The Buster Keaton Collection - Volume 4 (Go West / College) (Blu-ray) by Justin Remer The Movies: The images accompanying this review are promotional stills which do not reflect the quality of the Blu-ray under review.The Cineteca di Bologna and Cohen Media Group teamed up a few years ago to restore and re-release all of Buster Keaton's silent films. (One exception: Criterion released the Cineteca's restoration of The Cameraman, Keaton's first film under his infamous contract with MGM.) Cohen has been releasing the full-length films in double-features on Blu-ray in their Buster Keaton Collection. The most recent release, Vol. 4, pairs up the cowboy comedy Go West (1925) and the slapstick sports flick College (1927).Go West is a little slow-starting, as it tries to figure o...Read the entire review »

Apache (Blu-ray) by Stuart Galbraith IV Part of the ‘50s vogue for sympathetic portrayals (by white actors) of Native Americans, Apache (1954) is interesting but flawed. It was Robert Aldrich's third feature, following a long career as an assistant director and, immediately before this, several years working in television. His inexperience and the influence of television is in evidence here: the film is lively but choppy continuity-wise, and Aldrich uses tight close-ups so often the film becomes spatially disorienting. There's plenty of action, however, and star (and co-producer) Burt Lancaster, pushing 40, is in fine athletic form, while the film's empathy toward American Indians is appealing, if muddled in some ways. In 1886, Apache chief Geronimo surrenders his tribe to the U.S. Cavalry, in a tense...Read the entire review »