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'The Doll' with Ossi Oswalda and Hermann Thimig: Early Ernst Lubitsch satirical fantasy starring 'the German Mary Pickford' has similar premise to that of the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy 'Seven Chances.' 'The Doll': San Francisco Silent Film Festival presented fast-paced Ernst Lubitsch comedy starring the German Mary Pickford – Ossi Oswalda Directed by Ernst Lubitsch (So This Is Paris, The Wedding March), the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival presentation The Doll / Die Puppe (1919) has one of the most amusing mise-en-scènes ever recorded. The set is created by cut-out figures that gradually come to life; then even more cleverly, they commence the fast-paced action. It all begins when a shy, confirmed bachelor, Lancelot (Hermann Thimig), is ordered by his rich uncle (Max Kronert), the Baron von Chanterelle, to marry for a large sum of money. As to be expected, mayhem ensues. Lancelot is forced to flee from the hordes of eligible maidens, eventually...

Now this is a list that could result in a lot of fascinating dissection and thanks to HitFix it comes to our attention almost three years after it was originally released back in 2012, celebrating the Motion Picture Editors Guild's 75th anniversary. Over at HitFix, Kris Tapley asks, "Is this news to anyone elsec" Um, yes, I find it immensely interesting and a perfect starting point for anyone looking to further explore the art of film editing. In an accompanying article we get the particulars concerning what films were eligible and how films were to be considered: In our Jan-feb 12 issue, we asked Guild members to vote on what they consider to be the Best Edited Films of all time. Any feature-length film from any country in the world was eligible. And by "Best Edited," we explained, we didn't just mean picture; sound, music and mixing were to be considered as well.

A random bit of researching on a Tuesday night led me to something I didn't know existed: The Motion Picture Editors Guild's list of the 75 best-edited films of all time. It was a feature in part celebrating the Guild's 75th anniversary in 2012. Is this news to anyone else? I confess to having missed it entirely. Naturally, I had to dig in. What was immediately striking to me about the list — which was decided upon by the Guild membership and, per instruction, was considered in terms of picture and sound editorial as opposed to just the former — was the most popular decade ranking. Naturally, the 1970s led with 17 mentions, but right on its heels was the 1990s. I wouldn't have expected that but I happen to agree with the assessment. Thelma Schoonmaker's work on "Raging Bull" came out on top, an objectively difficult choice to dispute, really. It was so transformative,...

"For a time in the mid-to-late 1920s," writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times, "the art of the cinema meant only one thing to the serious-minded film critics of America and Europe: Soviet-style montage, or the art of cutting shots together in a way that would produce ideas and emotions beyond those expressed in the images themselves…. The montage vogue did not last long…. But the fascination of this road not much taken remains, as reflected in Kino's recent Blu-ray releases of Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin and his first feature, Strike, and now by a boxed set of eight films from Flicker Alley, Landmarks of Early Soviet Film. Part of the folklore of Soviet montage is that it was invented by the idealistic filmmakers of a newborn nation as a way of converting imported American movies from capitalist pettifoggery into proletarian uplift by rearranging sequences and redefining characters. Alas, none...

Director: Sergei Eisenstein Writers: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Aleksandrov, Ilya Kravchunovsky, Valeryan Pletnyov Starring: Maksim Shtraukh, Grigori Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gomorov, I. Ivanov, Ivan Klyukvin, Aleksandr Antonov, Yudif Glizer, Boris Yurtsev In 1924, the Proletcult Theater decided to commission a series of eight films; entitled Toward the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the films were to trace the rise of the Communist Party from the late 19th century to 1917. The director of the Proletcult Theater, Valeryan Pletnyov, invited Sergei Eisenstein to collaborate with him on what was intended to be the fifth film in the series: Strike. The only of the eight films that ever achieved fruition, Eisenstein claimed that Strike was the most significant story of the series because it contained "the most mass action." Clocking in at 82 minutes, Strike was released as Eisenstein's first full-length feature film in 1925 (he made the immortally famous The Battleship Potemkin later in the same year). The...

We're used to spy films in which the communists are the bad guys – but the eastern bloc had its own secret agent screen heroes, too

A secret agent is attending a party in an elegant apartment. Beautiful young people wear the latest fashions, sip martinis and canoodle in corners. The spy slips into a back room and starts breaking into a safe. It looks like a scene from a James Bond movie – except this is communist Hungary, and the heroes are what western policy makers in the cold war would have called "them", rather than "us". The film is Fotó Háber, an ultra-stylish spy drama made in Budapest in 1963, and, like many of the films emerging from behind what was the iron curtain, it blows apart the glum, grey image of the eastern bloc from the inside.

That we have the chance to see Fotó Háber is thanks to a...

Thor (12A)

(Kenneth Branagh, 2011, Us) Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba. 114 mins

Let the silly season commence with this expensive comic-book movie, which takes full advantage of its second-tier superhero, free casting rein and Asgard-sized budget to deliver some premium disposable spectacle. Hemsworth's beefy, impetuous thunder god is literally brought down to earth, where thanks to mortal hotties like Portman, he learns there's more to life than swinging a hammer around, but not much more.

Cedar Rapids (15)

(Miguel Arteta, 2011, Us) Ed Helms, John C Reilly, Anne Heche. 87 mins

The corruption of Helms's naive smalltown nerd via a debauched midwest insurance convention is as broadly amusing as you'd expect, striking a filthy-sweet tone somewhere between the Us Office and The Hangover.

Tracker (12A)

(Ian Sharp, 2010, Nz) Ray Winstone, Temuera Morrison, Andy Anderson. 102 mins

Credit to Ray for straying off home turf, as a Boer veteran...

Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.

This Week’s New Instant Releases…

Promised Lands (1974)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Documentary

Director: Susan Sontag

Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles

Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...

Tina Mabry's "Mississippi Damned," an independent American production, won the Gold Hugo as the best film in the 2009 Chicago International Film Festival, and added Gold Plaques for best supporting actress (Jossie Thacker) and best screenplay (Mabry). It tells the harrowing story of three black children growing up in rural Mississippi in circumstances of violence and addiction. The film's trailer and an interview with Mabry are linked at the bottom.

Kylee Russell in "Mississippi Damned"

The win came over a crowed field of competitors from all over the world, many of them with much larger budgets. The other big winner at the Pump Room of the Ambassador East awards ceremony Saturday evening was by veteran master Marco Bellocchio of Italy, who won the Silver Hugo as best director for "Vincere," the story of Mussolini's younger brother. Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Filippo Timi won Silver Hugos as best actress and actor,...