Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

mark.waltz "That Buster Keaton seems to be the whole show!" Buster Keaton says, and indeed he is, seen as an orchestra conductor, parts of the band, the entire minstrel show, and 3/4 of the audience. This is non-stop hilarity, not only with classic silent comedy but pointing out Keaton every time he appears. Whether in drag, disguise as another male character or even a chimpanzee, this is riotous from start to finish, great fun. Each shot of Keaton as another character is different enough to gather the laughs, and his deadpan puss is very funny, playing a male companion to different visions of himself as a woman. The onstage antics are very funny as well. I suggest not being distracted by anything while watching this as there seem to be so many funny things happening in each frame. Ingenious from start to finish.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "The Play House" is a 1921 silent black-and-white short film written by, directed by and starring silent movie legend Buster Keaton. His regular collaborators Virginia Fox, Joe Roberts and Edward F. Cline are on board again too. The latter is his co-director, co-writer and also supporting actor. Unfortunately, I must say this is possibly the weakest Keaton film I have seen. It's really getting too much of a one-man show by now and I wish they would create realistic stories around the supporting players as well. The fact that Keaton plays a dozen different characters in this one, even females is very telling. Apart from that, some scenes of the film looked like these very early 1-minute films from the 1890s. They were okay for their time, but 25 years later it simply isn't enough anymore. The jokes and slapstick weren't particularly entertaining either. Not recommended.

rock-golf Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas, but for obvious reasons he had to change it. He selected "Keaton" as a tribute to the most inventive physical comedian in the history of cinema, Buster Keaton.In 1996, Michael Keaton starred as multiple copies of the same character in the film "Multiplicity". I suspect he knew his namesake had beaten him to the punchline some 75 years earlier.In "The Play House", Keaton used carefully timed multiple takes and repeated exposures to have as many as 9 copies of himself in the same picture at the same time. Keaton is simultaneously the conductor, six musicians, 9 members of a chorus line and at least 5 members of the audience. It takes away nothing to note that this is all a dream sequence.But the segue from the dream sequence to the main story contains one of the most brilliant twists I've ever seen in a film of any era. Buster is awakened from his slumber by a cruel looking man who orders him out of his room. In the background, the "landlord's" aides take away the furniture from Buster's "apartment", then his bed, and then remarkably the very walls of the room! We back up to find that this is not Buster's home - he has fallen asleep on a bedroom set of a stage.Buster is a worker at a variety show, and most of the rest of the film has him replacing everything from a soldier to a magician's assistant to an orangutan, with frequently hilarious results.Buster Keaton's "The Play House" is that rare silent comedy that stands the test of time. While much of Chaplin, Lloyd or the Keystone Kops output seems juvenile, coy, silly or just plain unfunny, Buster Keaton's work still can cause you to laugh out loud.During the dream sequence, on one title card an audience member (Keaton) reads the playbill and notes "This fellow Keaton seems to be the whole show." Yes, but what a show!

Polaris_DiB Long before we became John Malkovich, an entire playhouse became Buster Keaton... and it's absolutely delightful. "The whole thing seems to be this Keaton fellow," says Keaton to Keaton dressed in drag (a much more attractive crossover than Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis!). Indeed.Oh, but that's not all! Nooo, why stop there when we have an antagonist to show? Because Malkovich is only in the head, and thus Keaton is but a dream. However, the real playhouse owner... he has a bone to pick with the little guy, in some of the most hilarious Keaton hijinks.This is the consummate Buster Keaton short. From the magic and creativity of the beginning, to the chase scenes and guy-gets-girl later story, we follow him as he takes on and removes persona faster than the speed of a swinging chimp! Oh, and he gets to play that chimp too, and very very believably.--PolarisDiB