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Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)

Writer/Director Bill Morrison has constructed a documentary that is a must-see for documentary buffs; and especially people who love documentaries about film subjects.

Dawson City was a village that sprang into a city during the Klondike gold rush in the Canadian Yukon starting in the late 1890s. Gold fever caused a stampede of prospectors and associated businesses, which ballooned the town to a population of 30,000 citizens. When big companies came in to mine the gold, after several years most private prospectors left to try their luck in the Nome, AK gold fields, eventually dwindling the population to under 5000, then to 1400 today.

During its heyday several early movie theaters were built which showed popular silent films of the day. The large movie companies shipped films to the area, which oftentimes didn't arrive until 2 years after release. The studios realized that the films would be too expensive to have return shipped, so the theater owners were instructed simply to destroy them!

But amazingly, of the thousands of films discarded, 500 or so were found in a cache beneath a skating rink! Most of them had significant water damage, but some of most of them were able to be restored, and are sampled in the documentary.

This is an important find because 75% of all silent films produced in Hollywood were destroyed. And the ones discovered in Dawson City were unique because they are the only copies of those films in existence.

Another interesting tidbit for film buffs is that Sid Grauman and his father had produced various forms of entertainment in Dawson City, while hoping to build a theater there. Later Grauman went to Los Angeles where he opened up the Million Dollar Theater (1918), then the world famous Egyptian (1921), and Chinese (1926) theaters in Hollywood.

This is a fascinating 2 hour film, with loads of footage and vintage photography. It's available on YouTube and various streaming services. There's also a 40 minute documentary on YouTube about Bill Morrison's making of this wonderful film.

Doc's rating 8/10

La La Land -

Still pretty decent in spite of itself.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I honestly couldn't stand this film! Sorrry Fabulous! Have not seen for 4 years but just could not get on with the brattishness.

This sounds an interesting film, care to expand????

I watched Gran Torino once again yesterday. It remainded to myself, when I saw it for the first time I thought US are quite difficult country to live. What would you say about picture of US in this movie?

★★★★
Wow, Paul Schrader's best film since Mishima (didn't watched Dog eat Dog though).




Lots of references to greater films: Winter Light (Bergman), Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson) and more!

It's been a long time since I watched characters actually having a conversation. Usually, american films uses: close-up person 1>cut>close-up person 2>cut>cut>cut>cut.... Nice to see some different way to use the ****ing camera.

Ethan Hawke was great and that ending was VERY GOOD!

I'd say we use to make really cool cars I had a Torino once myself, though it wasn't Gran But it was cool.

I liked the movie, but you can't judge a country by a movie of course....except to say the U.S. has a very diversified mix of people from all over the world living here, like shown in the movie.

We too

I see your point CR. What I meant was that in Poland picture of U.S. was equal to American Dream. Especially in time of communism.

The Beast Must Die

The Burning

The Editor

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

I saw "Mr Jones".

I like how it starts sort of but it doesn't really go anyway. It's a found footage horror whose cinematography is so stylized it's hard to take it seriously because with found footage, every effect has to be contrived by the characters.

Another very over-hyped movie. Only interesting because of the gay love, which was the case with Brokeback Mountain. Would have been excruciatingly boring if it was about heterosexual love. And there’s going to be a sequel.





Started out very comedic & then got very dark. Very allegorical, I guess, if I could be bothered to work out the allegories. Surprised at the end to find the director was Alexander Payne. Not bad though & Matt Damon was very good. Christoph Waitz over-acting as did one or two others.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

My wife and I put this on Sunday night, and even though we were enjoying it, we couldn't stay awake past the first hour. It's good but not good enough to really overcome it's slow pace. We finished it the next day and she ended up not caring for it. I thought it was pretty good but nothing close to special. The performances are good and the near constant pulsating score adds to the tension. There are some startling scenes that I thought saved it, but then I thought the finale was subpar. It's a well made movie but not one I'd care to see again.

Who is that? She reminds me of someone I like, clobbering people with an umbrella.

Shoeshine -
Saw this before, just wanted to enjoy it again.

★★★

Friday The Thirteenth (Victor Saville, 1933) +
Far less scary than the 1980 film with only two deaths but still quite enjoyable

Our Betters (George Cukor, 1933)
Nobody loses any parents but there is a handbag and an Ernest involved

Superman Unbound

Not bad for a cartoon.. I'd love to see a live action Brainiac!




Ghost Stories

Underwhelming and so blatantly adapted from a stage play.. forces you to watch a very basic anthology of ghost stories so it can make a revelation about the personal ghosts which haunt our lives... the rest is filler... insulting and not as clever as it thinks