Nickelodeon

“We're independent!” This ode to filmmaking renegades (starting with Griffith) is lightened up with affectionate mockery of the auteur theory. The director earns his position without much effort, chance hands him masterful shots and all of his efforts to keep the impetuous crew under control go to waste. He is definitely not an absolute ruler who has the final form of the work being created in his hands. The corners of one’s mouth rise at the mere sight of him, because with his round glasses and straw hat, he is strikingly reminiscent of an enterprising young man named Harold Lloyd. Like the earlier What’s Up, Doc?, the situations in which he finds himself also reveal Bogdanovich’s weakness for slapstick. Falls, kicks and punches are borrowed from Chaplin, Frigo and the Three Stooges without being simple rip-offs. Besides the plot, the formalistic techniques (intertitles, iris fades) and the all-encompassing feeling of haste, with which the early days of cinema can be simplistically characterised, are borrowed from silent movies, particularly from slapstick. Unlike other, more intellectual homages to moving pictures, you don’t have to love film in order to enjoy the straightforward Nickelodeon. It is entirely enough to love it for itself. 80% (19/09/2015)

A pleasant, funny, but for my taste also somewhat long tribute to the pioneers of film. Even Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd and co. would not be ashamed of the number of scenes that appear to be cut out from slapstick, and the script contains much similarly imaginative verbal humor. Perfect actors (Ryan O'Neal and his daughter Tatum, Burt Reynolds, who I once again liked) and skillful direction... Perhaps only the music could have been more expressive. It was good. (05/02/2014)