Buster Keaton Shorts (1920-1923) Blu-ray Set by Kino (1 Viewer)

[montrealfilmguy]

I try NOT to watch any Buster when i'm working at IBM cause answering the phone guffawing is.....simply not good. But it's hard to resist. And part of me is beginning to think Buster was the world's first Wolverine.His entire body must be made out of adamantium for him to jump,crash into things ,run like the wind fall 100's of time on his head or his ass,or get his neck broken and not feel it.While keeping the famous blank starecombined with breaking the fourth wall,which helps make it even funnier. I love how sometimes one very small visual gag will be followed by a huge stunt gag.The mechanics and dynamics of Buster's mayhem are in my book pretty much unsurpassed. In Montreal,in the 80's we had a exhibition which was called Cinecity.Huge sets recreating famous film sets and each set had a screen with a loop of 5-minute clips of all kinds. In one of the loops,there was Chaplin in his short The immigrant, the loop started around 2:25 to the 2:45 mark.I love how Chaplin simply cannot make it stop. So me and a buddy were sitting there figuring we'd watched the loop and move on But there was this bit from Buster.From Steamboat Bill it starts at 2:20 and ends at 2:27.Buster's "giant " leap against the wind. We kept rolling on the floor and stayed 3 times just to see that.

 

[Jeffrey Nelson]

Is he better than Chaplin? I find Chaplin about as funny as Armadillo roadkill on a Texas highway.

Wow, I've never seen hysterically funny armadillo roadkill such as you describe. If it's that good, I gotta see it.

 

[David_B_K]

Is he better than Chaplin? I find Chaplin about as funny as Armadillo roadkill on a Texas highway.

I'm curious as to what Chaplin you have seen? If all you've seen is, say, The Great Dictator, you might not have found it hysterically funny, as it is more of a satire. If you've only seen early Keystone or Essanay films of Chaplin's, you may not have found him funny because the humor of those early silent shorts seems to revolve around getting kicked in the pants often. Every time I watch Easy Street, one of Chaplin's shorts with the Mutual film Corp., I never fail to laugh. Several of the Mutual shorts are quite funny. I would compare Keaton's short films with Chaplin's shorts @ Mutual.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Chaplin's Mutual two-reelers are just as brilliant as Keaton's First National two-reelers. It's amazing to see such a consistent stream of well-made comedy in a small time span by both filmmakers.

 

[jaaguir]

I had no idea about the "Hard luck" issue but I'm not sorry I pre-ordered this set, since I don't own the dvd-s. In an ideal world what Patrick McGart suggested above could still happen. We'll see. Presentation quality is more important to me than content anyway. Well, what I mean is, I would have never bothered buying this films on dvd. So I'm losing one of his best shorts, but I'm gaining 18 in high-def. EDIT: What do you make of the "digitally enhanced" versions included? Why would they do that? Aren't they shooting themselves in the foot? Is it a bad sign for the future?

 

[Patrick McCart]

The digitally enhanced versions look very good. On most displays, most viewers will not notice the mild smoothing during rapid motion and blurred detail. Nothing that's Predator or Gulliver's Travels bad. The more damaged shorts look unusually good in HD. It's as if the better compression and transfer quality let the grain and damage appear more natural. High grain and damage introduce a lot of compression issues on DVD unless given a "superbit" encode (like Fantoma's Kenneth Anger DVDs).

 

[David_B_K]

I have only watched "The High Sign" in both versions. I thought the "digitally enhanced" version looked great. It shows how DNR can really help a damaged film's appearance when done right. So far, I have not noticed anything missing from the image due to overzealous use of the DNR. It's just unfortunate that some studios use it on films that aren't damaged.