Matt writes: The 21st annual edition of Roger Ebert's Film Festival (a.k.a. Ebertfest), concluded last Saturday, and you can find all the onstage Q&As embedded in our festival coverage. Brian Tallerico covered the opening night screening of "Amazing Grace," while Nick Allen covered the Day 2 panels ("Challenging Stigma Through the Arts" and "Women in Cinema") and screenings ("Coeur Fidele," "Rachel Getting Married" and "Bound," culminating in an unforgettable Q&A with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon). Peter Sobczynski covered Day 3 of the festival ("Sebastian," "Cold War," "Cane River," "A Year of the Quiet Sun" and "Romy and Michele's High School Reunion"), and Nick did the write-up for Day 4 ("Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise," "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", "Almost Famous" and "Sideways"). The 2018-19 University of Illinois College of Media Roger Ebert Fellows, Curtis Cook, Pari Apostolakos and Eunice Alpasan, also contributed their own dispatches.

Continue reading →

Matt writes: The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, which wrapped on September 16th, had so many enticing selections guaranteed to be major contenders this awards season, and RogerEbert.com was there to cover them all.

Continue reading →

Matt writes: This month has marked the fiftieth anniversary of Arthur Penn's 1967 masterpiece, "Bonnie and Clyde." While many critics at the time were baffled and offended by the picture, Roger Ebert awarded it four stars, writing, "This is pretty clearly the best American film of the year. It is also a landmark. Years from now it is quite possible that 'Bonnie and Clyde' will be seen as the definitive film of the 1960s, showing with sadness, humor and unforgiving detail what one society had come to. The fact that the story is set 35 years ago doesn't mean a thing. It had to be set sometime. But it was made now and it's about us." Later that year, he wrote a piece taking on the film's naysayers, and in 1998, Ebert inducted "Bonnie and Clyde" into his Great Movies series. To commemorate the film's anniversary, writers at RogerEbert.com offered their reflections on the film's legacy.

Continue reading →

Sheila writes: The glamorous days of air travel were already on their way out by the time I first stepped foot on an airplane (Aer Lingus, 1980) so I have always been fascinated by glimpses of what traveling by plane used to be like: the linens, the cocktail glasses, the curtains, the elegance! I came across a piece about a man, Anthony Toth, who had such a sense of nostalgia for those bygone days that he built a partial replica of a Pan Am 747 in a warehouse in Redondo Beach, where he lives. At first, the replica was in his garage, but then he realized he needed to build an upper level, so he moved the entire thing to a warehouse, where it still sits today. The local press picked up on the story, and it created such interest that you can now visit and have dinner, Pan Am style.

Continue reading →