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BUSTER KEATON REMEMBERED AND REFRESHED

Leonard Maltin
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A few weeks ago the International Buster Keaton Society (also known as the Damfinos) celebrated the 100th anniversary of Buster’s first day on a movie set: March 21, 1917. They were able to pinpoint the date by consulting Buster’s own hand-written diary! That gives you some idea of the dedication of Keaton followers, who have much to take in right now. Keaton completists will want to check out Notfilm, a highly personal documentary years in the making by Ross Lipman. It is available in a two-disc edition from Milestone Films, with a generous amount of bonus material Lipman accumulated while researching and producing his film. He calls it a kino-essay, which gives you an idea of his approach and the tone of the piece. It…

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GHOST IN THE SHELL

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Diehard fans of Ghost in the Shell, in its original Japanese manga form or its feature-length anime and follow-ups, will have their own opinions of this slick Hollywood adaptation. Hormonal boys and young men will be rewarded early on with lingering views of a seemingly-naked Scarlett Johansson. Never mind that her body isn’t real (in the context of the story) or that she’s actually wearing a skin-tight body suit. As it turns out, nearly everything about this movie is surface-thin. Johansson plays Major, a cybernetic character who is supposedly the first of her kind: a human brain and soul (or “ghost”) melded onto a robotic body by sympathetic scientist Juliette Binoche. Major works for Section 9, an elite crime-fighting force in a city of the…

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TWO FANTASTIC JAZZ DOCUMENTARIES

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews Music
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As a lifelong jazz buff I was eager to see I Called Him Morgan to learn more about one of my favorite trumpeters, Lee Morgan. His recordings from the 1950s and 60s still sound vibrant and fresh today. I couldn’t have anticipated that Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin would provide such a personal and moving portrait of the musician, who died at age 33. He was able to interview a number of Morgan’s colleagues, but he hit pay dirt when he located several people who knew Morgan’s wife in her final years. One of them found her so compelling he recorded an audio interview with her (with no particular purpose in mind) more than forty years ago. Mind you, this is the same woman who shot…

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‘THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE’: A MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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It’s never a waste of time watching Jessica Chastain, even if the film she’s in isn’t great. The Zookeeper’s Wife is a perfect example: an earnest historical drama that never scales the emotional heights the real-life story would seem to promise. But Chastain is faultless as Antonina Żabiński, who with her husband Jan ran the Warsaw Zoo during the turbulent years of World War Two. Not only did the couple try to protect their animals from rapacious Nazi invaders; they found a way to shelter several hundred Jewish citizens. Here is the stuff of great drama. Indeed, Żabiński’s diaries inspired a best-selling book by Diane Ackerman. But screenwriter Angela Workman and talented director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, McFarland U.S.A.) have somehow dropped the ball. Their…

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JOAN CRAWFORD: NO FEUD WITH FANS

Leonard Maltin Movie Talk
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Like many of you, I’ve been watching Ryan Murphy’s compelling series Feud: Bette and Joan and thinking about the women it explores, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The other day a lightbulb went off in my head and I dug into my files to find a letter I received from Miss Crawford back in 1973. I had sent her a copy of my magazine Film Fan Monthly where I wrote about  some of her lesser-known films of the 1930s. In my accompanying note I said how frustrating it was not to be able to see movies like Letty Lynton, which was pulled from circulation because of legal issues. Reading it again, more than forty years later, I marvel at how she framed her response. It’s…

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NOIR CITY AND BEYOND

Festivals Leonard Maltin Movie Talk
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I was startled when Eddie Muller reminded a packed audience at Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre that the annual Noir City Festival was marking its 19th year. My wife and I have attended at least a handful of shows every one of those years, and it was heartwarming to see a packed house for opening night on Friday. Eddie, the Czar of Noir who runs the Film Noir Foundation (and hosts Noir Alley every Sunday morning on Turner Classic Movies), his partner-in-crime Alan K. Rode, and the American Cinemathèque’s Gwen Deglise started out by showing 35mm prints of classic, must-see movies in this ever-popular genre (Double Indemnity, Detour, Out of the Past). Then they went after unseen films and rarities even if their connection to noir was a…

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‘LIFE’ SHOCKS AROUND EVERY CORNER

Exclusive
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If you’re going to be derivative, you might as well emulate something great. Life bears more than a passing resemblance to Alien but skillfully captures much of that film’s horror and suspense, so it’s difficult to complain too much. It’s been almost forty years since Ridley Scott’s movie was released, so a fairly potent echo of it will almost certainly play with younger audiences. Director Daniel Espinoza (Safe House, Child 44) brings a confident approach to this project. He shot most of it on two large sets, holding CGI in reserve for the depiction of his monster—a Martian organism that gets loose and wreaks havoc on the crew of the International Space Station. Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal lead a diverse, globally-sourced cast including Rebecca…

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