
Tributes
Goodbye to a Chicago Legend: Sergio Mims (1955-2022)
A tribute to Sergio Mims from members of the Chicago Film Critics Association and writers of RogerEbert.com.
A tribute to Sergio Mims from members of the Chicago Film Critics Association and writers of RogerEbert.com.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming, including The Black Phone, Men, and 4K editions of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Flatliners, and more.
New on Blu-ray and streaming, including Where'd You Go Bernadette, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, and a Criterion edition of Cold War.
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including Aquaman, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Detour.
The latest on streaming and Blu-ray, including Support the Girls, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Galveston, and The Magnificent Ambersons.
A celebration of Brian De Palma's Sisters, on the occasion of a new Blu-ray release from the Criterion Collection.
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD including Coco, Darkest Hour, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Florida Project!
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD includes "Atomic Blonde," "Wind River," "Your Name," and more.
A guide to the latest and greatest on Blu-ray and DVD, including three Criterion releases, The Wall, and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.
A look back at the eighth annual TCM Classic Film Festival, which included screenings of nitrate prints, a conversation with Michael Douglas and much more.
The latest on Blu-ray, including "Elle," "Sing," "Robocop 2," "Being There" and "Ghost in the Shell"!
Peyton Kennedy on "American Fable"; Dale Robinette's iconic "La La Land" photo; Hollywood diversity report; "I Am Not Your Negro" and white film critics; ReFrame tackles gender inequality.
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD including two Criterion Altman releases, Imperium, Anthropoid, Bad Moms, and more!
The latest and greatest on Blu-ray, DVD and streaming, including "Spotlight," "The Danish Girl," and "The Graduate."
A guide to the latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya," "St. Vincent," and four fantastic Criterion releases.
A special edition of the Home Entertainment Consumer Guide on Blu-ray releases for 9/23/14, including "Ida," "The Innocents," "Macbeth," "Neighbors," "The Rover" and more.
Tom Shales looks at "Carson on TCM," a weekly series of shows culling great Carson interviews.
"Norman Mailer: The American" is available on Amazon Instant video. It is also available on DVD. Criterion has announced a two-disc Eclipse Series DVD set of Norman Mailer-directed features for release August 28, 2012: "Maidstone" (1970), "Wild 90" (1967) and "Beyond the Law" (1968).
Watching "Norman Mailer: The American," I was struck by the similarities between Mailer and Charles Foster Kane. And it's not just that director Joseph Mantegna (not the actor) at one point employs the title card for "Citizen Kane's" faux newsreel "News on the March" to setup some archival footage. Or the fact that "American" was originally the proposed title for Orson Welles' masterpiece.
Both films grapple with taking the full measure of a man who had significant influences on his times (Kane is fictional, but he was legendarily based in part on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst). As Mailer's life unfolds in all its glory, controversy and infamy, dialogue from "Kane" ran like a crawl through my brain. "Few private lives were more public... and he himself was always news." And: "Here's a man who was as loved and hated and talked about as any man in our time." But finally: "It's not enough to tell us what the man did, you've got to tell us who he was."
"Woody Allen: A Documentary" airs on PBS stations in two parts, at 9 p. m. Sunday and Monday, Nov. 20 and 21. Check local listings for airtimes. Also available via PBS On Demand.
by Odie Henderson
I took this gig as a challenge. It's not that I hate Woody Allen; I just don't adore him as much as you would like. Plus, I live in the Bizarro World when it comes to his films, enjoying the ones most people hate and vice-versa. For example, I hated "Match Point," disliked "Annie Hall," and could never commit to "Manhattan" despite its astonishing, heartbreaking cinematography. Conversely, I loved "Deconstructing Harry," found "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" amusing, and I may be the only sane person who liked "Hollywood Ending." These confessions may disturb die-hard fans, but before you vow never to read anything of mine again, you should watch American Masters' "Woody Allen: A Documentary." There you'll discover that Woody Allen dislikes most of his movies, even going so far as to offer to make a different movie for free if United Artists used "Manhattan" for kindling. Compared to that, my "meh" reaction to the gorgeous-looking film is a ringing endorsement. We now know who should be getting your hate mail, don't we?
Not that Allen would care. Robert B. Weide's exceptional documentary makes clear that critical opinion is the farthest thing from its subject's mind. The prolific writer-director has been too busy cranking out a film a year for the past four decades to worry about what anyone thinks of them. You'd have to go back to the studio system's heyday for that kind of output, work that produced eleven solo and three collaborative Oscar nominations for writing. That's two more than my beloved Billy Wilder, who coincidentally never got a solo writing nomination. Add to those fourteen writing nods his six directing nominations, sole acting nod and the resulting three wins, and you have one of the most honored filmmakers in Hollywood history. He can expect a 22nd nomination for "Midnight In Paris," which I cop to liking but not with the slobbering praise afforded it by most critics. (It's like a cross between Cliffs Notes, "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and a Tea Party rally, with all that "it's so much better in the past" nonsense.) The fact that awards mortify Allen makes these numerous acknowledgements the kind of ironic, funny joke one would find in, well, a Woody Allen movie.
From the Grand Poobah: The name of this video is "Tarantino vs. the Coen Brothers." It is a rather brilliant editing accomplishment. The better you know the Tarantino and Coen films, the more you may like it. I predict it will go viral.
"Calcuttan Cats," a short story by club member H. W. Cimmerian, is newly online at "O'Rourke's magazine," the online lit mag that Ebert publishes from time to time.
Film director Robert Altman isn't a stockholder in Twentieth Century-Fox, but if he were, he'd ask this question at Fox's summer board meeting, which will be held here in Chicago Thursday: "When is Robert Altman's new movie 'Health' going to be released?" The studio apparently has no plans to release.