The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Well, it’s not every day that you get to watch a hundred-year-old movie. Nor does it happen that the film in question is as beguiling as Lotte Reiniger's silhouette stop-motion animation work. There are scenes in this movie that are so creatively expressed that the viewer is left wondering exactly how they were done—even in this time of digital filmmaking and realistically rendered visuals. It’s pure creativity and imagination that went into the making of this film, which tells a tale from the Arabian Nights that contains much that is familiar to most audiences—the famous story of Aladdin—blended into a second story about the titular character and his own world spanning deeds. It’s a lot of fun to watch and the story is not too difficult to follow despite the need for English sub subtitles of the German subtitles (in an otherwise wordless presentation. The current fashion is to be highly concerned with the last five minutes and to concurrently ignore everything that came before, but that is a dreadful mistake—a conclusion proved by looking at this postcard from the far ago. The light and magic here come not from a genie or a lamp, but from the continuum of human creativity and consciousness.

Metropolis

The first great sci-fi movie? I'll go with that. Once you get past the disorientation of watching a silent movie--there's always a bit of that for a modern viewer--you very quickly sink into an absorbing story and visual presentation that is every bit as creative as most movies these days. Add to that a story about out of touch elites and the dire consequences that can result from that inequality that remains very relevant to today, and the bottom line is a must-see classic. Note: this review comes from watching the "restored" version of this film.