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Pop Off: ‘Sherlock Jr.’ and the sound of silence
By By Timmy Semenza
Campus Correspondent

Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Updated: Tuesday, September 13, 2011 00:09



I just watched Buster Keaton's classic silent comedy, "Sherlock, Jr." In spite of the fact that I was alone in my apartment, I was laughing out loud. Nonstop. How often does that happen to you when you watch any contemporary comedies? If a film is truly funny, should it not be just as enjoyable when you are alone as it is when you are with a bunch of your friends? I have been told that "The Hangover" is the funniest thing ever, yet I didn't even crack a smile when I watched it alone. It's not that I didn't "get the jokes"–they're hardly over my head; they are just lazily made. I'm going to tell you why this contemporary comedy is inferior to Keaton's masterpiece. And it's not that I'm a snob, or that I only like old stuff, so please don't throw any bricks through my window.

Since "Sherlock, Jr." is a silent movie, most of the funny stuff is visual. In Keaton's case, that means elaborate stunts and inventive sight gags. Over 80 years later, comedies have focused their energy on being endlessly quotable. "The Hangover," for example, has a bunch of one-liners that have managed to enter into our popular psyche. Who hasn't heard these Zach Galifianakis gems: "…it's not a purse, it's called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one," and, "Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine"? They're silly and funny lines that fit in well with the current trend of absurdism that is running through comedy.

But these quotes tend to get lost among the rest of the garbagey and offensive script, a lot of which is spoken by Bradley Cooper, like, "Paging Dr. Faggot. Dr. Faggot!" and, "Hey, this is Phil. Leave me a message, or don't, but do me a favor: don't text me, it's gay." The writers, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, did a brilliant job here. They really broke the mold when they reminded me of how people used to talk when I was an eighth grader. Is that the legacy filmmakers want to leave behind?

Conversely, Keaton put in some of his most impressive stunts of his career into his movie, like when he dangerously hangs from a railroad water tank and empties its contents onto his head. This actually caused him to fracture his neck, but the feat was so impressive that they kept the footage in anyway. There is also the wildly creative billiards scene, where Keaton shoots pool around a ball that would explode if struck with sufficient force.

Both of these set pieces occupy only a small part of the film's brief 44-minute runtime, which is filled with other brilliant scenes. Compare this to "The Hangover's" flabby 100 minutes, and you can see why the older film is so much more memorable. Pound for pound, "Sherlock, Jr." displays far more ingenuity and hilarity than Todd Phillips' overrated flick. Seek it out to see what I mean.

I remember seeing Sherlock, Jr. once in a theater and when Buster proceeded to do the amazing billiard ball scene, the audience was strangely quiet. I was quite sure that they didn't realize that he was doing it for real - they must have thought it was all a camera trick!

I could not agree more with the article. There was a time I only wanted to see silents in the theater but now with HD and flat screen I would love to see the film again.

Now this article demonstrates that there's some hope for the future generation. And having the beautiful Blu-ray from Kino with a choice of three different scores, each worthwhile in its own way (although Mont Alto's is easily the best), makes it an easy decision to revisit the film every few months, each time with a different music score. And it's short enough to double-feature with almost anything if you have guests over for a screening (I last ran it with the Blu-ray of THE HUSTLER for the pool table angle, have run it with a couple other Keaton features, and as part of a New Year's Eve program of comedies, and it was once released theatrically with a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film, all of which are also now on Blu-ray).

As for THE HANGOVER, I never bothered to see it theatrically, and his description certainly does not make it sound worth wasting time with (those lines are considered "quotable"??!). Maybe if somebody brings over a Blu-ray of it along with a bottle of good Scotch, I'd consider taking a look after starting off with ONE A.M. and THE CURE, or maybe Marie Dressler and Polly Moran in DANGEROUS FEMALES.

It makes my heart bleed when people I know laugh at the likes of Family Guy or movies like this. While I admit, some (and I mean very little) of it is humorous, the majority of it is just misuse of the word "gay", raunchy jokes put there merely for shock value, and pop-culture references (not a bad thing in itself, however, 80% of the jokes on Family Guy consist of this sort of"joke").