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Moi, misérable: Fermer le trou à tarte

Jim Emerson

Another brawl in the square
Another stink in the air!
Was there a witness to this?
Well, let him speak to Javert!
— Javert, a character in the musical “Les Misérables”

I was an eyewitness to “Les Misérables.”

After repeated exposure to that dreadful theatrical trailer-cum-featurette about how the singing is all done live on camera! — It’s live! It’s Live! IT’S LIVE! — I had no intention of seeing Tom “The King’s Speech” Hooper’s film version of the 1980s stage musical. But when it finally came out, some of the reviews were so bad that part of me wanted to see what the stink was all about. Still, I’m not a masochist; I don’t enjoy going to movies I know I’m probably predisposed to dislike just so I can dump on them. On the other hand, there’s nothing better than having your low expectations upended. I did enjoy that Susan Boyle YouTube video back in 2009, but that was all I knew about the musical. I remained curious but skeptical. And then …

Holy Oscar! A long day’s journey into Muriel

Jim Emerson

But what really matters is the Muriels. You know, that time-honored annual movie award that is not named after Bette Davis’s Uncle Oscar, but after co-founder Paul Clark’s guinea pig. Throughout the month of February (the 6th through the 23rd), the winners have been announced, as you know because you’ve been regularly clicking on the Muriels link right here on Scanners. Anyway, you know what “Argo” can do; the Muriel voters, on the other hand, chose to give the year’s top prize to what, for me, was obviously the most rewarding movie experience of the year: Leos Carax’s “Holy Motors.”

A little black dress makes the world go round

Jana Monji

With the passing of Andy Williams, I keep imagining his golden tenor singing Henry Mancini’s “Moon River.” The song talks about crossing life in style. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is all about fashionable cafe society and love; in an adult fairy tale, you can have both even if you are two drifters.

The director Gregory Nava once commented, “Whenever any question of style or taste in dress comes up, I simply ask myself, ‘What would Fred Astaire have done?'” Audrey Hepburn is Astaire’s female equivalent: sophistication mixed with fizzy fun.

Chan-wook Park’s Stoker: Young girl meets Oldboy

Simon Abrams

For better and worse, “Stoker,” South Korean director Chan-wook Park’s first film with an all English-speaking cast, is very much Park’s baby. Park (“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance,” “Thirst”) is most well-known for directing “Oldboy.” In that now-famously bloody, operatic revenge drama, and most of his other films, Park takes great pains to steep viewers in his protagonists’ subjective worlds. Perspective is accordingly a prison in “Stoker,” a soapy Southern Gothic-style coming of age story with an Alice in Wonderland fetish.

2315 Words On “Lifeforce.” Yes. “Lifeforce.”

Peter Sobczynski

Released in the summer of 1985 to critical scorn and near-total commercial indifference, the sci-fi/horror hybrid “Lifeforce” has spent most of the following 28 years languishing in obscurity. If it was remembered at all, it was either because of its massive financial failure–which helped doom the futures of both its producing company and its director–or because of its status as one of the all-time favorite films of Mr. Skin, that beloved repository of on-screen nudity.

“Map of the Human Heart:” A video essay by Michael Mirasol on Vincent Ward’s 1993 masterpiece

Roger Ebert

My friend and colleague Michael Mirasol, from the Philippines, now in Australia, is the very image of a Far-Flung Correspondent. We bonded at Ebertfest. Look at his magnificent video essay about Vincent Ward’s film, which we honored at Ebertfest.

Black designers show the French a thing or deux

Lisa Nesselson

For those of us who missed our calling as jet setters, socialites or fashion models along comes the edifying, spritely documentary “Versailles ’73: American Runway Revolution” to show us how much work it is to be spontaneously fabulous.

Nearly 40 years ago, in late November of 1973, something rather momentous happened at the Opéra Royal on the grounds of the King’s old digs outside Paris. In the course of a fashion show that Women’s Wear Daily dubbed “The Battle of Versailles,” boldly assertive American runway models — many of whom were what we now call African-American — wore sporty, comfortable American designer clothes with such, well, panache that the absolute supremacy of French haute couture was dented for good.

The 2013 Santa Barbara International Film Festival (by way of Oklahoma)

Anath White

Seasonal anticipation: as 2013 debuted, many were feeling it. The 28th iteration of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, aka “SBIFF,” was on the wind, with jazzed moviegoers soon to converge elbow-to-elbow in a familiar, even familial, and happy bustle on downtown’s State Street.

I was among the excited, as this would be my third year covering the festival. And for me, extra sweetening would be provided by the tribute to Daniel Day-Lewis, the oft-reticent acting genius whose reanimation of Abraham Lincoln seemed certain to bring another Best Actor Academy Award — his 3rd, making him the only actor to surpass Marlon Brando, who received 2.

In memory of Donald Richie

Roger Ebert

More than anyone else, Jeannette Hereniko introduced me to the concept of the cinema of the Pacific Rim. I knew Donald Richie through his books, and in particular learned from him about Ozu. More than anyone else, he was responsible for the introduction of Japanese films to the West, Particularly when he brought a group of great titles to the Venice Film Festival, circa 1960. He also wrote fiction and on Japanese society, and a wonderful autobiographical travel book, The Inland Sea, about a young GI who returned to Japan after WWII and stayed, inspired a film. Here is Jeanette’s appreciation of Donald, who died on Feb. 19. Roger

A beauty pageant Gloria Steinem would love

Jana Monji

Women’s History month is just the right time to watch, “Miss Navajo,” a documentary that premiered at Sundance in 2007 and was broadcast on PBS the same year. The title alone may turn people away if you are, like me, not a big fan of beauty pageants but Miss Navajo is the kind of pageant that perhaps even Gloria Steinem could get behind.

Steven Spielberg: My animated tribute

Krishna Bala Shenoi

In my copy of his book “Scorsese,” Roger Ebert wrote these words: “Every movie lover needs a hero.”

I’ve found mine in Steven Spielberg.

Spielberg has been my hero ever since I, in my childhood, saw his more popular films (” Jaws,” “Temple of Doom,” “Hook,” ” E.T.,” “Close Encounters,” et al.), but recently, as I covered areas in his filmography I hadn’t before, and doubled back to some that I didn’t quite remember, I was struck by how much he really is my hero.

The best bar in the world that I know about

Roger Ebert

The first Chicago bar I drank in was the Old Town Ale House. That bar was destroyed by fire in the 1960s, the customers hosed off, and the Ale House moved directly across the street to its present location, where it has been named Chicago’s Best Dive Bar by the Chicago Tribune.

I was taken to the Ale House by Tom Devries, my fellow college editor from the Roosevelt Torch. It was early on a snowy Sunday afternoon. I remember us walking down to Barbara’s Bookstore to get our copies of the legendary New York Herald-Tribune Sunday edition. Pogo. Judith Crist. Tom Wolfe. Jimmy Breslin. I remember peanut shells on the floor and a projector grinding through 16mm prints of Charlie Chaplin shorts. I remember my first taste of dark Löwenbräu beer. The Ale House was cool even then.

A shooting in Harsh Park

Roger Ebert

When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I must have driven past the little park a few times. Hyde Park, where the University is located, is a neighborhood including fraternity houses, foundation headquarters, school department offices, even President Obama’s family home. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House can be found there, and Henry Moore’s chilling death’s-sculpture marking the place where scientists first split the atom.

New seasons with new names

Roger Ebert

I have watched with a kind of petrified fascination in recent years as the world creeps closer to what looks to me like disastrous climate change. The poles are melting. Ocean levels are rising. The face of the planet is torn by unprecedented natural disasters. States of emergency have become so routine that governors always seem to be proclaiming one. Do they have drafts of proclamations on file?

A boy, his dog, and a puddle

Roger Ebert

I believe it was the writer W. G. Sebald who said: “Men and animals regard one another across a gulf of mutual incomprehension.” No animal seems to comprehend us better than the dog. For that matter, I comprehend them more than any other. Like the Nicolas Cage character in Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant,” I have no idea what an iguana is thinking. Does an iguana?

Growing up on the books by Albert Payson Terhune, I developed an early love for dogs. It didn’t bother me that one bit me on the cheek at Mrs. Meadrow’s Play School. It was my fault. I’d tried to ride her like a horse.

My wife Chaz, the television personality

Roger Ebert

Note: This entry contains several high-quality embedded videos. It’s necessary to give them time to load before attempting to view *any* of them.

Searching for mention of “Amour” on our 2012 PBS program “Ebert Presents at the Movies,” I was pointed by Google to one of Chaz’s video reports. I remembered liking her video at the time, started noodling through all of her reports, and found myself thinking of my wife’s emerging role as a movie critic. For more than 20 years, she’s attended virtually every film festival and press screening with me, debated the films, made friends with the people.

How I am a Roman Catholic

Roger Ebert

On Thursday morning, February 28, I found CNN featuring a continuous shot of a helicopter. The network cut between a close-up and a distant dot. It was Benedict, flying from the Vatican City. This was extraordinary attention for an ordinary cardinal, because as Benedict told the throng awaiting him, “I am no longer Pope.” I am not a scholar of Catholic history, but I believe we were witnessing the first time the Papal throne was vacant while an elected Pope was alive.