SoTrumpBelieve
Must See Movie...
RipDelight
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
Kien Navarro
Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
calvinnme
This film was made to commemorate the development of film in the United States, thus you won't see any clips from foreign films in it - that was not what it was intended to do, on the 100th anniversary of the first film exhibition in the United States on April 14, 1894. That 100th anniversary is also the day that Turner Classic Movies began broadcasting - April 14, 1994 - and I believe this short was one of the first shorts broadcast on that channel. It consists entirely of very short film clips in rough chronological order with musical accompaniment that very much conveys the feeling of each era in film. There is no narration other than the words of the actors and actresses in the films in the short. Anything more would have ruined the magic that is this short.Produced by Turner Broadcasting Company, you'll see a heavy dose of the films that Ted Turner owned at the time - the RKO library, the pre-1986 MGM library, and the pre-1949 Warner Brothers library. Also, many silent films are and were in the public domain, so clips of very early films were possible. However, just about every significant film made up to 1994 is present, including films Turner did not own such as "It's A Wonderful Life", "Patton", "Star Wars", and "Schindler's List" at the very end, which actually won the Best Picture award for 1993.In some ways I'd like this short to be updated to include the last twenty years of film, but then they would have to ruin that perfect ending with the films of 1993 being crosscut with the one hundred year old footage of the trolley cars. I highly recommend this short - if you love film it will give you goosebumps.
Gene Bivins (gayspiritwarrior)
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.
27
The first time I watched "100 Years at the Movies" was a few years ago when it was shown during the Academy Awards. It is fast paced using not only great film clips but famous lines and music. In a film such as this it is easy to say what one could have done differently; but try a make a list of what you would include and try and not forget somebody or something. Contrary to what someone commented before "Citizen Kane" and "Some Like It Hot" are both represented in this film. The only major omissions I noticed (and maybe I missed them) were "The African Queen" and "My Fair Lady" (although both Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn are shown in other films). I will agree some titles in their timeline are questionable ("San Francisco" and "Red River") these points do not and should not take away from the masterpiece this short film is. My only real complaints are the massive gap they started with (starting with "The Birth of a Nation") when if they used the real father of the movies Georges Melies films ("A Trip to the Moon") they could have easily filled the gap. "100 Years at the Movies" is a moving film that one could watch time and again and still love it. Thank you Chuck Workman for this awesome gift you have given every film lover.
Brian Henke
This Turner Classic Movies production of a century of (mostly) American film (up to Schindler's List) is fast-paced. It begins in chronological order, but then skips during the middle, but returns to chronological order at the end. There are notable omissions (No Citizen Kane, the movie named by the American Film Institute as the Best Movie of the last 100 year; The African Queen, the only film with the Best Actor and Actress of the last century according to the AFI voters - Bogart and Hepburn; or Some Like It Hot, the AFI's pick for funniest movie.) Also no mention of live action or animated shorts (the only animation is of Jerry the mouse dancing with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh; in fact, no Disney film is not even seen.) But it keeps you riveted to see what movie clip will be shown next and you can play along at home.
