Every Friday Chris hand-selects a streaming recommendation for your weekend.
This Week’s Featured Flick
Buster Keaton’s inventive silent comedy form 1924, Sherlock Jr, on Netflix.
NETFLIX DESCRIPTION
When a rival pursues his sweetheart and gets him accused of theft, a hapless projectionist dreams himself into a detective movie and cracks the case.
I know what some of you are thinking, a silent film? Really?? Yes. Really. Here’s why:
A) Buster Keaton is simply amazing. You can’t resist his charm, plus he had preternatural knack for physical comedy that holds up even today.
2) It’s only 44 minutes long! You can knock this out before your roommate finished catching up on last week’s episode of Game of Thrones or during the halftime of your beloved sportsball game. No, seriously. Watch this at half time and then thank later me for the couple extra commercials you’re able to skip in the third trimester of the regional championship match-battle.
D) Dat metacinema. Even in his earliest shorts Keaton loved breaking the fourth wall. Often characters would pause and make direct eye contact with the audience to add the button on a visual gag. In Sherlock Jr. he doesn’t just break the fourth wall, he walks straight through it! After falling asleep on the job Buster’s projectionist protagonist finds that he a can pass right through the silver screen and interact with the characters on it.