Tag: charlie chaplin
Albert Brooks Everlasting – The Atlantic
There are two observations in Defending My Life, the new documentary about Albert Brooks by his lifelong friend and fellow filmmaker Rob Reiner, that perfectly capture the imprint that Brooks has made, and continues to make, on American culture.
The first comes from Conan O’Brien: “Albert broke the sound barrier,” the talk-show host says. It was through Brooks’s now-legendary mix of originality, absurdity, exuberance, and sheer brilliance that comedians realized what comedy could be—that “there’s this other place you
What to Stream: The Radical Insolence of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin had a big problem with law as it was enforced, order as it was imposed, and the norms of propriety and morality as they were applied—namely, against the downtrodden, the afflicted, and the outcast. “City Lights” (1931), perhaps his most acclaimed film (currently streaming on the Criterion Channel, Prime Video, and other services), begins with a bunch of grandees unveiling a large monument titled “Peace and Prosperity.” When the sheet is raised, we see a regally seated woman