1924 / Buster Keaton > If there’s one thing anybody can take away from a viewing of Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., it’s that the kind of special effects we see in movies nowadays had their roots way before we could have ever imagined. Some of the tricks pulled off here are, even now, not easy to replicate. And some are as clever now as they were then. We tend to forget that Hollywood has matured over almost a century of ups and downs, but thankfully works by great minds like Keaton and Charlie Chaplin are always there to remind us of the wonderful stash of cinema still existing from our often forgotten past. As for Sherlock Jr. specifically, I did find a few tonal shifts in the film a bit jarring, mostly stemming from the need to show off effects and techniques when such hullabaloo were not necessary. The film tends to stand firm on its own footing as a cornerstone of visual effects but not necessarily as a storyteller. But Keaton is so very watchable, you just might not care.