Best Film of 2006!

Forget Little Miss Sunshine and all that crap! The best picture of 2006 is only 30 seconds long.



I've been talking to Michael Orta at the pedestrian safety organization PEDS, about possibly shooting a PSA for their group. He showed me this British PSA and honestly, I think about it more than any movie I saw in 2006. It is amazing.

You think I'm joking, but I'm not. Who says the best movies have to be feature-length? One of my favorite movies of all time is something called Photographing a Female Crook (1904, Biograph Co.). It is jam packed with more technical daring (a dolly shot in 1904!), more thematic complexity, and more dramatic power than anything you can see at the modern-day multiplex... and it's less than one minute long! You look at it once, you think it's one thing, you watch it again, and you see this layer of meaning beneath the surface, you watch it again, and suddenly the film is communicating things you thought were beyond the beyond the abilities of filmmakers of 1904. Dang. I guess I need to find my copy and digitize it and upload it so people will know what I'm talking about.

I recently read Theodore Roszak's Flicker (thanks Genevieve for the tip) and Photographing a Female Crook is one of those films that might have inspired the novel. Something that reveals more meaning the more you look at it... and especially if one is versed in the language of silent film and can watch pre-talkies in the proper mindset. But don't get me started on that issue.