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The First Two Reviews

This will probably be a somewhat longer post than I will usually make, unless a movie makes a huge impact on me, but I want to make sure my reviews get posted in the same order as my husband and I watch the movies. So here we go with The Birth of a Nation directed by D.W, Griffith and Gold Rush starring Charlie Chaplin.

Okay, here's the scoop on The Birth of a Nation, number 44 on AFI's list. It was a very impressive piece of filmmaking considering it was made in 1915. There was so much emotion and so much to take in that I'm definitely going to have to watch it again. The only problem was the recording we picked up from the library didn't have a musical score to go with it. That made it a bit difficult to watch as well.

My husband says Ebert and Roper each give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, so if we want to be like them this summer, we can only give two thumbs up, not four (as some friends had suggested). We give this one a thumbs up and a thumbs sideways for great filmmaking, but no musical score.

Gold Rush starring Charlie Chaplin is absolutely hilarious and well worth the 96 minutes of time you spend watching it. This one made number 74 on AFI's list. So many people come to the library where I work and ask for this film. Now I see why. There is action, danger, and true love (awww). We got the DVD version which contains both the 1925 silent version and the 1945 (?) remake. We watched the oiginal version which has been restored to look as it did when it was released instead of all grainy as many old movies appear. This one was recorded with, I believe, the original score, which is lively and great for baking a cake to (which is what I was doing while watching the film).

It was hard to tear oneself away from this movie and we highly reccomend it. This one gets two thumbs up!

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