Comedy and tragedy get equal billing in the "Buster Keaton Collection," an unspooling of three films the silent-era comic made under the thumb of MGM at the dawn of the sound age. The two-disc Warner/TCM Archives set (retail $39.92) is billed as "a celebration of Keaton's art," but the party is best saved for his earlier works as an independent … [Read more...]
Archives for January 2005
‘The Yakuza Papers’: Gangsters high and low
They have sniveling down to a fine art in Kinji Fukasaku's "The Yakuza Papers." Sniveling, weeping, groveling and myriad other abasements of the spirit. There's little nobility found in the clashes between Fukasaku's low-rent Japanese gangsters, only the "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" promised in the subtitle. "The Yakuza Papers" consists … [Read more...]