A magician and some assistants put up a series of posters of music hall acts in a frame. Then the magician brings each poster to life.
Social & External
The people behind it
Gaston Velle
More than a dozen shots, some less than a second, of people wearing roller skates in various settings: a young man in skates sits on a low guardrail next to a city sidewalk reading, a woman with a child shoots by, a constable skates gingerly, a man skates by in suit and vest, another cleans front steps, children skate into a room where papa and siblings sit, someone slips at the base of stairs, a man in a cowboy hat moves fast, two jovial chubby women shake hands, our man in the hat trips over a wheelbarrow, then falls again as he rounds a corner, then down goes the constable. It's a crazy day on the city sidewalks.
Max is a stage struck youth, and because of a deep-seated desire to go on the stage, refuses to consent to a marriage his father has planned for him. The girl, whom Max has never met, is also stage struck, and entertains no wish of marrying him, though her mother is anxious to see her make the alliance. The parents finally manage to bring the young people together, and they, in turn, exert all their skill in an attempt to disgust each other. An accidental meeting between the two when they are off guard causes them to change their minds.
A dumbfounded butterfly cather watches on as a piece of wood comes to life. Intrigued by his discovery, he decides to catch it.
Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen gets his own story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy meets boy!
A retiring man in rioting Athens faces ghosts and memories from the past to make choices about the present.
Automata is the eerie, black-humoured story of Henry, the last in a long line of duck hunters. The film examines the connection between hunter and prey and obsession in the face of extinction. It posits the question 'what would happen to someone at the tipping point; the moment where they are directly responsible for the extinction of an entire species' Duck hunting in Australia is a very contentious issue and every year hunters and protesters clash. The experimental side is evidenced with the lack of dialog, non-linear narrative and a 'score' by Belgian sound designer Christina Clar. The majority of the sound tracking and design was completed before the edit in Australia, thus reversing the usual process. The sound post production was completed in Brussels and includes recordings from deep within remote caves.
The ultimate manual when it comes to the proper handling of the living dead. Recommended behavioural patterns in case of imminent Zombie epidemics are explained in comprehensible steps and vividly executed.
Mad God is a fully practical stop-motion film set in a Miltonesque world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs.
Andy Gump is a clueless yokel that decides that he can run for President.
Three reporters and an office girl are trying to stop a bacteriological strike by some powerful western business leaders against the USSR.
Short tourist film set on a tropical island where a sailor falls in love with a native girl.
An early Thomas Edison short. A young woman is kidnapped while attending a play in Chinatown. A reporter attends another play in Chinatown, is likewise kidnapped and rescues the young woman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2011 in partnership with the National Film Preservation Foundation New Zealand Project.
The boozy mercenary of the title, based on the actual historical figure of Naoyuki Ban (1567-1615), attempts to rid a haunted castle of spooks.
Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.
The Farmer is abducted by a capering Jungle Goddess. As pre-Code as a Terrytoon ever got. Most animation is by Frank Moser; with him are Art Babbitt, Jerry Shields, Bill Tytla and others.
The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.
A scarce and seldom seen cartoon from 1937 with excellent hot jazz and containing caricatures of Cab Calloway, Ted Lewis and Bessie Smith.
Nancy and Sluggo do their bit for the USO.
Charlie is released from prison and immediately swindled by a fake parson. A fellow ex-convict convinces Charlie to help burglarize a house.
Mother, father and daughter go to the park. The women doze off on a bench while the father plays a hide-and-seek game with a girl, blindfolded. Charlie leads him into a lake. Both dozing ladies on the bench fall for Charlie and invite him for dinner. The father returns home with a friend. Charlie rushes upstairs and dresses like a woman, shaving his mustache. Both men fall for Charlie.
The Little Fellow finds the girl of his dreams and work on a family farm. He helps defend the farm against criminals, and all seems well, until he discovers the girl of his dreams already has someone in her life. Unwilling to be a problem in their lives, he takes to the road, though he is seen skipping and swinging his cane as if happy to be back on the road where he knows he belongs.
Aspiring filmmakers Mel Funn, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell go to a financially troubled studio with an idea for a silent movie. In an effort to make the movie more marketable, they attempt to recruit a number of big name stars to appear, while the studio's creditors attempt to thwart them.
This is the rambunctious, ridiculous and totally true story of how the Minions conquered Hollywood, became movie stars, lost everything, unleashed monsters onto the world and then banded together to try and save the planet from the mayhem they had just created.
Félicien Trewey uses a basic prop to create comical hats and their accompanying caricatures.
After a visit to a pub, Charlie and Ben cause a ruckus at a posh restaurant. Charlie later finds himself in a compromising position at a hotel with the head waiter's wife.
Mal emerges from the shadows of a mystical forest onto a dark coastline where she crosses paths with Dizzy.
The Oscar-winning cat-and-mouse twosome--Tom and Jerry--returns with another adventure. When Tom and Jerry's irrepressible curiosity gets the best of them, the mysterious magic ring that Tom guards with his life ends up stuck over Jerry's head. Now, Jerry must find a way to free himself of the ring while fleeing Tom, who wants to remove the ring any way he can! Find out if the pair can conjure up a solution in this fur-raising, madcap escapade.
A janitor at a bank is in love with a secretary and dreams that she has fallen in love with him too.
Pierre and Jacques are working as waiters at a restaurant where the cooks go on strike. When the two are forced to work as bakers, the striking cooks put dynamite in the dough, with explosive results.
A shipowner intends to scuttle his ship on its last voyage to get the insurance money. Charlie, a tramp in love with the owner's daughter, is grabbed by the captain and promises to help him shanghai some seamen. The daughter stows away to follow Charlie. Charlie assists in the galley and attempts to serve food during a gale.
Monsieur Cinema, a hundred years old, lives alone in a large villa. His memories fade away, so he engages a young woman to tell him stories about all the movies ever made.
Stan and Ollie join the French Foreign Legion after Ollie's sweetheart rejects him.
A documentary filmmaker interviews the now-famous Trevor Slattery from behind bars.
Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most dada film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.
38-year-old Alice has everything to become the next editor-in-chief of Rebelle magazine except for her uptight image. But when the young and charming Balthazar, barely 20, crosses Alice's path, she realizes that he holds the key to her promotion.
Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.
Tom ties up Spike and sneaks into the courtyard of the glamorous Toodles Galore with his bass, hoping to woo her with his song, much to the annoyance of a sleeping Jerry.
After NBA star Kevin Durant switches talent with 16 year old Brian, the teenager becomes the star of his high school team, but Durant starts struggling and eventually learns an important lesson.
