As part of the Contrarian Blog-a-Thon, here's a chance to really vent your spleen (in a rational and persuasive way). Please cast your vote below, and then elaborate on your selection in Comments. Give your reasons. Try to change our…
View image Listen (doo-dah-doo), do you want to know a secret? I have new reviews of two fine films -- one from Germany and one from Turkey -- in today's Chicago Sun-Times and on RogerEbert.com: The Lives of Others It…
Selznick, Rossellini & Fellini, by Rossellini & Maddin. Brad Damaré of Ann Arbor, MI, was kind enough to point me to a marvelous YouTube post of the entire 16-minute 2005 collaboration between Guy Maddin ("The Saddest Music in the World")…
View image John Candy as Steve Roman as Juan Cortez -- now that spells good acting. Ever since December, when Kristin Thompson posted this ("Good Actors Spell Good Acting") on the blog she shares with her husband and co-author David…
"It's film-tastic!" A warm-up for this weekend's Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon -- from Manohla Dargis's piece on the Film Comment Selects series, in today's New York Times: Film criticism, as it has been observed, is the rationalization of taste into theory. No…
Here is Lil. She indicates that this is one of Gordon's blue rose cases. When I saw David Lynch's "Inland Empire" for the first time a few weeks ago, I knew I was going to be reviewing it for the…
I went to one of the first editions of the Portland International Film Festival back in 1978 or 1979 (thanks to Ruth Hayler of Seven Gables Theatres), where I saw Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" for the first time.…
View image "Citizen Kane": No matter what anybody says, "It's Terrific!" Edward Copeland had a bunch of questions about anomalies in Oscar history and technicalities in the (ever-changing) rules. So, he went straight to the source, the staff of the…
View image (Sun-Times illustration) Roger Ebert is pretty darned good when it comes to predicting the Oscar winners. (I, on the other hand, have never, ever won an Oscar pool. I'm terrible at it.) This year, he also agrees with…
In a year when the Academy Award nominations are more diverse and international than ever before, it's anyone's guess who will win best picture. "Dreamgirls" garnered more nominations than any other movie, but was passed over for both picture and…
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