I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
He’s just this strange figure who was sort of prodigiously talented at something that he never chose to do,” Dana Stevens says. “And then continued to invent new ways of exploring that.” Continue reading Dana Stevens on CAMERA MAN
On this week’s edition of After Image, I chat with Metro Arts producer Veronica Straight-Lingo to discuss Criterion’s latest 4K restoration, The Cameraman, and suggest a few silent films you can stream if you’re missing Chautauqua’s annual Summer of Silents. … Continue reading
On April 23, 1917, Buster Keaton made his theatrical debut in Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy. Three years later, Keaton would strike out on his own, producing one comic short after the other. Three years after that, Keaton made the … Continue reading THE CAMERAMAN
Chaplin was the tramp, Lloyd was the go-getter, and Buster Keaton—Born Oct. 4, 1895—was the Great Stone Face. He was unflappable, no matter how hard he got hit or how hard he fell. The General is his best, maybe the greatest American … Continue reading THE GENERAL
It’s mid-June, which means we ought to be full swing into Chautauqua’s Summer of Silents—the annual celebration of cinema sans dialogue. And whether they’re accompanied by the incomparable Hank Troy or the impressive Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, spending a … Continue reading Home Viewing: Silent Clowns
Before he was a filmmaker, Peter Bogdanovich was a critic and historian par excellence. Coming of age as the first wave of Hollywood filmmakers were being put out to pasture, Bogdanovich sat at the feet of the men who made … Continue reading THE GREAT BUSTER: A CELEBRATION
Buster Keaton was destined for the silver screen before moving pictures were even born. As the story goes, an 18-month-old (or was that six-month-old?) Keaton took a tumble down a flight of stairs and didn’t make a sound. “That’s some … Continue reading OUR HOSPITALITY
Still wonderful, isn’t it? And no dialogue. We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces. There just aren’t any faces like that anymore. — Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard Of all the faces to grace the silver screen, none were greater or … Continue reading COLLEGE
Michael J. Cinema 
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