Fast & Furious 6
Squarely state-of-the-art, "Fast 6" is not a great action movie. It has all the ingredients, including a cast that flaunts infectious group chemistry, but its…
Squarely state-of-the-art, "Fast 6" is not a great action movie. It has all the ingredients, including a cast that flaunts infectious group chemistry, but its…
The latest from Blue Sky Studio ("Ice Age," "Rio") is different from whatever Pixar/Disney or any other big animation outfit happens to be offering this…
"The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens…
Patrice Leconte's "Monsieur Hire" is a tragedy about loneliness and erotomania, told about two solitary people who have nothing else in common. It involves a…
It's time once again fro Barbara Scharres' annual award for Best Feline Performance of the Cannes Film Festival.
When Chaz has gone to Cannes without Roger in the past, she has written about the festival in the form of letters and postcards to…
Far Flung Correspondent Seongyong Cho discusses "Kinyarwanda," a powerful look at the genocide in Rwanda.
Roger was a titan in the film community, but he was also a beacon for the seriously disabled.
Far Flung Correspondent Seongyong Cho discusses "Kinyarwanda," a powerful look at the genocide in Rwanda.
Roger was a titan in the film community, but he was also a beacon for the seriously disabled.
The destruction of Vulcan, one of the most crucial planets in the "Star Trek" universe, should be at the core of J.J. Abrams’ "Trek" movies.…
Dear Roger,You emailed me the questions to this interview on March 15, 2013. In your March 16th reply to my email, you said: The piece…
Named after the David Cronenberg film, this is the blog of RogerEbert.com founding editor Jim Emerson, where he has chronicled his enthusiasms and indulged his whims since 2005. Favorite subjects include evidence-based movie criticism, cinematic form and style, comedy, logical reasoning, language, journalism, technology, epistemology and fun. No topic is off-limits, but critical thinking is required.

Harvey Keitel as a prison priest on the set of "It's Pat" with Gene and Dean Ween. Unfortunately, this framing device got cut!
In my review of "You, Me and Dupree," (which, to meet Sun-Times deadlines I had to write immediately after seeing the movie Monday night), I mentioned several indications that the movie had undergone some drastic cutting and revisions. I wrote:
Even more perplexing are the laborious set-ups for gags that are missing their payoffs -- the most notable being an entire character (Mandy, the love of Dupree's life for a few scenes) who never actually shows her face onscreen. We keep waiting for the punchline, but there isn't one. It seems she has simply been cut out of the movie (wait for the DVD, kids!). Perhaps, at one time, she was Annie, the fifth-or sixth-billed character supposedly played by Amanda Detmer, whom I do not recall ever showing up for work.
Since writing those words, I have Googled, I have investigated, and I can't find any reports on what happened. It's unusual to see somebody with such prominent billing and so little screen time (though, undoubtedly, other examples exist). Usually, somebody who has been cut out of the movie would also be removed from the credits -- though still get paid. (That's what happened when we had to cut Harvey Keitel's priest scenes out of "It's Pat," although he was great in 'em.)
I asked Anne Thompson and she said she had no idea what had happened. I asked David Poland and he said he'd spotted Amanda Detmer (a favorite of his) in the opening wedding scenes, but didn't know why she went away. It's clear from the way "Mandy's" scenes are shot, that her face is deliberately being shielded from view. But why? I'm throwing it out there to all you knowledgable cinephiles and voracious readers out there. Anybody know what the deal is?
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When Chaz has gone to Cannes without Roger in the past, she has written about the festival in the form of letters and...