All hail Buster Keaton! The Great Stone Face's pre-feature output is a comedic treasure trove that allows us to watch a performing genius perfect his filmic persona. Lobster's all-new restorations debut some alternate scenes and fix a number of broken jump cuts. It's the whole shebang -- the earlier Fatty Arbuckle shorts and Buster's later solo efforts. Buster Keaton The Shorts Collection 1917-1923 Blu-ray Kino Classics 1917-1923 / B&W / 1:37 flat Silent Ap / 738 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95 Starring Buster Keaton, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. . Original Music Robert Israel, Donald Sosin, Stephen Horne, Timothy Brock, Neil Brand, The Mont Alto Orchestra, Sandra Wong, Günther Buchwald, Dennis Scott Directed by Roscoe Arbuckle & Buster Keaton
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What's this, a full compilation of Buster Keaton Shorts? Kino has released sets of these before, including a 3-disc Blu-ray package from back in the summer of 2011 and overseen by Kino's Bret Wood.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
What's this, a full compilation of Buster Keaton Shorts? Kino has released sets of these before, including a 3-disc Blu-ray package from back in the summer of 2011 and overseen by Kino's Bret Wood.
- 5/21/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“Before Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson, before Chuck Jones and Jackie Chan, there was Buster Keaton, one of the founding fathers of visual comedy. And nearly 100 years after he first appeared onscreen, we’re still learning from him,” Tony Zhou says, introducing his latest, excellent Every Frame a Painting video essay. “Today, I’d like to talk about the artistry (and the thinking) behind his gags.”
Indeed, “The Great Stone Face” was decades ahead of his time, crafting stunts that still hold up wonderfully today. So, how’d he pull it off? This essential 8-minute video looks at the different techniques and “rules,” so to speak, that Keaton adhered by. To name a few, he was insistent on using title cards only when necessary (240 was the average in the silent era, while the most he ever used was 56), he would “never fake a gag” (i.e., if he had to cut,...
Indeed, “The Great Stone Face” was decades ahead of his time, crafting stunts that still hold up wonderfully today. So, how’d he pull it off? This essential 8-minute video looks at the different techniques and “rules,” so to speak, that Keaton adhered by. To name a few, he was insistent on using title cards only when necessary (240 was the average in the silent era, while the most he ever used was 56), he would “never fake a gag” (i.e., if he had to cut,...
- 11/23/2015
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
The Railrodder
Directed & Written by Gerald Potterton
Canada, 1965
The General
Directed by Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
Written by Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
USA, 1926
Tsff festivities came to a comedic crescendo at the Revue Cinema on Tuesday night with a pair of locomotive laugh-getters starring “The Great Stone Face”, Buster Keaton. First on the program was a throwback silent short made by the National Film Board of Canada in 1965, just a year before the comedian’s death. The film was introduced by International Buster Keaton Society “Porkpie” Scholarship recipient R. Edwin Barnett, whose current research project aims to reintegrate The Railrodder into the main body of Keaton criticism (most books/essays on the actor/auteur simply name-check the movie as one of his “industrial” films during the rush to ring down the curtain on Keaton’s career). After seeing the film, Barnett’s point seems manifest. The Railrodder may not be a great film,...
Directed & Written by Gerald Potterton
Canada, 1965
The General
Directed by Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
Written by Clyde Bruckman & Buster Keaton
USA, 1926
Tsff festivities came to a comedic crescendo at the Revue Cinema on Tuesday night with a pair of locomotive laugh-getters starring “The Great Stone Face”, Buster Keaton. First on the program was a throwback silent short made by the National Film Board of Canada in 1965, just a year before the comedian’s death. The film was introduced by International Buster Keaton Society “Porkpie” Scholarship recipient R. Edwin Barnett, whose current research project aims to reintegrate The Railrodder into the main body of Keaton criticism (most books/essays on the actor/auteur simply name-check the movie as one of his “industrial” films during the rush to ring down the curtain on Keaton’s career). After seeing the film, Barnett’s point seems manifest. The Railrodder may not be a great film,...
- 4/10/2013
- by David Fiore
- SoundOnSight
Greetings from the apocalypse, and welcome to the new weekly feature where our lone warrior gives you the play-by-play for how your filmgoing weekend can unfold, Friday-to-Sunday, morning-to-night.
Our second weekend riding through the desolation of the new year is no less doom and gloom than the last one, with a couple new theatrical releases that make the doldrums look like a fun place to be. Luckily there's some alternative viewing destinations available to those who have true grit, so as we nosedive into oblivion remember that in the event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.
Friday, January 11
Riding the art house pony into theaters is "Quartet," the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman. If I said he was a "graduate" of the acting field would you kick me in the balls? Wrinkled thesps Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and the ever-irreverent...
Our second weekend riding through the desolation of the new year is no less doom and gloom than the last one, with a couple new theatrical releases that make the doldrums look like a fun place to be. Luckily there's some alternative viewing destinations available to those who have true grit, so as we nosedive into oblivion remember that in the event of a water landing your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device.
Friday, January 11
Riding the art house pony into theaters is "Quartet," the directorial debut of Dustin Hoffman. If I said he was a "graduate" of the acting field would you kick me in the balls? Wrinkled thesps Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and the ever-irreverent...
- 1/11/2013
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
Each new Buster Keaton Blu-ray from Kino Classics brings mixed feelings. While I'm certainly thankful for the wonderful presentations and fascinating extras, there is always a little bit of sadness mixed in as I realize that Kino is reaching the end of their Keaton catalog. Buster's The Navigator marks the penultimate feature from The Great Stone Face in Kino's catalog, and now that only College remains, I'm already starting to miss the collection. Thankfully, we'll be left with some fantastic films, great extras, and the potential for a wonderful personal Keaton archive, and The Navigator certainly earns its place in that number.For The Navigator, Buster Keaton revisits one of his most beloved character types, the spoiled little rich boy. The clueless children of privilege that...
- 9/3/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Got a scoop request? An anonymous tip you’re dying to share? Just want to say hi? You can send any/all of the above to ausielloscoop@ew.com Question: After the "Happily Ever After" episode of Lost, I no longer believe that Sawyer and Kate will be happening. If they were, they would have had an epiphany in the elevator scene in sideways world from the "La X" episode. But they didn't. Care to comment? —Caroline Ausiello: I have no solid information to back up your theory, but I'll admit it's a good one. Speaking of destiny and fate and all that jazz,...
- 4/8/2010
- by Michael Ausiello
- EW - Inside TV
Although best known for other work, it was James Agee's film reviews of 'astonishing excellence', recognising cinema as a 20th-century artform, that made him a pioneer
James Rufus Agee, born 100 years ago last week, may be best known now for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the pioneering 1941 study of three sharecropper families. But in his lifetime it was film writing he lived by, and was best known for. Wh Auden was so moved by the "astonishing excellence" of his reviews in the Nation that in 1944 he wrote to the magazine's editors, telling them he "looked forward all week to reading him again". He called the column, "the most remarkable regular event in American journalism today".
It was his recognition of cinema as the American artform of the 20th century that made Agee a pioneer – he stood opposed to many in the literary world who reviled or patronised the medium,...
James Rufus Agee, born 100 years ago last week, may be best known now for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, the pioneering 1941 study of three sharecropper families. But in his lifetime it was film writing he lived by, and was best known for. Wh Auden was so moved by the "astonishing excellence" of his reviews in the Nation that in 1944 he wrote to the magazine's editors, telling them he "looked forward all week to reading him again". He called the column, "the most remarkable regular event in American journalism today".
It was his recognition of cinema as the American artform of the 20th century that made Agee a pioneer – he stood opposed to many in the literary world who reviled or patronised the medium,...
- 12/10/2009
- The Guardian - Film News
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