Spuzzlightyear Colin Mckenzie was a brilliant New Zealand filmmaker who FINALLY got his due from Peter Jackson's brilliant documentary, "Forgotten Silver". Mckenzie seems to have inspired Jackson quite amusingly, because you can totally see some of the elements used from his 'Salome', (Which I attended the world premiere of it's restoration) in his Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. In Forgotten Silver, Jackson intertwines footage from Griffiths' early movies and his masterpiece Salome, with interviews and a fascinating trek into New Zealand wilderness to try to find the sets used in 'Salome'. It's all quite interesting and absorbing. I admire Jackson for unearthing this silent movie master (which actually I knew about before this movie came out), and await when Salome comes out on DVD!ps Yes, I did get the joke ;)

Ben Parker At this stage of his career, Peter Jackson was making strikingly original pictures, but they were mainly novelty pictures. Meet the Feebles: came up with the idea of taking muppets, and having them swear and do vulgar things. Bad Taste is superlative exploitation horror-comedy that claims to be the "grossest thing you'll ever see." Braindead was also horror comedy, and Forgotten Silver is a mockumentary about a lost New Zealand film pioneer.Like the best mockumentaries (This is Spinal Tap), this absolutely relies on its facade of being real: to air in this, Jackson has recruited some impressive real-life movie figures, like Harvey Weinstein, Leonard Maltin and Sam Neill. As a testament to how well it puts up this facade, a couple of reviews on this site tell of people who saw it and for years thought it was real.The persistent joke in this film is that a filmmaker would have remained entirely unknown until the making of this documentary, yet have secretly beaten every other film innovator to their discoveries: in the course of his life inventing the camera, the first feature film, the first film with a cast of thousands... i won't spoil the rest for you, but its great fun.The other persistant joke is for locals (and the rest of us can have a good giggle too) that it was a New Zealander doing all this. Sends up the obsession over lost films and filmmakers, as well as the entire of film history, no less. Yet it also taps into the excitement of invention, and the excitement of film discovery.You'll get the most out of this if you know a little film history yourself, and know the real eras certain things were invented and who invented them - in which case you'll get an extra joy out of this, yet this knowledge is not necessary: Jackson slips in the dates of the actual innovations, like the first talkies and the first sound films, so you don't need to bring anything to the movie to enjoy it.

psu05790 This is one of the best films I've ever seen. Touching, real, funny. It's not a mocumentary at all because I don't feel that the point of the film is to MOCK anything. It is more, a great homage. I liked it more after witnessing Jacksons later works (i.e. LOTR). I felt as though Jackson created his own hero, his own sort of avatar by compiling all the qualities he thinks a great film artist should possess. In that sense it becomes a very post-modern work, and I believe, a very mature work, about a very human struggle to create those great epics against all odds. It inspired me to view some of Fritz Langs early work, which have some of the same phenomenal qualities as LOTR, especially the Nibelung.

FoneBone-3 I had never heard about this "documentary" before, so I saw it with an open mind.. So when the footage of the first flight around 31 of mars 1903 came, I thought; "Wow, is this for real, is what I was thought in school just bull"... Then I remembered that the documentary was made in 1995, and this I would have heard of... Anyway, it is a mindblower in a way, it makes ppl think how much you are influenced by these socalled serious documentaries.. Allways remember that movies, news and documentaries are made in the eyes of it`s maker..