Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant movies, mediocre DVD
Review: I don't think filmmaking has reached the peak of genius set by "Sherlock Jr." since. The sheer volume of imagination on display dazzles even the most jaded modern viewer. I showed the climactic chase scene from this film to some high school students and they were flabbergasted and awed by the stunts, the set ups, the effects (including some seemless in camera special F/X that go undetected by most viewers!). "Our Hospitality" is also wonderful, though the climactic waterfall is a set (someone else on this page claimed it to be a real one-- it isn't) the risk was certainly real. And the dress on the horse gag gets me every time. The picture quality on these films is variable, with SJ looking better. I wish someone would invest $$$ to make all of Keaton's work as pristine as modern technology will allow. However, I must lament the musical score on SJ. the rest of the Keaton Kino releases have very tasteful, very supportive scores, but SJ's is so out of touch with the rhythms, feelings, and pulses of the film that it kills many gags and deadens the entire effect. OH's score is fine, however. It's not that I am such a purist I can't abide anything that deviates from the standard organ/piano meanderings, but the score has to support the film, has to punch the gags, not shift the punchlines. The atonal scratchings during the billiards scene belong in a Chaney horror film, not in one of the funniest, most awe inspiring and sublime stretches in film history.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant movies, mediocre DVD
Review: I don't think filmmaking has reached the peak of genius set by "Sherlock Jr." since. The sheer volume of imagination on display dazzles even the most jaded modern viewer. I showed the climactic chase scene from this film to some high school students and they were flabbergasted and awed by the stunts, the set ups, the effects (including some seemless in camera special F/X that go undetected by most viewers!). "Our Hospitality" is also wonderful, though the climactic waterfall is a set (someone else on this page claimed it to be a real one-- it isn't) the risk was certainly real. And the dress on the horse gag gets me every time. The picture quality on these films is variable, with SJ looking better. I wish someone would invest $$$ to make all of Keaton's work as pristine as modern technology will allow. However, I must lament the musical score on SJ. the rest of the Keaton Kino releases have very tasteful, very supportive scores, but SJ's is so out of touch with the rhythms, feelings, and pulses of the film that it kills many gags and deadens the entire effect. OH's score is fine, however. It's not that I am such a purist I can't abide anything that deviates from the standard organ/piano meanderings, but the score has to support the film, has to punch the gags, not shift the punchlines. The atonal scratchings during the billiards scene belong in a Chaney horror film, not in one of the funniest, most awe inspiring and sublime stretches in film history.
Rating: 
Summary: KEATON THE KING- HOT!
Review: I'm gonna go out on a limb (not really): THIS IS THE GREATEST COMEDY EVER MADE. That enough of a review?
Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Entertainer in his Best Form!
Review: If you are unfamiliar with Buster Keaton's work, do yourself a favor and check out this DVD. Kino International has done an excellent job of providing high-quality movie transfers of his silent films (beware many garbage 2nd-rate DVD transfers on the market). This DVD contains 2 Buster Keaton classics: 'Our Hospitality' and 'Sherlock Jr'. 'Our Hospitality' is the tale of a naive young man (Keaton's favorite role), who get's caught up in a generational feud between 2 families. Unknowlingly, he falls in love with the beautiful daughter of his family's sworn enemy, and of course, mayhem ensues. The stuntwork at the end is excellent and is as exciting as any modern movie. 'Sherlock Jr' is probably the best Keaton movie, and was recently rated top 20 in the American Film Institute list of best films in history. Keaton is at his best as a detective, getting into tough situations and using his arobatic body and sheer determination to get out. The movie contains a segment that is one of the most impressive sequences with Buster walking into a movie and then becoming hostage to the film's progression. I cannot recommend this one highly enough. I wish I could give it 100 stars! The whole family will love it!
Rating:
Summary: One little warning before you buy...
Review: If you know your Keaton, you know you're in for a treat on this one. The stunts are absolutely marvelous and astounding, this is top-notch physical comedy -- regardless of it being a silent movie from 1923. However, the soundtrack to "Sherlock Jr." is a modern score by The Club Foot Orchestra that simply doesn't belong here. Some may perhaps like it, but myself I'm a bit conservative and prefer the original music. Occasionally there is an electric guitar, a sax, in one scene there is bluegrass, and in a chase scene there is a hint at 007... Sorry, but I find it absolutely out of place, I actually preferred muting the sound on this one. Apart from that: Great!
Rating:
Summary: More of Keaton's Obsession With Trains
Review: In the first feature of this DVD, "Our Hospitality" (1923), Keaton shows us a period in American history rarely seen in the movies. The movie starts in 1810 when Keaton's character is a baby and leaps to 1830 when he's 21. Keaton accurately shows us the period of the 1830s by riding a pedalless bicycle, showing us the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, which turns out to be the eye-popping rurality of his aunt's cottage between 2 dirt roads, and travels from New York to the South on the Stephenson Rocket, an early train which looks like a string of stage coaches on railroad tracks. Keaton has been informed that he's to claim his family's estate in the South, and much of the movie is shown how traveling by train in this period was so cumbersome. Keaton throws in a lot of gags about this such as the engineer (played by his real father Joe) moving the train tracks with his bare hands in order to get the train past a stubborn jackass, and he illustrates the relative speed of the train by showing a dog outrunning it. The basic plot of the film is that Keaton meets a girl (played by his real life wife Natalie) on the train who turns out to be the daughter of a family in which his own has been feuding with for generations. When Keaton gets to his destination in the South, he finds that the estate he envisioned to be a pretty antebellum mansion turns out to be a worthless dump. However, he stays in town because he has been invited by the girl on the train to have supper with her family. When her brothers and father find out who he is, they spend the rest of the movie trying to execute him with their authentically portrayed pistols. This movie includes the most amazing stunt of Keaton's entire film career. He must save the girl from plunging to the bottom of a waterfall. He ties himself to a rope and swings over the falls, catching her as she's going down. Keaton injested so much water from this scene that he had to have his stomach pumped. The second feature is "Sherlock Jr." (1924), one of Keaton's all-time classics. Keaton plays a shmoe film projectionist who's treated disrespectfully by his boss and the rival for the girl he's in love with. After his rival arranges to have him accused of stealing her dad's watch (again played by Keaton's real life father Joe), he dreams he's a brilliant, flawless detective, and it's in this sequence that we get some of the most classic images of Keaton's career, in particular with Keaton speeding through the streets of L.A. on the handlebars of a motorcycle (you can see Harley printed on the side of it), oblivious of the fact that it has no driver (who fell off after driving through a dip). It also features more Keaton train-related gags. There's a fun scene where Keaton, still sitting on the riderless motorcycle, narrowly misses a train and also gets hit on top of a train by a splurge of water from a water tower spout. Years later, Keaton discovered that he'd broken his neck while filming this scene. Only one thing annoyed me about this film, and it had nothing to do with Keaton. Someone slipped in a 90's-composed film score that's totally out of place accompanying this movie. We get to hear a mishmash of '60s Las Vegas lounge, Hawaiian, southern blues, striptease, '40s swing bands, and '60s beach party that ends with a few notes of the James Bond theme. The music is actually good, but it doesn't belong here. My advice is to buy this DVD if you admire Keaton, but turn the volume down to zero when "Sherlock Jr." comes on.
Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Jr.: A genuine legend
Review: Keaton's "Sherlock Jr." One of the genuine legends of film history. While it's not as tragic as Erich von Stroheim's "Greed," "Sherlock Jr." is an experience that simply must be seen to be believed. Buster Keaton's mastery of physical comedy reached its zenith with this exercise in surrealism that is pure joy from beginning to end. It's only forty minutes long and there's not much of a plot to it -- Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater who wants to be a detective, but stumbles at his first attempt to solve a crime. He falls asleep in the movie theater, and his dream-self walks into the movie and takes part in an comedy adventure consisting of stuntwork so incredible, it made my jaw drop when I saw it for the first time. Most of the stunts here are filmed live, and Keaton uses masterful editing to bring them all together. One scene here, where he falls from a water tower onto a railroad track, actually broke his neck in real life -- but he didn't even realize it until a physical examination several years later!
Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Jr.: A genuine legend
Review: Keaton's "Sherlock Jr." One of the genuine legends of film history. While it's not as tragic as Erich von Stroheim's "Greed," "Sherlock Jr." is an experience that simply must be seen to be believed. Buster Keaton's mastery of physical comedy reached its zenith with this exercise in surrealism that is pure joy from beginning to end. It's only forty minutes long and there's not much of a plot to it -- Keaton plays a projectionist at a movie theater who wants to be a detective, but stumbles at his first attempt to solve a crime. He falls asleep in the movie theater, and his dream-self walks into the movie and takes part in an comedy adventure consisting of stuntwork so incredible, it made my jaw drop when I saw it for the first time. Most of the stunts here are filmed live, and Keaton uses masterful editing to bring them all together. One scene here, where he falls from a water tower onto a railroad track, actually broke his neck in real life -- but he didn't even realize it until a physical examination several years later!
Rating: 
Summary: Our Sherlock
Review: OUR HOSPITALITY is an amusing little film. Buster Keaton is a New York gentleman returning to his family's ancestral seat in order to collect an inheritance. However, he falls afoul of an old rivalry; his new neighbors have vowed to kill all remaining McKays (they themselves are, of course, the Canfields), and Buster appearing in the town has given them opportunity of ridding the world of the last member of the family. Oblivious as ever to the danger he is in, Keaton ends up falling for the daughter of the house. He has a temporary reprieve during his courtship -- the Canfields won't kill a man while he's enjoying their Southern hospitality. In other words, while he stands in their house, he's safe; if he puts a foot out of the front door, he's a dead man. Catching on to the situation, Keaton goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid exiting their abode. Any summary of OUR HOSPITALITY makes it sound like a one-joke movie, but that would be a misleading impression, as there are lots of quick little sight-gags and set-pieces that make up this film. Keaton's journey from his New York home to the Deep South of Trenton, New Jersey is a surreal voyage on a ramshackle train that travels as well on its tracks as it does on a dirt road. He faces a variety of physical obstacles, the most famous being his rescue of a woman in midair as she falls over the lip of a waterfall. Okay, so he's actually rescuing a prop rather than a real person, but the stunt is still quite impressive: Keaton with a rope around his waist swings from above the waterfall straight down into the downpour, plucks the doll from air, swings back towards a rocky outcrop and delivers it to safety. Keaton testing the limits of the Canfield hospitality (figuratively and literally) is quite a treat. Joe Roberts, a regular in these Keaton films, makes a welcome addition to the cast playing a sort of demented Colonel Sanders. The chase scenes (a staple of any good Buster Keaton film) are fast and well executed. Also included on this disc is SHERLOCK, JR. Sherlock Jr. is the name that Buster Keaton's character goes by in his dreams. By day, he's a rather put-upon projectionist at a cinema. But he yearns for a more exciting life. He reads books on becoming a private detective and even has a magnifying glass and a false mustache for his undercover work. However, he's quickly accused of a crime that he didn't committed, and, having lost the affections of his beloved, is soon stuck back at work with nothing to do but change reels and sleep. While napping, he dreams, and places himself inside the story of the rather dull-looking melodrama that is playing in front of him. The first thought that strikes me about the dream sequences of SHERLOCK, JR. is that they have a very 60s feel to it, which just goes to show you how ahead of his time Keaton was. At first Buster just walks through the screen to interact with the action. But the scenes change quickly, and he remains in the center of the picture. It's a neat metaphor for the way Buster Keaton character always seemed to stay calm and collected regardless of the madness of the world around him. But you could imagine these camera tricks being done in a student film, although they'd probably be much less inspired. The film then moves on from its surreal scene/camera changing jump cuts, and Keaton begins to interact with the movie and its characters directly. This is where the movie really feels like a 60s production. It's a James Bond spoof, nearly forty years before the premier of DR. NO! It's uncanny. We have exploding billiard balls, booby-trapped chairs, a damsel in distress, motorcycle and car chases, and a suave, sophisticated hero. I thought myself extremely clever for noticing this... until the orchestra suddenly burst into a snatch of the James Bond theme at the moment when Buster Keaton's car turns itself into a boat. These Kino Video releases usually claim to have used the original score performed by a modern orchestra. Obviously, the score here isn't from the original, but it certainly made me laugh at that point. You can see the filmmakers (mostly Keaton, I assume) really letting loose and experimenting. One of the movie's most notable features is the film within a film, where Keaton takes great pains to point out that his character is dreaming the action. It's interesting to view in comparison to the way movies have since developed; a modern audience would have had no trouble picking up on the clues, but Keaton couldn't rely on his viewers having enough familiarity with the medium. The clues that audiences today notice without even thinking about were still being developed at this time. I wasn't overly wild about the two films on this disc, although they are still a hell of a lot of fun. Upon reflection, I think I prefer Buster Keaton's faster paced short films, which isn't to say that there aren't some great gags here. SHERLOCK JR. seems to be the better regarded of the two, and I'll agree with conventional wisdom on that one.
Rating:
Summary: Our Sherlock
Review: OUR HOSPITALITY is an amusing little film. Buster Keaton is a New York gentleman returning to his family's ancestral seat in order to collect an inheritance. However, he falls afoul of an old rivalry; his new neighbors have vowed to kill all remaining McKays (they themselves are, of course, the Canfields), and Buster appearing in the town has given them opportunity of ridding the world of the last member of the family. Oblivious as ever to the danger he is in, Keaton ends up falling for the daughter of the house. He has a temporary reprieve during his courtship -- the Canfields won't kill a man while he's enjoying their Southern hospitality. In other words, while he stands in their house, he's safe; if he puts a foot out of the front door, he's a dead man. Catching on to the situation, Keaton goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid exiting their abode. Any summary of OUR HOSPITALITY makes it sound like a one-joke movie, but that would be a misleading impression, as there are lots of quick little sight-gags and set-pieces that make up this film. Keaton's journey from his New York home to the Deep South of Trenton, New Jersey is a surreal voyage on a ramshackle train that travels as well on its tracks as it does on a dirt road. He faces a variety of physical obstacles, the most famous being his rescue of a woman in midair as she falls over the lip of a waterfall. Okay, so he's actually rescuing a prop rather than a real person, but the stunt is still quite impressive: Keaton with a rope around his waist swings from above the waterfall straight down into the downpour, plucks the doll from air, swings back towards a rocky outcrop and delivers it to safety. Keaton testing the limits of the Canfield hospitality (figuratively and literally) is quite a treat. Joe Roberts, a regular in these Keaton films, makes a welcome addition to the cast playing a sort of demented Colonel Sanders. The chase scenes (a staple of any good Buster Keaton film) are fast and well executed. Also included on this disc is SHERLOCK, JR. Sherlock Jr. is the name that Buster Keaton's character goes by in his dreams. By day, he's a rather put-upon projectionist at a cinema. But he yearns for a more exciting life. He reads books on becoming a private detective and even has a magnifying glass and a false mustache for his undercover work. However, he's quickly accused of a crime that he didn't committed, and, having lost the affections of his beloved, is soon stuck back at work with nothing to do but change reels and sleep. While napping, he dreams, and places himself inside the story of the rather dull-looking melodrama that is playing in front of him. The first thought that strikes me about the dream sequences of SHERLOCK, JR. is that they have a very 60s feel to it, which just goes to show you how ahead of his time Keaton was. At first Buster just walks through the screen to interact with the action. But the scenes change quickly, and he remains in the center of the picture. It's a neat metaphor for the way Buster Keaton character always seemed to stay calm and collected regardless of the madness of the world around him. But you could imagine these camera tricks being done in a student film, although they'd probably be much less inspired. The film then moves on from its surreal scene/camera changing jump cuts, and Keaton begins to interact with the movie and its characters directly. This is where the movie really feels like a 60s production. It's a James Bond spoof, nearly forty years before the premier of DR. NO! It's uncanny. We have exploding billiard balls, booby-trapped chairs, a damsel in distress, motorcycle and car chases, and a suave, sophisticated hero. I thought myself extremely clever for noticing this... until the orchestra suddenly burst into a snatch of the James Bond theme at the moment when Buster Keaton's car turns itself into a boat. These Kino Video releases usually claim to have used the original score performed by a modern orchestra. Obviously, the score here isn't from the original, but it certainly made me laugh at that point. You can see the filmmakers (mostly Keaton, I assume) really letting loose and experimenting. One of the movie's most notable features is the film within a film, where Keaton takes great pains to point out that his character is dreaming the action. It's interesting to view in comparison to the way movies have since developed; a modern audience would have had no trouble picking up on the clues, but Keaton couldn't rely on his viewers having enough familiarity with the medium. The clues that audiences today notice without even thinking about were still being developed at this time. I wasn't overly wild about the two films on this disc, although they are still a hell of a lot of fun. Upon reflection, I think I prefer Buster Keaton's faster paced short films, which isn't to say that there aren't some great gags here. SHERLOCK JR. seems to be the better regarded of the two, and I'll agree with conventional wisdom on that one.
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