The Great Buster

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Olivia Colman and Anthony Hopkins in THE FATHER, coming up at the Mill Valley Film Festival

This week: Not one, but TWO Watch At Home film festivals.

The Mill Valley Film Festival is always the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies – the prestige films that will be released during Award Season. This year is the same – except we don’t even have to visit Marin County in person. Watch at home.

Cinejoy is Cinequest’s October virtual fest. More watch at home choices, especially focused on indie gems that you can’t see anywhere else.

ON VIDEO

Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story: “Actresses play characters, but stuntwoman play actresses playing characters, while driving fast and kicking ass.” Streaming on iTunes and Google Play.

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

On October 4, Turner Classic Movies presents an afternoon and evening of Buster Keaton that is one of the best programs that TCM has ever curated. First, there’s Peter Bogdanovich’s fine 2018 biodoc of Keaton, The Great Buster: A Celebration. I had thought that I had a good handle on Keaton’s body of work, but The Great Buster is essential to understanding it.

TCM follows with four movies from Keaton’s masterpiece period: Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) and Seven Chances (1925). After 1928, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

This is a chance to appreciate Keaton’s greatest work. I just wrote about Steamboat Bill, Jr. for last year’s Cinequest. I’ve also recommended Seven Chances for its phenomenal chase scene, one that still (ninety-five years later!) rates with the very best in cinema history.

Buster Keaton in SEVEN CHANCES

Movies to See Right Now

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Buster Keaton (right) in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.

OUT NOW

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the Danish director Susanne Bier’s 2006 After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet) with the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen. There’s also a remake – a big Hollywood remake to be released this Friday also called After the Wedding. See this Danish original. After the Wedding was nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar. After the Wedding, which I had listed as the second-best movie of 2007, can be streamed from Criterion and Amazon.

ON TV

On August 19, Turner Classic Movies presents an evening of Buster Keaton that is one of the best programs that TCM has ever curated. First, there’s Peter Bogdanovich’s fine 2018 biodoc of Keaton, The Great Buster: A Celebration. I had thought that I had a good handle on Keaton’s body of work, but The Great Buster is essential to understanding it.

TCM follows with five movies from Keaton’s masterpiece period:
Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The Navigator (1924), Seven Chances (1925), The General (1926) andSteamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). After 1928, Keaton’s new studio took away his creative control, and his career (and personal life) crashed.

This is a chance to appreciate Keaton’s greatest work. I just wrote about Steamboat Bill, Jr. for this year’s Cinequest. I’ve also recommended Seven Chances for its phenomenal chase scene, one that still rates with the very best in cinema history.

Buster Keaton in SEVEN CHANCES

Movies to See Right Now

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Ando Sakura, Matsuoka Mayu, Sasaki Miyu, Jyo Kairi and Lily Franky in SHOPLIFTERS, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

OUT NOW

  • Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars.
  • Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
  • The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
  • The Great Buster: A Celebration is Peter Bogdanovich’s biodoc of the comic genius Buster Keaton, filling in what we need to know of Keaton’s life and body of work.
  • Just in case you haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet – Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born. Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.
  • What They Had is an authentic and well-crafted dramatic four-hander with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster.
  • The Outlaw King, with Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, exists for those who need a dose of medieval slaughter and a spunky queen, but there’s not enough there for the rest of us.
  • Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the 1977 neo-noir The American Friend, featuring Dennis Hopper, in his Wild Man phase. The American Friend can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On December 5, Turner Classic Movies will air one of my Overlooked Noir, Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps (1956). A zillionaire dies and leaves his media empire to his feckless playboy son (Vincent Price). The ne’er-do-well scion cruelly dangles the CEO job in front of the company’s top talent, plunging them into a ruthless competition. Whoever solves the Lipstick Killer Murders will win the prize, and plenty of boardroom backstabbing ensues.

WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS

Movies to See Right Now

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Yalitza Aparicio in ROMA

Seek out two of the best 5 movies of 2018 – Roma and Shoplifters.

OUT NOW

  • Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien).  Will win multiple Oscars.
  • Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes.  This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
  • The sci fi coming of age adventure Prospect has a one week run in the Bay Area at San Jose’s 3Below and is well worth seeking out..
  • The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
  • The Great Buster: A Celebration is Peter Bogdanovich’s biodoc of the comic genius Buster Keaton, filling in what we need to know of Keaton’s life and body of work.
  • Just in case you haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet – Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born. Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.
  • What They Had is an authentic and well-crafted dramatic four-hander with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster.
  • The Outlaw King, with Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, exists for those who need a dose of medieval slaughter and a spunky queen, but there’s not enough there for the rest of us.
  • Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the fine Lynne Shelton drama Outside In, with its stunning performance by Edie Falco. It can be streamed on Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Tomorrow, Turner Class Movies will air two of the most cynical movies about showbiz. First, there’s Robert Altman’s superb 1992 satire of Hollywood, The Player. Wickedly funny, it features a stellar cast: Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Lyle Lovett, Dean Stockwell, Whoopi Goldberg, Richard E. Grant, Vincent D’Onofrio, Peter Gallagher, Sydney Pollack and Dina Merrill.

And then we have one of the greatest movies of all time – All About Eve (1950). Bette Davis plays the middle-aging Broadway superstar Margot Channing, who fears losing her popularity with age. Who can eclipse her in the dog eat dog world of show biz? George Sanders is wonderful as the cynical critic Addison DeWitt, whose bimbo de jour is played by Marilyn Monroe. All About Eve was nominated for fourteen Oscars and won six.

ALL ABOUT EVE: “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

Movies to See Right Now

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MONROVIA, INDIANA

The film I’m most excited about is The Other Side of the Wind, a great Orson Welles film from the 1970s finally completed after his death. I’ll be writing about it and two companion documentaries soon.

OUT NOW

  • The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
  • Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.
  • The Great Buster: A Celebration is Peter Bogdanovich’s biodoc of the comic genius Buster Keaton, filling in what we need to know of Keaton’s life and body of work.
  • Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born. Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.
  • Rodents of Unusual Size is a charmingly addictive documentary about a bizarre subject.
  • What They Had is an authentic and well-crafted dramatic four-hander with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster.
  • Quincy is Rashida Jones’ intimate biodoc of her father, that most important and prolific musical figure Quincy Jones.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the wonderfully dark comedy I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore. Melanie Lynskey plays a workaday schlub who suffers one indignity too many and goes postal. This movie is available to stream on Netflix Instant.

ON TV

On November 10, Turner Classic Movies presents Where Eagles Dare, a crackerjack thriller from the WWII commando subgenre (think The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen). The seemingly impossible target is a cliff-side Nazi stronghold only accessible via a funicular. And not all the commandos understand the true mission. The oddly matched stars are Richard Burton (nearing the end of his second marriage to Elizabeth Taylor) and Clint Eastwood (after the Leone spaghetti westerns but before his Dirty Harry franchise). It all works.

Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton in WHERE EAGLES DARE

THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION: comic genius unleashed and then squandered

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Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL in THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

The documentary The Great Buster: A Celebration traces the life and career of the filmmaking genius Buster Keaton.  Every chance I get, I recommend Keaton’s silent masterpieces Seven Chances and The General. But The Great Buster puts Keaton’s work in helpful context.

First, director/film historian Peter Bogdanovich introduces us to Keaton’s upbringing as the child star in his parent’s vaudeville act. This is a CRAZY story, about Keaton working one-night performances from the age of FOUR in an act where he was essentially a guided missile in a fake leprechaun beard.

Next we learn about the young adult Keaton being introduced to the movie business by San Jose’s own, Fatty Arbuckle, and then moving on to creating his own two-reelers. Then The Great Buster focuses on the ten great features on which Buster had complete creative control. And then Bogdanovich takes us through MGM’s mishandling of Keaton’s career and the resultant decline. I thought that I had a good handle on Keaton’s body of work, but The Great Buster is essential to understanding it.

The Great Buster gives us many cool tidbits from his work in TV commercials through his final happy marriage. And 100-year-old actor Norman Lloyd relates an anecdote about performing a scene in Limelight with Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.

Peter Bogdanovich in THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

The Great Buster: A Celebration opens this weekend in the Bay Area.