they're tiny ones)--some of the clips are WAY out of place. I caught "American in Paris" in the 1940s section! And where was "Gigi"? It was one of the few musicals to win an Academy Award as Best Picture. There were other omissions but these stood out. Still it's a great short. Anybody who has even a passing interest in movies will love this. A 10 all the way!

No great theories to spin here, or trends to notice, or criticisms to unload. Quite simply, this is the most carefully chosen, best-edited, most entertaining montage/tribute to the cinema ever put together. Covering, as it says, the whole first century of the cinema, it consists entirely of clips from a cavalcade of box-office favorites and historically-significant films, edited in roughly chronological order, accompanied by equally-well chosen scores. Some excerpts are as short as two or three seconds, sometimes just a word or a gesture from a film, sometimes a famous line, sometimes a look on a beloved movie star's face, but always one of those indelible moments, those "pieces of time," as Jimmy Stewart called them, that are the shared heritage of everyone who loves movies.

Its shorts like these that make me proud to be a movie fan. This is a well presented account of the first 100 years of American film, shown with small clips. It pops up often on TCM.I find it interesting that it sites certain movies with their title and date, to sort of show that they are landmarks. Some of their picks probably didn't deserve this citing, while others did. The Birth of a Nation, Gone With the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Easy Rider, The Godfather, and Raging Bull were perfectly deserving of being highlighted as landmarks, Casablanca, It's a Wonderful Life, and Schindler's List perhaps deserved citations, but The Jazz Singer, 42nd Street, San Fransisco, and Red River certainly didn't deserve it. I can't say anything about Greed, because I haven't seen it, though I'd like to. But films like The Gold Rush, King Kong, Citizen Kane, and The Third Man did deserve to be highlighted, as they all signaled an increase in cinematic merit.The creators of the short made a great choice by repeatedly using Bernard Hermann's score from Citizen Kane through certain moments to create a dreamlike and heavenly nostalgia among the viewers.It doesn't matter that several of the movies are chronologically out of place. They often seem to be separated into genres. One moment has classic gangster flicks like Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and Scarface, the next will have musicals, like Meet Me in St. Louis, The Wizard of Oz, and the Gene Kelly vehicles.It is remarkable how the short can bring out nearly every emotion from the film experienced viewers. We are reminded of thrilling moments, like the car chase in The French Connection, a battle scene from The Adventures of Robin Hood, and the crop duster from North By Northwest. We are reminded of the dramatic moments, like Brando's taxi speech in On the Waterfront, the conclusion of Casablanca, and the battle scenes from The Birth of a Nation. And we are shown clips from the comedic (the oceanliner sequence in A Night at the Opera), to the tense (Gary Cooper waiting for the outlaws in the abandoned town in High Noon), to the unsettling (the horrifying shot of possessed Regan's spinning head in The Exorcist). It all combines to create a dizzying sense of nostalgia and it serves as a reminder of how great it is to be a true movie addict. Of course it has obvious omissions, but they can be forgiven.By the way, Some Like it Hot and Citizen Kane DO make appearances in this presentation. Just very small ones.Rating:O O O O O O O O O O(cinematic bliss)