I'm still alive

... and I'm still planning to continue with Chrono Order.  I relocated to my Dad's place in Portland to be more productive, and so far I have been. But I also have internet access at home here, which means too much of my leisure time has been spent doing things like this:

The novelty should wear off in a few days. I should have the universe pretty much figured out by then.

1910 - Frankenstein

I'd been looking forward to seeing this since Pud told me that it existed. Thomas Edison's version of Frankenstein! In 1910! I forced myself to finish the book (finally) before watching it. It did actually make it more interesting: What did people think Frankenstein's monster looked like before everyone knew he was big and green and bolty?

That stuff isn't in the book - Dr. Frankenstein refuses to reveal how he created life so that it could never happen again. So instead of electrocuting something, Edison's Frankenstein just dumped a bunch of stuff in a cauldron and locked it in a room, peering in to see what happened.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED

AND IT MOVES. WHILE IT APPEARS TO BE ON FIRE. BACKWARDS.

So, yeah, you should watch the scene where the monster is created for sure.

1909 - Princess Nicotine; or, the Smoke Fairy

Another short special effects comedy that I chose for the preposterous name. It's mostly about smoking and mischievous fairies. The fairies play pranks on the much larger smoking protagonist. For example, they hide in his corn cob pipe and cover themselves with tobacco:

Ha! What a foolish smoker! He is about to smoke a MAGICAL FAIRY without even knowing it. Fans of psychedelic drugs may not find this so foolish, of course: Given the chance, a mind-expander would EFFING LOVE the chance to smoke a (n apparently willing) magical creature in their pipes. Anyway, the film still represented a milestone for me. This smoking fairy rose flower:

... eventually broke down into petals, and those petals rolled themselves into a cigar, all in stop motion. That's right: This is the first stop-motion animation I've seen in this project, which made it pretty rad. Even though the things being animated were mostly boring.

1908 - Fantasmagorie

One of the world's first animated films, by Émile Cohl, this film is less than two minutes long. Here is what watching the film is like:

"Ha ha! What an outrageous hat! I wish I had a hat like that. Oh, now he's..... Wait he's.... WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING"

I can see why Wikipedia considers him part of the "largely forgotten incoherent movement".

But do not mistake me: this film as rad.

1907 - Laughing Gas

Another Edwin Porter/Thomas Edison film, Laughing Gas is a comedy starring Bertha Regustus. Regustus is a Black woman, so we can now date the loss of funnyness among women to some time in the 100 years between this movie and this article, which you shouldn't bother asking me about since I don't plan to read it.

At any rate, the film is a 9-minute morality play about how you should definitely do nitrous and then interact with as many people as possible. Sure, you may [SPOILERS] steal seats on the trolley, destroy the milkman's livelihood and get taken to court for it, and dump soup on the people that you're a domestic servant for, but nobody will care.  They will laugh their asses off. Because you are.

Also, the survey for 1916 is still up. Thanks for your responses so far.

1906 - The Story of the Kelly Gang

I watched this early Australian film and thought it was fairly incoherent. If raised arms weren't a gesture of surrender I probably would have understood even less. Maybe 1/4 to 1/5 of the film looked a lot like this:

 Oh, well, I thought, this is early film, and I still got to see a shootout with the rad-looking bulletproofish Kelly Armour:

But then I looked it up to see why I chose it. It turns out that what I actually watched were the 20 or so surviving minutes of the World's First Feature Length Film, put together with added intertitles by whoever made this video.

Then, to remind myself how old this film was I wikipedia'ed around a bit and found out that the shootout shown above took place in 1880. 26 years before the film was made. I.e., by the time people saw this film, the action it depicts was 5 years more recent than the Thriller album is today.

A Choice, and Next Week's Films

I think I'll plan 6 films a week max. Here's what I'll watch next week, probably starting tomorrow:


1906 The Story of the Kelly Gang
1907 Laughing Gas
1908 fantasmagorie
1909 Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy
1910 Thomas Edison Frankenstein
1911 Little Nemo

More importantly, the following week involves the first time we have to choose the two films to actually watch. In 1916, there are three films listed:

20,000 leagues under the sea, which Wikipedia seems to describe as the first expensive special-effects blockbuster (including pseudo-underwater photography) to bomb, losing money and dooming its genre for years. Apparently Stephin Merritt thinks enough of it to have recorded a score for it in 2010, which I think recommends it.

Intolerance, which is supposed to be D.W. Griffith's masterpiece, and his response to public criticism of the film I'll be watching the previous day.

And Where Are My Children? which is fascinating for at least two reasons: First, it was written and directed by women (Including Lois Weber, who I'll get back to in '21), something that's still too rare almost 100 years later. Second, it is about ABORTION. Like, There's a film from 1916 about Abortion. What the hell did they think about abortion in 1916? How did they talk about it? Obviously I'd like to find out.

So, take this 12-second survey to help me choose two films. Check as many boxes as you want. Go crazy.