Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Micitype Pretty Good

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Console best movie i've ever seen.

MisterWhiplash I'm reminded seeing Forgotten Silver- of course after knowing that it was all a 'hoax' and that there is no filmmaker Colin MacKenzie- of a film where another hoax was played but with real filmmakers, Incident at Loch Ness. In both films the the ones making the film put themselves in the film, and the stories within the film within the films are fantastical and ambitious turns (in Loch Ness, a documentary by Werner Herzog about the search for Nessie, and in Silver, Peter Jackson's search for the elusive location and film cans of the first un-finished feature-length film made in New Zealand). In Forgotten Silver, however, the satire isn't really on high about how a film gets made from start to finish, although it does include that as part of it. It's really out to mock what was so delightful and absurd about the lengths to which filmmakers in the silent era looked to be further and further with their innovations and wild dreams of ambitious epics, but usually succumbed to the easiest thing- making people laugh.Colin MacKenzie, the "pinoeer" presented in this mockumentary by Jackson and his collaborator Costa Botes, is such a filmmaker, and his up & downs type story is chronicled and inter-cut with the search for the missing film he took twenty years to make and had to hide away as to not have it taken away by the Russians &/or Italian mob. It's also done in a seemingly straightforward documentary way, like seeing one of the PBS specials or something (I'm also reminded of the recent mock-doc Confederate States of America). It ends up not being a laugh a minute really, and I found myself chuckling more than getting full gut-busting laughs like with some of Jackson's more twisted comedies like Meet the Feebles or Dead/Alive. What's amusing more-so to me is that the 'secret' of Colin MacKenzie- and that so many in New Zealand ended up thinking he was for real and did really film his friend beating the Wright brothers to flight by several months and things like that- came under the package of a Peter Jackson product, who before making this had three of his four works as some of the most absurd, low-budget pieces of work to ever come from that corner of the world.But once that passes, and the idea that the hoax ends up working in showing what is great about the whole evolution and history of careers with directors in movies, as well as the kind of precision in restoring film, while at the same time putting some good touches to lampoon it. This comes out clearest in the actual silent footage itself, where MacKenzie breaks through first with color, but because he (unintentionally) shoots topless natives in the shot, he's thrown in jail after the judges deliberate long enough to watch the footage repeatedly. There's also MacKenzie's bread & butter as he tries to finance his pet project, Salome (the film Jackson and his team are sort of after in present-day), which are the random silent comedies of Stan the Man (Peter Corrigan in hilarious make-up), who goes about hitting people un-suspecting pies, as he figures that attacks that are on the innocent (which happens after he strikes a child in one of his early comedies) could work well, that is, until the Prime Minister is on the scene. And the actual footage shown of Salome is an extraordinarily mix of both goofy and sincere technical feats, as Jackson and Botes go in a fine style at the way the old epics from the likes of Griffith and De Mille, but with the bizarre touches Jackson's best at like with the main female star chopping off a character's head and playing around with it.All of this is great fun, even if in-between there's a lot of actual sincere stuff put in, also in part fun in being a dead-pan examination of the the ups for MacKenzie (his ill-begotten but always accomplished feats of invention and creation) and downs too (i.e. losing his wife and child during filming his epic, and subsequently dying in world war 1). Stranger still with the picture is that Jackson and Botes almost have a kind of affection for the MacKenzie character- and as the former later displayed with his brawny popcorn epics- that even makes the material not too shallow in terms of approach for the viewer. It also might add frustration, I'd guess, if one didn't know that it was a big gag in the guise of professional historical research. But it ends up working better than I expected, and there's even a gut-bustlingly funny bit at the end as Harvey Weinstein expresses his confidence with his recently trimmed version of Salome, cutting out an hour out of the restored print.For film buffs, Forgotten Silver is a weird kind of satirical keep-sake only Jackson and his Wingnut people could cook up.

tedg Spoilers herein.In 1988, Peter Greenaway made a little film called `Death in the Seine.' Filmmakers have long played with notions of created reality, but this was a clever take: real people drowned in the Seine during a period that by political accidents was erased from the calendar. But we have the reports of the coroner for these anonymous people. By `showing' them, Greenaway was reinvesting their lives with reality. An amazing idea, made sweeter by having the `corpses' obviously be alive.In 1994, film enthusiast Peter Jackson did much the same thing with `Heavenly Creatures.' He took a real story about a famous but now forgotten case and turned it into an essay on constructed film reality. In his case, this involved Orson Welles and an ersatz Camelot named Borovnia (borrow nvia).To judge from that film, he took the matter seriously. To judge from this one, he took it personally. The `creatures' weren't the girls, instead the fictitious beings they animated. The next year he made this film with himself as the animator. In both cases, he plays with the nature of writing. He references Welles, of course, and `Picnic at Hanging Rock,' of course. But most of all he plays under the kiwi skin with all sorts of inside jokes to exploit the national foible.But there's enough for the rest of us, especially if you love movies. He says this is just a joke, and he may even believe it. But there's plenty of intelligent foolery here: just in the `Salome' section. This is a recreation using exclusively modern idioms. This is post- 'Battleship Potemkin' and more obviously post- `Godfather.'It is as if we were given a Shakespeare play that mentioned watergate. The one really big goof is Harvey Weinstein (combined with industry shill Leonard Maltin). They could as easily have been talking about `Lord of the Rings:' huge marvelous cities in New Zealand, stock that steals 2000 eggs, deliberate pies in the face, and even the soap opera about our poor sojourner. Rings or films, it is all magic.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

David A Dein What is truth in film? Is there any? That's a question you ponder after many repeated viewings of Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) and Costa Botes' (Saving Grace) Forgotten Silver, a delightful `Mock-umentary.' I remember the first time I saw this film, it was 1997 at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I remember the audience laughing, as I have never heard any crowd laugh before. This is a good natured and very funny film.The film follows the story of Colin McKenzie (Thomas Robbins) a pioneer filmmaker from New Zealand. Colin is a genius; he invented brand new emulsion techniques in 1902. He photographed the first human in flight, and it wasn't the Wright Brothers. He invented color and sound for film decades before anyone else, and in the end he mounted one of the greatest epic motion pictures of all time, SALOME: A Tale of the Bible.The movie is amazing. Any lesser film would track down stock footage to tell the story but what Botes and Jackson accomplish with grainy 16mm film and original photography is just amazing. The final 20 minutes of the movie is a painstakingly elaborate silent film that feels like real period silent movie. Colin McKenzie might not exist, but this film makes him alive.The story goes that they showed this film on New Zealand Television and many people bought the joke. There are enough markers to make the utterly impossible. My favorite, the steam powered film camera. But then there are great moments with Sam Neil (Jurassic Park), Leonard Maltin (TV's Hot Ticket), and Harvey Weinstein (An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn), that give this movie and air of credibility. I also enjoyed Beatrice Ashton's wonderful performance as Hannah McKenzie. It's done with all seriousness. There is no tongue-and-cheek in her naturally moving delivery of obviously fake lines.As I mentioned before there is a silent film that takes up the last 20 minutes of FORGOTTEN SILVER. Sarah McLeod (Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of The Ring) plays May Belle, Colin's wife and leading lady, she is perfect. Her role as Salome is so good that you buy it. The camera love's McLeod's face, she has those soft pudgy features that are incredibly feminine, but also vampishly sexy. This film looks so easy, but had to be absolutely painstaking. But I'm glad Jackson and Botes took the time to make it. It's a wonderful film. Imaginative, beautiful, and well worth it's hour and fifteen-minute running time. Don't forget to spend some time with….FORGOTTEN SILVER.

sippan Absolutely hilarious. It just gets better and better even when you think it won't be possible. If Peter Jackson's name wasn't on it, I would believe without hesitation that Money Python had made it. I already knew Peter Jackson could make action movies, dramas, and horror movies... (and whatever-category-"Braindead"-falls-in movies) Now I also know he can make comedies. He is in the world of directors what George Clooney is in the world of actors, and this is one of his best movies.