Michael Apted is one of those rare, versatile filmmakers who can make mindless Hollywood blockbusters and thoughtful independent productions with equal aplomb. Apted's resume is as impressive as it is diverse, and has included a handful of critically praised documentaries, a James Bond movie (The World Is Not Enough), and an Oscar-nominated drama (Coal Miner's Daughter). Enough is Apted at his most commercial, and, unfortunately, his least compelling. This is a by-the-numbers thriller that doesn't even succeed on the most basic, visceral level. One can only hope that Apted is taking his salary for this effort and putting it into the next movie in the 7 Up series.

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Horror Films are unsettling films designed to frighten and panic, cause dread and alarm, and to invoke our hidden worst fears, often in a terrifying, shocking finale, while captivating and entertaining us at the same time in a cathartic experience. Horror films effectively center on the dark side of life, the forbidden, and strange and alarming events. They deal with our most primal nature and its fears: our nightmares, our vulnerability, our alienation, our revulsions, our terror of the unknown, our fear of death and dismemberment, loss of identity, or fear of sexuality.

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Premiere Magazine compiled a list of the 50 Greatest Comedies of All Time in the July/August 2006 issue - the unranked list in chronological order represented a wide range of some of the best comedies ("the funniest stories ever told on film"), from "the Little Tramp to the Wedding Crashers". Descriptions are from the original source. See also this site's descriptive section on the Comedy Films genre, and illustrated listings of the Funniest Movie Moments and Scenes in the best comedy films in film history.

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The General (1927) is an imaginative masterpiece of dead-pan "Stone-Face" Buster Keaton comedy, generally regarded as one of the greatest of all silent comedies (and Keaton's own favorite) - and undoubtedly the best train film ever made. The Civil War adventure-epic classic was made toward the end of the silent era. Posters describing the slapstick film heralded: "Love, Locomotives and Laughs." However, Keaton's greatest picture (arguably) received both poor reviews by critics (it was considered tedious and disappointing) and weak box-office results (about a half million dollars domestically, and approximately one million worldwide) when initially released in the late 20s, and it led to Keaton's loss of independence as a film-maker and a restrictive deal with MGM. It would take many decades for the film to be hailed as one of the best ever made.

Filled with hilarious sight gags and perfectly timed stunt work, the chase comedy was written and directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, and filmed with a huge budget for its time ($750,000 supplied by Metro chief Joseph Schenck). It is memorable for its strong story-line of a single, brave, but foolish Southern Confederate train engineer doggedly in pursuit of his passionately-loved locomotive ("The General") AND the woman he loves. His stoic, unflappable reactions to fateful calamities, his ingenious and resourceful uses of machines and various objects (water tanks, a large piece of timber, a cowcatcher, a rolling artillery cannon on wheels, and unattached railroad cars), and the unpredictable forces of Nature, provide much of the plot.And now begins the bulk of the film, the sustained chase scenes - first with Johnnie chasing the spies, and then back again, with the spies chasing Johnnie. The film is consistently suspenseful and thrilling, with a series of complicated, dangerous stunts and sight gags all over the moving train in the sustained chase sequences (both in the pursuit and on the return journey.)


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The all-time outrageous, satirical, comedy farce favorite, Some Like It Hot (1959) is one of the most hilarious, raucous films ever made. The ribald film is a clever combination of many elements: a spoof of 1920-30's gangster films with period costumes and speakeasies, and romance in a quasi-screwball comedy with one central joke - entangled and deceptive identities, reversed sex roles and cross-dressing. In fact, one of the film's major themes is disguise and masquerade - e.g., the drag costumes of the two male musicians, Joe's disguise as a Cary Grant-like impotent millionaire, and Jerry's happiness with a real wealthy, yacht-owning retiree.

It's also a black and white film (reminiscent of the early film era) filled with non-stop action (e.g., the initial car chase), slapstick, and one-liners reminiscent of Marx Brothers and Mack Sennett comedies. An earlier Bob Hope film had the same title: Some Like It Hot (1939). The film's working title was Not Tonight, Josephine! (its origin was reportedly taken from Napoleon Bonaparte's response when refusing sex with Empress Josephine).

The exceptional film was the all-time highest-grossing comedy up to its time, one of the most successful films of 1959, and Wilder's funniest comedy in his career. The film was inspired by director Kurt Hoffmann's German movie comedy/musical Fanfares of Love (1951) (aka Fanfaren der Liebe) with a similar plot element that writer/director Wilder borrowed: two down-on-their-luck, unemployed jazz musicians dress up as women in order to get two weeks of work in an all-women's dance band bound for Florida, after witnessing a gang-land massacre in Prohibition-Era Chicago and being pursued by the mob. Only a few other cross-dressing comedies have come close to approximating the film's daring hilarity: Tootsie (1982), La Cage Aux Folles (1978) and Victor/Victoria (1982). Some Like It Hot also inspired the Broadway musical Sugar that opened in 1972.

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Short who-dun-its in the 1930s and 40s featured the B-movie, Canton-born, Honolulu-based Oriental sleuth Charlie Chan, derived from Earl Derr Biggers' works, and based on real-life Hawaiian cop Chang Apana (very unlike the movie version). The round-faced, meticulous sleuth was one of the screen's most prolific detectives, with 46 Chan films and one serial from 1926 to 1949. [Charlie Chan was never played on the screen by a Chinese actor.]

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It appeared that the height of weepie, melodramatic female roles came in the mid 1930s, when the five Best Actress nominees included four strong examples. (Only Irene Dunne's nomination as Lucy Warriner - one-half of a divorced couple in the hilarious screwball comedy The Awful Truth (1937) - didn't fit the profile):

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One of the great silent clowns of the early comedic period was Buster Keaton, known for acrobatic visual gags, physical action, and for his deadpan, unsmiling, expression-less "stoneface." (His first name was a nickname given to him by Harry Houdini after he fell down some steps.) Keaton was first a vaudeville performer, performing and partnering quite often with former Keystone star and mentor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He entered the profession of film-making in 1917 at the age of twenty-one as a supporting player, in his film debut The Butcher Boy (1917). Then, he started his own production company and became an actor in his own production unit in many excellent short films (usually two-reelers) from 1920-1923, including One Week (1920), Neighbors (1920), The High Sign (1921), The Boat (1921), The Haunted House (1921), The Playhouse (1921), The Paleface (1921), Hard Luck (1921), and The Frozen North (1922), but none as a repeating character.

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One of the earliest 'thrillers' was Harold Lloyd's comic Safety Last (1923), with the all-American boy performing a daredevil stunt on the side of a skyscraper. The haunting and chilling German film M (1931) directed by the great Fritz Lang, starred Peter Lorre (in his first film role) as a criminal deviant - a child killer. The film's story was based on the life of serial killer Peter Kurten (known as the 'Vampire of Dusseldorf'). Edward Sutherland's crime/horror thriller Murders in the Zoo (1933) from Paramount starred Lionel Atwill as a murderous and jealous zoologist. And various horror films of the period, The Cat and the Canary (1927), director Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) with Fredric March, and The Bat Whispers (1930), provided some thrills.

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