The Dancing Pig

Hmm...

If David Lynch made a children's program, I guess. Don't miss the last several seconds for a little slice of hell.

Buster Day

HOO-RAY, it's Buster Keaton's birthday!

Watch the first part of his first short film, One Week.

No Chaplin?

Here's an interesting statement on personal interests and their application or association to the web in general or blogs in particular. I was searching blogcatalog.com, one of the dozens of blog directories listing the tens of thousands of blogs out there by everyone from professional artists and technophiles to your Aunt Gertie. It appears that on this particular site there are about 2,500 music blogs, 4,000 political blogs and so forth. Blogs can be searched by tags or just by content. Anyway, to make a long diatribe short, I searched for Chaplin and only one result appeared, and it wasn't even referring to Charlie. Tens of thousands of blogs with hundreds and thousands of blog posts and not one has to do with the Tramp? Seems inconceivable. But I've already noted over the years that there really isn't a huge classic film community on the web. It probably has something to do with the fact that classic film is a somewhat static, academic concept, with only DVD releases and film preservation efforts as the means to current, topical comment or conversation to anyone who isn't a filmmaker and studying technique or whatnot.

Anyway, here's a post for you Charlie. One of my several hundred heroes, you are. In case anyone is wondering, the above pic is from A Dog's Life.


*Update* - I've found a couple sites after all:

The Crowd Roars

Out of the Past

And of course, the seminal Greenbriar Picture Shows blog.

And about 108 mentions of Charlie Chaplin within posts, as would be probable, although still pretty low. I guess it would be fairly representational of real life, subculture vs. pop culture.

Memorial Day

Since it's Memorial Day, I thought I would throw up this one-sheet from Buster Keaton's The General. For some reason, a lot of his old movie posters aren't very appealing. I've seen a few with some very crude caricatures. The same could be said for the Marx Brothers' I suppose, but Keaton's seem particularly amature-hour. Can't fault the genius on the screen though.

However, I think this one-sheet has a really interesting layout, although it's a little top-heavy. I found it on the Greenbriar Picture Shows blog, a treasure-trove of classic film imagery.

Anyway, this has been a very roundabout way of telling y'all to take time today (or anyday) to remember your relatives and others that have died in the service.

Great Things Happening Elsewhere

Here's an example of the great things we miss out on when living in nowhere-land. I have yet to purchase any books by Kim Deitch, although The Boulevard of Broken Dreams has been on my wish list for about five years. And what I wouldn't give to watch a silent film in an actual theater. Details can be found on the Fantagraphics Blog and Cartoon Brew.