019: The General (1927) - released 2/5/1927, viewed 8/17/05.<br /><br />KEVIN: After much talk of the genius of Buster Keaton and his seminal masterpiece, we finally convinced our parents to watch The General with us, on the condition that they must be sucked in within the first 30 minutes. No problem. Many of the best gags in the film are in the first half hour, including the bits with the planks of wood, and Keaton's gut-busting deadpan double take to yet another bizarre mishap, which had all of us laughing. It didn't take long before both my folks were totally into the film. There were quite a few gags that I'd forgotten about, mostly stuff after the bridge collapses, like the gag with the faulty sword. Even so, looking back on the piece, I'd say that this is one of those movies where there's not a single wasted moment in the entire picture. From start to finish, it's perfect.<br /><br />DOUG: We watched Keaton's The General before in Film Expression class, and it is thanks to this that we have so many Keaton films on the agenda. Still, although The Navigator and Sherlock Jr. were excellent, they still don't quite measure up to Keaton's crowning achievement. We actually showed this movie to our parents, and they were impressed too (okay, Mom fell asleep, but Dad loved it). Dad's favorite part was also mine, the part where Keaton sits down in the conductor's seat to find an obstructing rail car that he just disposed of has miraculously reappeared, and then a moment later he sits down to find that the car has vanished once again. The subtle tics on his face at this moment are absolutely priceless. Not just the surprise, but the frustration of "why does this keep happening to me?" Another of my favorite scenes is when Keaton knocks an obstructing beam off the track with another beam. Mom was like, "I wonder how many takes that took," to which I responded, "You only get one." We recently were shown this film in our History of Silent Film class, and our textbook had a section comparing The General with Chaplin's Gold Rush (comparing Gold's circular style with General's linear style, contrasting their approaches to women, and so forth).<br /><br />Last film viewed: Metropolis (1927). Last film chronologically: The Kid Brother (1927). Next film viewed: College (1927). Next film chronologically: It (1927).<br /><br />The Movie Odyssey is an exhaustive, chronological project where we watch as many milestone films as possible, starting with D.W. Griffith's Intolerance in 1916 and working our way through, year by year, one film at a time. We also write a short review for each and every film. In this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of the time period, the films of the era, and each film in context, while at the same time just watching a lot of great movies, most of which we never would have watched otherwise.