in those days no one was ashamed to be fat - they hailed it as a crowning victory! You would never see a "Fatty Rosseane Barr" today - instead they take a vacuum cleaner to their thighs
― Latham Green, Friday, 27 May 2011 17:14 (thirteen years ago) link
my scholarly silent-comedy friends refer to Arbuckle as "Roscoe"
― the gay bloggers are onto the faggot tweets (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 May 2011 17:21 (thirteen years ago) link
there was also a crude but hilarious silent trio known as both Ton o' Fun and The Three Fatties
― the gay bloggers are onto the faggot tweets (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 May 2011 17:22 (thirteen years ago) link
and lest we forget laurel and hardy. They should be on our money. not Tommie Jefferson
― Latham Green, Friday, 27 May 2011 17:26 (thirteen years ago) link
so Kino has remastered the silent starring shorts and put em out on DVD and Bluray:
http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/buster-keaton-the-short-films-collection-1920-1923/2070
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 August 2011 15:23 (twelve years ago) link
Are any of these not in the box set? I think all of the titles I saw in that article are.
― bamcquern, Thursday, 18 August 2011 15:42 (twelve years ago) link
yes, they are, but they look (a little bit) better now, with some new music. The supplements are new.
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 August 2011 15:46 (twelve years ago) link
they've been doing the same thing w/ the features for awhile.
The John Bengtson book Silent Echoes is a must for buffs --- tracing BK's shooting locations in LA by frame analysis.
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 August 2011 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
Sherlock Jr. is number one and the best, of course, but I have a soft spot for The Navigator - the his reaction to the coffee the girl makes with sea water is one of my favorite moments from his entire canon. also I find the term "sea tuxedos" endlessly amusing.
― the tingly effervesence of a thousand tiny butterfly farts (jamescobo), Thursday, 18 August 2011 19:21 (twelve years ago) link
is Buster's appeal/iconic stature fading, and is that why Sarris checked out?
http://www.fandor.com/blog/video-andrew-sarris-on-buster-keaton
― Pangborn to be Wilde (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 August 2012 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
where Buster met Fatty
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/dec/07/manhattans-forgotten-film-studio/
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 11 December 2012 15:29 (eleven years ago) link
Mother Keaton's vaudeville scrapbook now online via the Academy
http://digitalcollections.oscars.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15759coll8/id/417
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 1 June 2013 03:49 (ten years ago) link
wtf zero votes for "Our Hospitality"? That is clearly the funniest.
― the strange and important sound of the synthesizer (Treeship), Saturday, 1 June 2013 03:55 (ten years ago) link
it's up there.
i stan for the navigator.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 1 June 2013 04:56 (ten years ago) link
wow, morbz, that's amazing, thank you!
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 1 June 2013 05:01 (ten years ago) link
Fantastic link; cheers.
― etc, Saturday, 1 June 2013 11:21 (ten years ago) link
I just watched 'Our Hospitality'. No one put his body on the line for his art like BK.
― cajunsunday, Monday, 24 June 2013 11:47 (ten years ago) link
Chan has been injured frequently when attempting stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or as bloopers during the closing credits of his films. He came closest to death filming Armour of God, when he fell from a tree and fractured his skull. Over the years, Chan has dislocated his pelvis and also broken numerous parts of body including his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle, and ribs.
― Ward Fowler, Monday, 24 June 2013 11:52 (ten years ago) link
he's Keaton's closest match, p much, but yes had bigger medical bills.
― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Monday, 24 June 2013 11:55 (ten years ago) link
Wow. How is he still alive?
― cajunsunday, Monday, 24 June 2013 12:04 (ten years ago) link
unfortunately he died in 1966 :[
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Monday, 24 June 2013 20:32 (ten years ago) link
pour one out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl6xs-BSpIo
RIP Buster Keaton. Still doesn't feel real.
― Treeship, Monday, 24 June 2013 20:47 (ten years ago) link
born today in 1895
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj8Ulhn6JjE
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, 4 October 2013 18:56 (ten years ago) link
Londoners! BFI retro:
https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=busterkeaton
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f14c70bc-68a1-11e3-bb3e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2pe6ACOp5
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 January 2014 18:53 (ten years ago) link
DCers!
Cine-Concert: The General at National Gallery of ArtSunday, January 12 at 6:30 p.m. Clyde Bruckman and Buster Keaton, 1926, 78 minutes preceded by Drummer of the 8th (Thomas Ince, 1913) and The House with Closed Shutters ( D.W. Griffith, 1910), approximately 25 minutes World premiere of orchestral score by Andrew Simpson
― curmudgeon, Monday, 6 January 2014 18:58 (ten years ago) link
Jealous of the Londoners, eesh. Morbs, have you seen many of that schedule's proclaimed 'Keatonesque' films?
― etc, Monday, 6 January 2014 19:28 (ten years ago) link
just Suleiman, Quays and Jarmusch-Murray, only the first of which I think is much above average. They certainly have their deadpan qualities but I don't nec associate all straight-faced absurdism with Keaton.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 6 January 2014 20:01 (ten years ago) link
Watched Playtime on New year's as part of that season.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 6 January 2014 21:52 (ten years ago) link
Sherlock Jr. in the spotlight this week at The Dissolve.
http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/528-the-magic-and-moviemaking-of-sherlock-jr/
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 23 April 2014 11:37 (ten years ago) link
http://blogs.indiewire.com/leonardmaltin/an-amazing-buster-keaton-find
― WilliamC, Monday, 30 June 2014 12:05 (nine years ago) link
on the lost years, alcohol, and old age
Between jobs during this bleak period in the 1930s, he was taking pratfalls on the streets for cash and drinking with tramps. In another sanatorium, he was subjected to “a reasonable facsimile” of the Keeley Cure: “Nurses and doctors do nothing but pour liquor into you, giving you a drink every half-hour on the half-hour. You get your favorite snort all right, but never twice in a row. Instead they start you off with whiskey and on succeeding rounds give you gin, rum, beer, brandy, wine—before they get around to the whiskey again. … When you plead, ‘Oh, no! Take it away please!’ all you get from your bartenders and barmaids in white coats is a friendly smile. ‘Please take it away,’ you repeat, ‘it hurts my stomach.’ ‘Just one more,’ they say, for their purpose is to make the hurt in your stomach grow until it becomes unforgettable.” There’s a blackly comic rhythm to this episode of aversion therapy that’s uncannily close to the circumstances in some of his films....
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/56/fox.php
― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 16 June 2015 15:55 (eight years ago) link
Beckett once received a request for permission to mount a Broadway production of Waiting for Godot where Marlon Brando would play Estragon and Keaton undertake the role of Vladimir. Nothing came of it. Keaton would have made a brilliant Lucky, the terrified serf whose role is almost entirely mute.
― tender is the late-night daypart (schlump), Tuesday, 16 June 2015 16:04 (eight years ago) link
online for the first time
https://keatonroundtable.wordpress.com/
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 November 2015 18:45 (eight years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWEjxkkB8Xs
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 26 November 2015 15:02 (eight years ago) link
What's the YT, Dr Morbius? In China, hence blocked ...
Also, for some Keaton restoration sausage-making/drama, Cineteca di Bologna v. Lobster films
― etc, Saturday, 28 November 2015 19:31 (eight years ago) link
just a thing on his philosophy of gag construction
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 28 November 2015 19:32 (eight years ago) link
Tony Zhou's a dork.
― bamcquern, Saturday, 28 November 2015 20:14 (eight years ago) link
RIP Buster, 50 years today
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Monday, 1 February 2016 17:27 (eight years ago) link
RIP. At least he didn't suffer the indignity of being upstaged by a groundhog.
― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Monday, 1 February 2016 17:29 (eight years ago) link
just Rickles
http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/getattachment/8162925f-b429-4c65-8dfc-85979a7a1ec4/image2.jpg
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 February 2016 21:16 (eight years ago) link
Crazy. I watched a 3 part docu on Keaton just yesterday as an introduction ( yeah - i've never watched anything of his ) and am now a fan. Had no idea it's been 50 years this week.
Keaton is The Stones to Chaplin's Beatles ( with Harold Lloyd as The Kinks). I'm a Stones guy.
― Acid Hose (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 3 February 2016 01:26 (eight years ago) link
new Kino collection of the 16 talkie shorts made at the Educational studio. They're pretty sad...
https://www.kinolorber.com/film/lostkeatonsixteencomedyshorts19341937
https://dcairns.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/the-sunday-intertitle-the-four-keatons/
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 4 May 2016 15:16 (eight years ago) link
I made a poorly edited little informational movie about Buster Keaton; the first video I have ever made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3bmBf1cC5E&edit=vd
― the lava-staring club (Abbott), Tuesday, 23 August 2016 03:10 (seven years ago) link
121
https://twitter.com/silentmoviegifs/status/783187323865407488
― The Hon. J. Piedmont Mumblethunder (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 October 2016 15:49 (seven years ago) link
there's a japanese busterkeatonbot on twitter also: https://twitter.com/busterpic_bot
quality is random but his fizzog generally makes a nice change from whatever's on the rest of the timeline at that moment
― mark s, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 16:05 (seven years ago) link
anyway happy 121st birthday BK
― mark s, Tuesday, 4 October 2016 17:08 (seven years ago) link
He steppedbefore a film camera for the first time 100 years ago today
http://binniebooks.com/first-picture-the-butcher-boy/
https://gracekingsley.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/keaton-met-the-camera-today/
https://gracekingsley.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/correction-keaton-met-the-camera-on-march-21st/
http://binniebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Keaton-Datebook-March-1917_Butcher-Boy_cropped-First-Picture-2ab-2012-AMPAS.jpg
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 14:34 (seven years ago) link
if you aint had the pleasure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxQveXScnbY
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 20:20 (seven years ago) link
one of the coolest nights ever was going to see The General performed with live organist accompaniment at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. the organ rises out of the floor. it was amazing.
― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 21 March 2017 22:10 (seven years ago) link
afaik I haven't seen Doughboys. I suppose it can't be worse than the Durante teamings.
I've been looking at some of the shorts with Arbuckle that I realized I'd never seen (or had forgotten): Out West, Moonshine, The Rough House, Oh Doctor1 etc. Still strange to see him pulling faces, crying, and all that. In Out West he's kinda like Deadwood's Al Swearengen.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 August 2019 17:01 (four years ago) link
TCM is mercifully omitting Free and Easy (the final musical number...). Although I wouldn't mind seeing Estrellados, the alternate Spanish-language version.
― Anne Hedonia (j.lu), Monday, 12 August 2019 17:14 (four years ago) link
Adam Gopnick:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/what-made-buster-keatons-comedy-so-modern-biography-james-curtis-dana-stevens
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 21:50 (two years ago) link
Oh, is that bio out now? Thought about ordering a copy.
― Tapioca Tumbril (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 21:59 (two years ago) link
I leafed through Stevens' on my Sunday bookstore run; got it reserved in the library after Gottlieb's Garbo bio.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 22:02 (two years ago) link
Oh, I only knew about the Curtis one.
― Tapioca Tumbril (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 22:09 (two years ago) link
Oh, I see. The Stevens is out, but not the Curtis until next week.
Wonder if James Karen is interviewed.
― Ferryboat Bill Jr. (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 22:17 (two years ago) link
but the Roman sequences are done with even more panache than Mel Brooks’s “History of the World, Part I.”
― Ferryboat Bill Jr. (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 22:26 (two years ago) link
Have you read the book about Dietrich by her daughter, Maria Riva?
― Ferryboat Bill Jr. (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 8 February 2022 23:16 (two years ago) link
https://filmforum.org/series/busters-century
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 28 February 2022 02:10 (two years ago) link
Would be nice to go to see James Curtis introduce.
― Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 28 February 2022 02:11 (two years ago) link
Autographed copies of the Dana Stevens at MoMI.
― Gary Gets His Tonsure Out (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 4 March 2022 23:45 (two years ago) link
Nice article by Geoffrey O’Brien in current NYRB.
― Misirlou Sunset (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 12:54 (one year ago) link
Actually I didn’t read the article yet, just the email about it which also mentions and links to several other relevant articles from yesteryear.
― Misirlou Sunset (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 4 October 2022 12:59 (one year ago) link
Have both the Curtis and Stevens books, the latter is shorter so I will try that one first.
― The Gate of Angels Laundromat (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 16 January 2023 19:25 (one year ago) link
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n02/john-lahr/puzzled-puss
― conrad, Monday, 16 January 2023 19:30 (one year ago) link
I read the Stevens and enjoyed it very much. A good biography interspersed with many interesting diversions about the times Buster lived and worked in. I started the Curtis but felt like I was getting pummeled with biographical minutiae and didn't get very far.
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 06:33 (one year ago) link
Sounds about right, thanks.
― The Gate of Angels Laundromat (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 10:49 (one year ago) link
yeah i just finished the Stevens and it was good but does zigzag around quite a bit
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 17 January 2023 13:00 (one year ago) link
Miniseries from Blank Check on Keaton’s movies.. starts here
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/three-ages-our-hospitality-with-dana-stevens/id981330533?i=1000612019681
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 21 July 2023 11:35 (ten months ago) link