Freaktana A Major Disappointment

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

st-shot On land, sea, and air Buster Keaton delivers gag after gag at a rapid fire pace in The Baloonatic. Moving from an amusement park to the great outdoors the hapless Buster for once ends blissfully, this time among the clouds.Once again the Great Stone Face endures a quite a pounding as a bear, a waterfall, a runaway balloon and a corpulent young lady put his life in peril. Accessing both urban and rural stages Keaton squeezes into the short's brief (23 min.) running time some tiny gems especially in the field and stream segment. Keaton's gadgets (a three piece canoe) and methodology catching fish along with his narrow escape finale are calamitously hysterical and ever more so by the implacable response of the irrepressible Buster. Phyllis Haver like the love interests in other Keaton comedies endures some roughhousing well enough and shows the right amount of snobbish imperiousness to give as good as she gets. The Balloonatic is one short satisfying high.

Jamie Ward The Baloonatic is a lightly amusing twenty minute short film that draws much of its comedy from loosely connected scenes which are slapstick, and mostly routine for Mr. Keaton. The story here revolves around a man, who as a result of his ever growing bad luck ends in the middle of an unfamiliar forest after a miscalculated ride on a stray hot-air balloon. It's a simple, short and relatively empty feature, outside of its comedic appeal, and so although Buster does well to bring the most out of his script, moments where the jokes fall flat can get a little tiresome. Again, a romantic subplot is consistently played underneath all the slapstick, and while it lacks any real solid involvement, nevertheless brings the entire feature together in a neat, cute and poignant manner; both funny and sweet. Regardless, if silent, short comedy films are your thing, then Keaton will be sure to please in some way or another throughout the twenty minutes, given that you care little for any other substance. By no means is this a classic, nor is it something you should go out of your way to see, but for historians and Buster Keaton fans alike, it's a small and welcome treat.For more of my reviews, please visit here: http://www.invocus.net

Michael_Elliott Balloonatic, The (1923) *** (out of 4) Buster Keaton tries to pick up women at an outdoor carnival but doesn't have any luck but he accidentally meets one of the women out in the wilderness where the two try to prove their survival skills. This is about medium range as far as Keaton shorts go but there are still some nice laughs including the haunted house bit at the start and near the end the bear gag works well.Available on Kino's The Art of Buster Keaton box set, which contains some of the greatest films ever made.

Snow Leopard This is not one of Buster Keaton's best short features, but it has some good moments. Most of the gags are of good quality, and most of the sequences work well enough. The main thing it really lacks is that, unlike most of Buster's movies, it never really builds on itself or gets much momentum. In his best features, the setting and story help make the decent gags very funny and the good gags hilarious.Buster becomes "The Balloonatic" when he is trying to help a balloonist prepare his craft, and it accidentally takes off with Buster on top of the balloon. He winds up in the wilderness, where he and a young woman that he meets (Phyllis Haver) have to fend for themselves.Although this one doesn't fit together quite as well as his best comedies, being mostly a series of only loosely-connected gags, some of them are very good in themselves. If nothing else, it has enough that it should probably be of interest at least to those who are already Keaton fans.