MK2 10 DVD Buster Keaton Boxset! College / Battling Butler / Our Hospitality / Seven Chances / The Navigator / Sherlock, Jr. / Go West / Three Ages / Steamboat Bill, Jr. / The General MK2 10 DVD Buster Keaton Boxset! College / Battling Butler / Our Hospitality / Seven Chances / The Navigator / Sherlock, Jr. / Go West / Three Ages / Steamboat Bill, Jr. / The General MK2 10 DVD Buster Keaton Boxset! College / Battling Butler / Our Hospitality / Seven Chances / The Navigator / Sherlock, Jr. / Go West / Three Ages / Steamboat Bill, Jr. / The General MK2 10 DVD Buster Keaton Boxset! College / Battling Butler / Our Hospitality / Seven Chances / The Navigator / Sherlock, Jr. / Go West / Three Ages / Steamboat Bill, Jr. / The General

DVD Review: MK2's Buster Keaton Collection - (10 DVDs) - Region 2 - PAL

Includes: College / Battling Butler / Our Hospitality / Seven Chances / The Navigator / Sherlock, Jr. / Go West / Three Ages / Steamboat Bill, Jr. / The General (exact same The General compared HERE - different menus though)

Thanks to Bram Blijleven for all the screen captures!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	MK2 - Region 2 - PAL
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: MK2
Bitrate: Kino
Features	Release Information: Studio: MK2 Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 DVD Release Date: October 19th, 2005

Comments:

Bram says:
I made some screengrabs of the new MK2 set compared to the Kino box. You may be interested to see it is a vast improvement for some of the films! Three Ages, College and Steamboat Bill got a digital High Definition restoration as The General got earlier. The other ones are the same as the Kino transfers although in some occasion some work was done. All are DVD 9 so the bitrate is much higher. Also included some of the menus and some frames of The Keaton Show, one of the extra's on College. The color frame is for a trailer of a 'Bikini' film in which Keaton starred.

The General is the same version as the one released earlier. The only difference is there is another label on the DVD's.

Actually the set is a bit strange: Three Ages, College and Steamboat have the choice of an English and French menu and subtitles in even more languages (including Dutch). This was also the case for the General. The intro's are spoken en English. All other DVD's have French menu's only and no subtitles for the French spoken intro's and no English subs for the short films as extra's when they have French intertitles. (The Keaton shorts were released in an earlier box set which did have English subs when the intertitles were in French). All features have the original English intertitles but the French sub are forced on but you can switch them of with your remote. So it seems only three films got the 'royal' treatment.

The whole set btw comes with a 80 page booklet which describes all the films and extra's on the DVD's in detail. In French( of course)... The DVD's are in a kind of 'book' when you turn a 'page' you get a new DVD. This all is in a metal box. Depends on your taste if you like a packing like this.

The soundtracks for the MK2 versions are the same as the ones in the Kino box. So the Clubfoot Orchestra score is on Sherlock Jr. The Kino set actually originates from the 3 part laserdisc set The Art Of Buster Keaton. The score was already controversial when that set was issued. The other films have the Robert Israel scores or an organ score in two cases. Since music and silent film often leads to discussion it is difficult to say if a score is bad or doesn't fit to a film, so it would be nice if you would have the choice of more score, especially in a case like this where so many people already said they didn't like the score.

I was a bit disappointed myself that MK2 didn't add another score like thay did with The General. The MK2 set is not exactly cheap so my hopes were a bit higher. College, Steamboat Bill and Three Ages are available separate so if you already have the Kino set I may be wiser to upgrade these three. If you do not have the Kino set and want to see Keaton the MK2 set would be a wise choice (apart from the fact it's PAL and Region 2).

Only the Keaton shorts which appear in the MK2 set have other scores (Piano by Niel Brand and others). These are Lobster restorations from French prints (with French intertitles, but with English subs). If you want better versions and if you own the Kino set you could go for this set plus the three mentioned above, and of course, The General.
THANKS BRAM!

Gary W. Tooze

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