Solo: A Star Wars Story
An engaging but unnecessary bit of backstory for one of blockbuster cinema's most beloved characters.
Christina Hendricks
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The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018)
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Mark Dujsik -
Fist Fight (2017)
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Miss Monet
Glenn Kenny -
Bad Santa 2 (2016)
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Diane
Glenn Kenny -
The Neon Demon (2016)
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Jan
Simon Abrams -
Dark Places (2015)
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Patty Day
Brian Tallerico -
Lost River (2015)
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Billy
Brian Tallerico -
God's Pocket (2014)
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Jeannie Scarpato
Brian Tallerico -
Struck by Lightning (2013)
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April
Omer M. Mozaffar -
Life as We Know It (2010)
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Alison
Roger Ebert
* This filmography is not intended to be a comprehensive list of this artist’s work. Instead it reflects the films this person has been involved with that have been reviewed on this site.
Back to School: Charlie Day and Richie Keen on "Fist Fight"
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Book Review: Taschen's "Mad Men" Box-Set Revives the World of Don Draper
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Women Overtake the Frat House: How Female Comedians Have Redefined Comedy Central
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Sundance TV’s “Hap and Leonard” Will Satisfy Those Missing “Justified”
A review of the latest on Sundance TV, "Hap and Leonard."
If I Had an Emmy Ballot 2015
What should be nominated for Emmys this year? Let us guide the way.
A Real Modern Family: The Working Mother on TV
The role of the working mother on TV has been redefined in 2015 with ABC hits Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat.
Everyone's A Hero In Their Own Way: Tracing the Superheroic Roots of Joss Whedon
Digging into the catalog of Joss Whedon to chart how the director of Avengers: Age of Ultron got here.
Is That All There Is: The End of Don Draper
A review of the final season premiere of AMC's "Mad Men".
If I Had An Emmy Ballot 2014
Picks for the best of the 2013-14 television season, in the form of a Dream Emmy ballot.
Cannes: Ryan Gosling's "Lost River" earns derision, but dazzles too
Ryan Gosling's feature directorial debut is hardly the "disasterpiece" detractors claim.
Disney's D23 Expo: Animation
At Disney's D23 Expo, Jani Monji caught up with upcoming animation projects.
#171 June 12, 2013
Marie writes: Welcome to "Good Books", an online bookseller based in New Zealand. Every time you buy a book through them, 100% of the retail profit goes directly to fund projects in partnership with Oxfam; projects which provide clean water, sanitation, develop sustainable agriculture and create access to education for communities in need. To increase awareness of Good Books' efforts to raise money for Oxfam, String Theory (New Zeland based agency) teamed up with collaborative design production comany "Buck" to create the first of three videos in a digital campaign called Good Books Great Writers. Behold the award winning animated Good Books Metamorphosis.
#160 March 20, 2013
Marie writes: It's no secret there's no love lost between myself and what I regard as London's newest blight; The Shard. That said, I also love a great view. Go here to visit a 360-degree augmented-reality panorama from the building's public observation deck while listening to the sounds of city, including wind, traffic, birds and even Big Ben.
Free sample of Ebert Club Newsletter
This is a free sample of the Newsletter members receive each week. It contains content gathered from recent past issues and reflects the growing diversity of what's inside the club. To join and become a member, visit Roger's Invitation From the Ebert Club.
Marie writes: Not too long ago, Monaco's Oceanographic Museum held an exhibition combining contemporary art and science, in the shape of a huge installation by renowned Franco-Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, in addition to a selection of films, interviews and a ballet of Aurelia jellyfish.The sculpture was inspired by the sea, and reflects upon maritime catastrophes caused by Man. Huang Yong Ping chose the name "Wu Zei"because it represents far more than just a giant octopus. By naming his installation "Wu Zei," Huang added ambiguity to the work. 'Wu Zei' is Chinese for cuttlefish, but the ideogram 'Wu' is also the color black - while 'Zei' conveys the idea of spoiling, corrupting or betraying. Huang Yong Ping was playing with the double meaning of marine ink and black tide, and also on corruption and renewal. By drawing attention to the dangers facing the Mediterranean, the exhibition aimed to amaze the public, while raising their awareness and encouraging them to take action to protect the sea.
#153 January 30, 2013
Marie writes: Kudos to fellow art buddy Siri Arnet for sharing the following; a truly unique hotel just outside Nairobi, Kenya: welcome to Giraffe Manor.
#141 November 7, 2012
Marie writes: "let's see what happens if I tickle him with my stick..."(Photo by Daniel Botelho. Click image to enlarge.)
#136 October 3, 2012
Marie writes: It's that time of year again! Behold the shortlisted nominees for The Turner Prize: 2012. Below, Turner Prize nominee Spartacus Chetwynd performs 'Odd Man Out 2011' at Tate Britain on October 1, 2012 in London, England.
(click image to enlarge.)
#133 September 12, 2012
Marie writes: As TIFF 2012 enters its last week and the Grand Poobah nurses his shoulder in Chicago (having returned home early for that reason) the Newsletter presents the final installment of Festival trailers. There was a lot to chose from, so many in fact there was no room for theatrical releases; they'll return next week. Meanwhile, enjoy!
#115 May 16, 2012
Marie writes: Behold a truly inspired idea...Age 8: Eileen's pink creature It started with a simple idea: to make a recognizable comfort toy for her 4 year-old son Dani, based on one of his drawing. His school had asked the children to bring in a toy from home; an emergency measure in the event of a tantrum or crying fit. Fearing he might lose his favorite, Wendy Tsao decided to make Dani a new one. Using a drawing he often made as her guide, she improvised a plush toy snowman. Five years later, Wendy Tsao has her own thriving home-based craft business - Child's Own Studio - in which she transforms the imaginative drawings of children into plush and cloth dolls; each one handcrafted and one-of-a-kind. She receives requests from parents all over the world; there's 500 people on waiting list. Note: kudos to club member Sandy Kahn for submitting the piece.
#103 February 22, 2012
Marie writes: yet again, we have intrepid club member Sandy Kahn to thank for the following find. She sent me some links devoted to automata and how I ultimately discovered the amazing work of artist Keith Newstead...
#98 January 18, 2012
Marie writes: Okay, this is just plain cool. This is clearly someone using their brain, in combination with "what the hell, let's just go ahead and try it..."
Dr Julius Neubronner's Miniature Pigeon CameraIn 1903, Dr Julius Neubronner patented a miniature pigeon camera activated by a timing mechanism. The invention brought him international notability after he presented it at international expositions in Dresden, Frankfurt and Paris in 1909-1911. Spectators in Dresden could watch the arrival of the camera-equipped carrier pigeons, whereupon the photos were immediately developed and turned into postcards which could be purchased. (click images to enlarge.) - from The Public Domain Review. Visit the site to see even more photos.
Drive: Yellow light, red light, blue light, pink light
I was going to say, up front, that I had some mixed feelings about Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," but I'm not sure that "feelings" is the appropriate word. This 1980s pastiche (isn't that the "Risky Business" typeface lit up in neon pink?) is emotionally and narratively stripped down to resemble the sleek, polished surfaces of... well, muscle cars, but also movies by the likes of Walter Hill ("The Driver"), Michael Mann ("Thief"), William Friedkin ("To Live and Die in L.A."), Paul Schrader ("American Gigolo") and others. It even sports an aggressively ersatz-Tangerine Dream synth score of the kind so popular in the early 1980s, though this one also features some Euro-vocals with unfortunate English day-glo-highlighter lyrics ("a real human being and a real hero..."). Emotion, character, story -- they're not so much what "Drive" is interested in. The movie makes fetishistic use of signifiers for those things, but its most tangible concerns have (paradoxically?) to do with dreamy abstractions of color and shape and movement.
I like the red a lot. Not just the blood (which is the heart of the film, and I'll get to that in a minute), but there's so much blue (teal?) and orange and pink that when the red starts gushing in, it pumps some real excitement into what has, by that point, settled into a fairly static picture. (In some respects, I think "Drive" perversely hints at an art-house action movie -- and an erotic movie -- it never quite delivers, after a pretty [and] terrific archetypal getaway chase at the beginning, in which the Driver shows off his skills at using Los Angeles infrastructure to play hide-and-seek with cop cars and helicopters. Thank goodness, though, that it never turns into the racetrack movie it briefly threatens to become.)
So, the red: It excites the eyeballs (and signals imminent danger) in the red-and-white checkered windows at Nino's Pizza. But as I recall, it really gets going at Denny's. The nameless Driver (Ryan Gosling), a movie stuntman who also works as a mechanic and moonlights as a getaway car wheelman-for-hire, sits down with his generic romantic-interest neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who wears a red uniform vest as a Denny's waitress, in a booth with red light fixtures above it and a BIG plastic bottle of ketchup on the table. I don't remember what the conversation is about -- it doesn't matter, but it's probably something about her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac), who's just got out of jail and owes money to some brutal sleazebags who are threatening to physically harm him and Irene and their son Benicio (Kaden Leos), to whom Driver has also taken a shine. What I remember is the red. The film becomes pregnant with red.
#72 July 20, 2011
"I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out." - from LIFE ITSELF
(click image to enlarge)
Mad Men (and Mad Women) from Twin Peaks
The first time I remember seeing Lesli Linka Glatter's name was in a directing credit on "Twin Peaks." She directed four episodes of David Lynch's television masterpiece, 13 installments of "E.R.," eight of "The West Wing," five of "Gilmore Girls" and segments of other series, including "Freaks and Geeks," "House, M.D.," "Law and Order: SVU," "Numb3rs," "Weeds," "The Mentalist," "The Unit" and "True Blood." She's worked a lot. "The Crysanthemum and the Sword" is her sixth episode of "Mad Men" -- and the one that reminded me the most of "Twin Peaks," mostly in little visual touches.
(Although, come to think of it, she also directed the episode with the riding lawnmower accident, which could be seen as a Lynchian in-joke about "The Straight Story"...)
A few images, and then a few thoughts about other possible "Twin Peaks" connections:
Mad Men: Modern Compartmentalization
"Mad Men" has always been about compartmentalization: personal and professional, past and present, city and suburbia, accounts and creative... At first I didn't much like the new, glass and monochrome office spaces, about which silver fox Roger Sterling (John Slattery) remarked: "I feel like with my hair you can't even see me in here." Leave it to director Slattery to make the most out of these spaces in one of the finest episodes of the series (and leading contender for my favorite movie of 2010), "The Rejected" (Season 4, Episode 4). I put together this little wordless video essay about doors, windows, mirrors, transoms, hallways, pillars, screens, reflections... and I'm working on a frame-grab photo essay that gets into more detail about the exquisite direction and composition.
I've deliberately left out huge, important chunks of the episode that don't take place in the office -- but had to include Pete's magnificent shrug (with mirror, bar, decorative screen, and the unseen room down the hall), to contrast his apartment with his office, and the small framed mirror with the wall-sized observation mirror at work. The episode is mostly about Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) going in different directions, discovering new ways to open or close doors between their work and personal lives, contrasted with Don Draper (Jon Hamm), who begins the episode chain-smoking and drinking during a four-way phone call, his office a tangled web of coiled cords. Notice all the cross-sight-lines communication going on (horizontal, vertical, diagonal) -- people watching other people, exchanging glances or sight-unseen, through various frames in their separate compartments -- culminating in Don's seduced-and-ignored secretary Allison (Alexa Alemanni) staring the wrong way through the two-way mirror and looking Don right in the eye, unsettling him by seeing him for who he really is.
Both Pete and Peggy find themselves banging their heads against work surfaces in frustration/resignation, but the episode gives them a moment of grace, through glass doors in the reception area, in a brief, wordless coda I've included almost in its entirety. Peggy is leaving for lunch with some of her new boho friends; Pete is standing around with some suits ("new" clients, including his father-in-law), waiting for Don so they can have a business lunch. (BTW, I couldn't squeeze it in, but the shot of Pete knocking his forehead against the post in his office is followed by a shot of Peggy getting into the elevator -- much like the last shot here -- in which she first meets the LIFE photo editor who introduces her to the Village crowd who come by to get her at the end.) Man, what a terrific movie this is!
