Roger Ebert became film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. He is the only film critic with a star on Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame and was named honorary life member of the Directors' Guild of America. He won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Screenwriters' Guild, and honorary degrees from the American Film Institute and the University of Colorado at Boulder. Since 1989 he has hosted Ebertfest, a film festival at the Virginia Theater in Champaign-Urbana. From 1975 until 2006 he, Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper co-hosted a weekly movie review program on national TV. He was Lecturer on Film for the University of Chicago extension program from 1970 until 2006, and recorded shot-by-shot commentaries for the DVDs of "Citizen Kane," "Casablanca," "Floating Weeds" and "Dark City," and has written over 20 books.
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Q. I just saw the Golden Globe nominations, and "Babe" is nowhere in there. Not for best script, not for best direction, not for nothing. I consider this a scandal. I'd like Congress to investigate. (Don Hinkle, Green Village, NJ)
It started like this. We were talking about her new film "Down in the Delta," where Alfre Woodard plays a hard-drinking woman from the Chicago projects who gets a fresh start on her uncle's farm in the Mississippi Delta. It…
LOS ANGELES Bill Paxton has an Oscar contender and a giant gorilla movie coming out within a couple of weeks of each other, and that's the story of his career. He makes little movies ("One False Move," "Traveller," "Trespass") and…
Lew Grade, a titan of the British entertainment industry, died Sunday in London at age 91. For many years, he was a colorful fixture at the Cannes Film Festival, where after the box office failure of his film "Raise the…
Q. The great Sir Alfred Hitchcock was a busy worker right up until his death, and was working on a film when he died. From what I've heard, the screenplay and carefully-drawn story boards were finished. My question is, why…
The most enchanting film of the year is going down in flames. "Babe: Pig in the City," which will make a surprising number of critics' "10 best" lists, has been crushed by "A Bug's Life" and by wrongheaded publicity. It's…
Michael Caine likes to talk. Some actors hide in the mountains, or huddle in private clubs with their friends. Caine opens restaurants. Then he sits in a table near the door--not counting the customers, just pleased to see them.
In the days before television, most movie theaters had one screen. Now the typical multiplex has eight, and the newer ones are building 16, 20, even 30 screens. Does that mean too many movies? Has the rise of the multiplex…
Q. Lucasfilm has been threatening to withhold further promotional materials for "Star Wars -- Episode I: The Phantom Menace" from theaters if the posters and preview trailers are not returned by January 14, 1999. Why must all the promotional materials…
HYDERABAD, India After the Calcutta Film Festival, I stop for a few days in this pearl capital of central India, where the 14th annual Golden Elephant Children's Film Festival is taking place. Headquarters is the Holiday Inn Krishna, where a…
