Notizie

Containing multitudes is a time-honored cinematic tradition.

Sure, featuring a single actor as more than one character in your movie smells a bit like a gimmick—but at the end of the day, it’s an efficient and often effective means of showcasing the versatility of a performer. And that can hardly be faulted. We caught a whiff of it with Split this year, though McAvoy might be disqualified for being a Legion of One rather than a cast with a shared face. Personally, I had no idea the trend cast such a wide-reaching historical net — I’d stupidly assumed it was something made possible by the advent of modern makeup and digital tech. Again, stupidly.

Be it gimmick or something more nuanced (or both!) — it’s particularly fascinating that it has such a long standing history as a marketing device. Film quality aside, the main draw is often the performative tour-de-force itself. Some...

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.

Every now and again a movie comes along that requires an actor to act opposite themselves, sometimes even in the same shot. At one point it was a technological feat for filmmakers to actually get the actor on the screen twice (notably, Buster Keaton’s famous scene from 1921’s “The Playhouse,” which sees him play every instrument in an orchestra at once via an inventive in-camera technique), but today, with the help of CG, it has become a more readily available trick. Read More: Watch: Get High With This 2-Minute Supercut Of Drugs In Cinema Now, a new supercut edited together by the folks over at Burger Fiction, “Actors Acting Opposite Themselves,” takes us through some of the high-water marks of the trick (and some of the hilarious and infamous lows). Some of the more notable moments include the great Michael Keaton showing off his comical range in “Multiplicity,” the...

"Dads leave, you don’t have to be such a pussy about it." – Tony Stark, 'Iron Man Three'

Greetings from the apocalypse! Free Comics? An "Iron Man" sequel that doesn't suck? Genre festivals, eccentric painter docs and serial killer biopics? Have I been irradiated and gone to heaven? Nope, it's all happening man, it's all happening …

Friday, May 3

Pow! In Theaters

As a raving fan of Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr.'s first collab, the neo noir comedy "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," I had hoped that this director/star combo would hit it out of the park with "Iron Man Three." Well, frankly, Shane hit it out of the park and into the stratosphere, mesosphere, ionosphere, etc. Pulpy, groovy, bang-up fun, this is the best cinematic iteration of ol' shellhead yet, and while Joss Whedon got the quipy part right in "Marvel's The Avengers," this one perfectly balances...

The Pasadena Playhouse Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Elizabeth Doran Executive Director announced their 2013-2014 season today. The season will include a revival of the longest-running Broadway musical revue, Smokey Joe's Cafe featuring the musical masterpieces of the legendary team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller Stoneface The Rise and Fall and Rise of Buster Keaton, by Vanessa Claire Stewart and starring French Stewart '3rd Rock From the Sun' which enjoyed a successful run at Sacred Fools Theatre Company this past summer Above the Fold a new drama by Bernard Weinraub, about the world of journalism in the digital age, which received a Hothouse at The Playhouse staged reading in 2012 Noel Coward's rarely produced A Song at Twilight, directed by Art Manke, who recently directed The Playhouse's hit revival of Coward's Fallen Angels and a theatrical surprise production that will be selected and directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Sheldon Epps,...

Whether it's a gender-bending gag (Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy, we're looking at you) or a meta-comment on interconnectedness and reincarnation (ah, "Cloud Atlas," we'll be incoherently discussing you for years to come), film has a rich history of actors doing double duty by playing multiple roles. In “Cloud Atlas,” set to hit theaters this Friday, the cast more than earns its SAG dues: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess and other heavy hitters juggle about a half-dozen roles apiece in the process of telling the six time-hopping stories that make up the film. Audience members will need name tags to keep the actors' various characters straight -- the usually familiar faces of the cast are rendered virtually unrecognizable from story to story using makeup and costuming. (Genders and races, controversially, are not kept consistent throughout.) To tide us over until the movie's long-anticipated release, we compiled a...

Angela Dufresne: Parlors and Pastorals Monya Rowe Gallery Crg Gallery Through November 10 at Monya Rowe Gallery; through November 6, 2012 at Crg Gallery

Things fall apart…at least in the recent paintings of Angela Dufresne, whose works are in a two-gallery exhibition at Monya Rowe and Crg entitled Parlors and Pastorals. That is the impression at first glance: nominal landscapes and scenes of bourgeois interiors, these paintings, awash with color and executed with an impressive arsenal of painterly paint handling, are slipping glimpses into scenes both real and imagined, caught in a state of permanent contingency.

"Alphaville Sublime" (2012) and "Putting out in the Parlor of King Alexander" (2012) are a good starting point in the immersive world that Dufresne has created, which was ostensibly inspired by Buster Keaton's "The Playhouse" (1921), a play-within-a-play-within-a-play tour de force of early filmmaking. Dufresne applies the same methodology of stripping away illusions of reality and notions of continuity,...

Have your kids seen every kids' film this year, from the good (Up, Coraline) to the not-so-good (Planet 51, Hotel for Dogs)? Well, if you are tired of all things Squarepants, give (you and) your kids a treat, and introduce them to one of the greats. This weekend, Tribeca Cinemas Kids Club is screening three of Buster Keaton's best: shorts The Play House and The Electric House at 10:30 am (for ages 3+), and his masterpiece, The General, at 1:30 pm (for ages 7+). If your kids fall into the younger set (3+ is the official age, but a few younger siblings have been spotted at past 10:30 screenings), Saturday morning offers two classic Keaton shorts: The Play House (22 minutes) and The Electric House (19 minutes) both showcase Keaton at his antic and merry best. To learn more about the films and the screening, click here. [Note: the 10:30 screening ...