Roger Ebert Home

Dana Adam Shapiro

Reviews

Murderball (2005)

Blog Posts

Ebert Club

#49 February 9, 2011

Marie writes: They call it "The Shard" and it's currently rising over London akin to Superman's Fortress of Solitude and dwarfing everything around it, especially St. Paul's in front. I assume those are pigeons flying over-head and not buzzards. Ie: not impressed, but that's me and why I'm glad I saw London before they started to totally ruin it.Known as the "London Bridge Tower" before they changed the name, when completed in 2012, it will be the tallest building in Europe and 45th highest in the world. It's already the second highest free-standing structure in the UK after the Emley Moor transmitting station. The Shard will stand 1,017 ft high and have 72 floors, plus another 15 radiator floors in the roof. It's been designed with an irregular triangular shape from base to top and will be covered entirely in glass. The tower was designed by Renzo Piano, the Italian architect best know for creating Paris's Pompidou Centre of modern art with Richard Rogers, and more recently the New York Times Tower. You can read an article about it at the Guardian.  Here's the official website for The Shard. Photograph: Dan Kitwood.

Interviews

A jock, a champion, a movie star

Mark Zupan went home to Austin, Texas, for 14 hours on Saturday, to attend a buddy's wedding. That was his third weekend at home since April. The star of the documentary "Murderball" has been caught in such a whirlwind of overnight stardom that the latest news -- Eminem wants to play him in a fictional version of the story -- is just one more news item.

Festivals & Awards

Sundance #9: The Winners

PARK CITY, Utah--Ira Sachs' "Forty Shades of Blue," the story of a marriage that does not work and never could have, won the Grand Jury Prize here Saturday night, as best feature film at Sundance 2005. Eugene Jarecki's "Why We Fight," a film about an America moving toward a state of continuous war, was named best documentary. Jarecki's brother Andrew won the same category in 2003 with "Capturing The Friedmans."

Festivals & Awards

Sundance #3: Of heart and humor

PARK CITY, Utah -- I knew you needed leather balls to play rugby, but I didn't know you could also use steel ball bearings. "Murderball," probably the most talked-about documentary at Sundance this year, is about the extreme sport of wheelchair rugby, played in reinforced and armored chairs by quadriplegics with various degrees of disability. It is a full-contact sport.