i watched more silent films as twiddle thumbs is again out of town this week on business. she's going to mexico so often that...
1. she's officially mexican (a 'tijuanera' as she put it)
2. people are gonna start thinking she's into illegal activities
3. i'm becoming a hermit

i'm not sure if i've ever seen sergei eisenstein's "october" in it's entirety so i netflixed it. this is about the revolution of october 1917 in russia, when communism began to take over. wow, what a powerful piece of cinema. you really can't multi-task during this one, at least not in the beginning. then it starts to slow down a bit and i'm guilty of being on the net at the same time. in my defence, it was to read about the revolution and lenin. however, i still think this is a very important piece of cinema and this or eisenstein's "battleship potemkin" should be watched by anyone with a casual interest in cilent cinema.

it's time for more griffith with the gishes so i netflixed "orphans of the storm". i guess i'm into the theme of revolutions right now! you know, i'm not really into any french revolution stories but this was a good film. i suppose i should have a little more interest in the french revolution because it's a remarkable point in history for the peasants and commoners to really give a 'fuck you' to royalty and aristocrats, beheading them and all that, although they didn't get rid of the monarchy and establish a people's democracy for good. i suppose part of my disinterest is a general disinterest in france and europe in general. (i may be bitter towards the country that invented the metric system, as we still use an archaic form of measurement, hahaha. we're with you liberia and myanmar!) also one should be, or at least i am, weary of any sort of reign of terror or operation to put in place 'justice' and 'democracy'. but i think america has many ties to france in various forms and we can learn much from each other.

enough of that banter. "orphans of the storm" was really good for a silent film. it's another long griffith movie but the characters are compelling enough and story interesting enough it held my attention best of any of his films that i have seen so far. i still haven't seen too many silent films overall but i think so far that "diary of a lost girl" is the easiest for modern viewers to get into and watch completely in one sitting. this one is close but i'm not sure if many can view it all in one sitting.