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Leno, late night & me
(AP photo)
Jay Leno and I go way back. One of my fondest memories is of Jay chasing me around the parking lot of the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. I always tell people that I thought of the Bel-Air, which I could still afford in those days (long long ago), as more a sanitarium than a hotel. You know how in L.A. your waiter has probably written a screenplay or two? At the Bel-Air, one of the parking attendants had actually starred in an ABC network series several years earlier! He played a wolf-boy.
Mamet’s Spector of reasonable doubt
“I believe he’s not guilty.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I have a reasonable doubt.”
The last words spoken in David Mamet’s HBO feature film “Phil Spector” are “reasonable doubt.” The first words appear in white letters on a black screen:
This is a work of fiction. It’s not “based on a true story.” … It is a drama inspired by actual persons on a trial, but it is neither an attempt to depict the actual persons, nor to comment upon the trial or its outcome.
I’m not quite sure what that means (beyond “Don’t sue us”) — but it sounds a little like one of Mamet’s nonsensical latter-day post-right-wing conversion rants. (Read Mamet’s 2008 Village Voice essay, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal'” and see if you can figure out how he went from an unthinking, ignorant knee-jerk lefty to an unthinking, ignorant knee-jerk conservative. It has something to do with NPR, but what was he listening to? “Car Talk”? He doesn’t say — only that he believes in choosing one’s political positions and convictions the way you would choose a sports team to root for, based on your affection for a place and whatever colors you feel are the most flattering this season.)
Days of Ebertfest: The 2013 schedule
PRESS RELEASE: CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Terrence Malick’s 1978 film “Days of Heaven” won an Oscar for best cinematography, and Roger Ebert likely found that no surprise. It is “above all one of the most beautiful films ever made,” Ebert said in a 1997 review. So it’s only appropriate that the film will open the 15th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival on April 17 in the big-screen, newly renovated Virginia Theater in downtown Champaign.
A Leave of Presence
Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and columns and even written to me since that time. Others were introduced to my film criticism through the television show, my books, the website, the film festival, or the Ebert Club and newsletter. However you came to know me, I’m glad you did and thank you for being the best readers any film critic could ask for.
A statement from Chaz Ebert
CHICAGO, April 4, 2013 — Chaz Ebert issued the following statement Thursday about the passing of her husband, Roger Ebert, a day after he celebrated 46 years as a film critic:
“I am devastated by the loss of my love, Roger — my husband, my friend, my confidante and oh-so-brilliant partner of over 20 years. He fought a courageous fight. I’ve lost the love of my life and the world has lost a visionary and a creative and generous spirit who touched so many people all over the world. We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other.
The rousing return of Robin Roberts
(ABC photo)
Roughly five months ago, back in the summer of ’12, the spectacularly popular Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning, America,” left the show for a sabbatical of indeterminate length. She might be gone for six or eight months, viewers inferred, or for a year. Or, forever.
Kind of like ‘Top Chef,’ but with holy smoke
Aye, it’s the age-old story. Oh the naming of a new pope, sure, but there’s another less-age-old story: TV networks covering something that their anchors and reporters call a glorious spectacle and then ruining the spectacle with superfluous graphics littering the screen.
This one’s a keeper
(AP photo)
Back in ancient days of rampant ignorance and sexist effrontery, a TV commercial for a product now forgotten depicted a happy married couple whose cheer seemed guaranteed by the woman’s subservience to the man. At the end of the ad he uttered a phrase that entered, to the dismay of millions, the iconography of the time: “My wife — I think I’ll keep her.”
The Oscars: Captain Kirk was right
(AP photo)
Listen — a billion people are throwing up. That’s a rough estimate of course, but every year somebody at the Oscars says a billion people on the planet are watching the program; however many watched this year’s Oscar show, they may well have felt sickened by it. It was a stomach-churning, jaw-dropping debacle, incompetently hosted and witlessly produced.
