(If you want more praise for Buster Keaton, check out my review of The Navigator by clicking right HERE)
You gotta love Buster Keaton,whether you're a film school aficionado or not. He just -quite frankly- was brilliant and so ahead of his time. His films still so damn good more than 90 years later. In fact, I don't see one too many brilliant films like his these days. Think about 1922's Sherlock Jr. which is a Hugo of its time, infiltrating the frame of a movie -making it a movie within a movie! In fact, I don't think there was another movie before it that actually played with its narrative this way- a sort of Adaptation and a beautiful tribute to movies that stands along the best of them. Sheer brilliant set pieces and a Keaton in full form, playing a Sherlock Holmes-esque character in his own day dream of a movie; the hero, the man who saves the day, the person that gets the girl and solves the big mystery. He is a film projectionist that believes in the magic of movies, a man so devoid of harmful traits that he truly wants to be the hero. And oh the editing, so damn good - in fact one of the greatest edited movies of all time (along with other Keaton gems such as The General and The Navigator). We all want to be Sherlock Jr. - At least Keaton thinks so and makes a movie that proves to be entertaining as well as gasp-worthy in its action.