New movie reviews, DVD reviews, interviews, and all things film.

Follow Me

• Dark Shadows ***
• Darling Companion **1/2
• God Bless America ***
• Marvel's The Avengers ***1/2
• ReGeneration ***
• Sound of My Voice ***
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits ***1/2
• The Raven ***
• Safe **1/2
• The Lucky One 1/2*
• 4:44 Last Day on Earth **1/2
• Blue Like Jazz **
• The Cabin in the Woods ***1/2
• Damsels in Distress ***1/2
• Lockout **1/2
• The Three Stooges ***
• The Turin Horse ****
• We Have a Pope **1/2
• American Reunion **
• Goon ***
• More

• Bird of Paradise
• Maniac Cop
• Miss Representation
• Mother's Day (2012)
• Murder Obsession
• Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
• Underworld Awakening
• The Vow
• Clueless
• Haywire
• Hit!
• Men in Black
• New Year's Eve
• The Red House
• More

• Peter Lord
• Abel Ferrara
• Nicholas Sparks
• Whit Stillman
• Sean Hayes
• Terence Davies
• Peter Lord Interview
• Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
• Taika Waititi
• Will Ferrell
• Interview: Ewan McGregor [SF Examiner]
• Interview: the 'Project X' stars [SF Examiner]
• Interview: Oren Moverman
• Interview: Rachel McAdams
• Interview: Ti West
• Interview: Elizabeth Banks
• 2011: The Year's Best Films
• Year's Best DVDs and Blu-Rays
• San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards
• The Decade's Ten Best Films: 2000-2009
• My Top 100 Films [Updated]
• My Top 60 Directors [Updated]
• Christmas Movies
• Essential Halloween & Horror Movies
• Cult Movies
• More Features and Interviews

• Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, by Alonso Duralde
• Not Quite a Memoir: Of Films, Books, the World, by Judy Stone
• James Agee: The Library of America Collection, by James Agee
• Just Making Movies, by Ronald L. Davis
• More Books

• Home
• Reviews A-C
• Reviews D-F
• Reviews G-J
• Reviews K-M
• Reviews N-Q
• Reviews R-T
• Reviews U-Z

The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

SEARCH MOVIES / CELEB

Georges Méliès: Encore (2010)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Tactical Magic

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Georges Méliès: Encore on DVD

In 2008, Flicker Alley performed the gargantuan task of compiling 173 surviving Georges Méliès films into one giant, five-disc DVD box set, Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema - 1896-1913, which ran "over 13 hours." Since the release of that set, 26 more films have surfaced, and Flicker Alley has dutifully released a single disc supplement to the big box set. (I suppose, if they were really ruthless, they could have re-issued the set with the extra disc and made customers pay for the original five discs again!) But though it's meant as a companion piece, it also works well as a stand alone. It shows Méliès in some different moods; the set includes more trick films, military re-enactments, "dream films," slapstick comedies (How Bridget's Lover Escaped) and even some heavy melodramas worthy of D.W. Griffith.

Some of these dramatic epics, The Christmas Angel (1904) in particular, don't move very well in a narrative sense, and Méliès intended for live readers to narrate along with the films. Flicker Alley provides this original narration both in French and in English. The set also includes Under the Seas (1907), with some interesting camera effects, and an early chiller called The Haunted Castle (1896). There are some fragments here as well, such as the interesting-looking Robinson Crusoe (1902), as well as a couple of Méliès imitations that audiences and historians often mistook for the real thing. The cardboard DVD box comes with a helpful list of films, dates, running times and information about the (brand new) musical scores.

With: n/a
Written by: Georges Méliès
Directed by: Georges Méliès
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 114 minutes
Date: February 16, 2010