Great Movies
Interviews
Comfortably Naked: Dave Franco and Alison Brie on Somebody I Used to Know
An interview with director/co-writer Dave Franco and co-writer/star Alison Brie about their new romantic comedy, "Somebody I Used to Know."
An interview with director/co-writer Dave Franco and co-writer/star Alison Brie about their new romantic comedy, "Somebody I Used to Know."
A feature on the best television of 2020, as chosen by five RogerEbert.com TV critics.
An analysis of recent faith-based releases, including "God's Not Dead" and "Heaven Is For Real."
The visceral impact that Ridley Scott's "Alien" had in 1979 can never quite be recaptured, partly because so many movies have adapted elements of its premise, design and effects over the last three decades -- from John Carpenter's remake of "The Thing" (1982) to David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly" (1986) to "Species" (1998) and "Splice" (2009). No movie had ever looked like this. And it still works tremendously -- but let me tell you, in 1979 a major studio science-fiction/horror film that hinted darkly of interspecies rape and impregnation was unspeakably disturbing. (It got under my skin and has stayed there. We have a symbiotic relationship, this burrowing movie parasite and I. We nourish each other. I don't think Ridley Scott has even come close to birthing as subversive and compelling a creation since.)
The thing is, the filmmakers actually took out the grisly details involving just what that H.R. Giger " xenomorph" did to and with human bodies (the sequels got more graphic), but in some ways that made the horror all the more unsettling. You knew, but you didn't know. It wasn't explicitly articulated. Dallas (Tom Skerrit) just disappears from the movie. The deleted "cocoon" scene (with the haunting moan, "Kill me...") appeared later on a LaserDisc version of the film, and then was incorporated into the 2003 theatrical re-release for the first time. The deleted footage:
It's a sunny, unseasonable 80 degrees as the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival kicks in, but all I want is to be indoors. When you peer at a schedule listing nearly 200 films jammed into 10 days, and you just can't wait, you know you're an addict. This is my third SBIFF so I recognize the signs.
Suddenly each January, there's an extra bustle in this appealing, laid-back town. Downtown on lower State Street, trucks appear bearing vivid banners, soon to be festooned overhead. Special lights and rigging go up at 2 central venues - the precisely restored, historic Lobero and Arlington Theatres. Locals watch to see whether Festival Director Roger Durling changes his hair: one year it was spikey, another year purple. This time it's rather like Heathcliff - longer, romantic.
Marie writes: many simply know her as the girl with the black helmet. Mary Louise Brooks (1906 - 1985), aka Louise Brooks, an American dancer, model, showgirl and silent film actress famous for her bobbed haircut and sex appeal. To cinefiles, she's best remembered for her three starring roles in Pandora's Box (1929) and Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) directed by G. W. Pabst, and Prix de Beauté (1930) by Augusto Genina. She starred in 17 silent films (many lost) and later authored a memoir, Lulu in Hollywood."She regards us from the screen as if the screen were not there; she casts away the artifice of film and invites us to play with her." - Roger, from his review of the silent classic Pandor's Box.
If "The Cider House Rules" wins the Academy Award for best picture next Sunday night, expect the groans to more or less equal the cheers. There are those who sincerely believe it is a good picture, but there are other, perhaps more numerous, who believe "Cider's" seven nominations are less a tribute to the film's greatness than to the well-oiled Miramax Oscar Machine.
Q. "Stigmata" is not as silly as you say. My friends and I left the theater having experienced a dazzling and powerful film. You talked about demonic possession. The spirit (not the demon) that possessed Frankie was a Catholic priest angry at the Church because it would not publish what he believed to be the gospel Jesus himself wrote. We don't have a demon who wants to ravage the world and kill people, as silly horror movies portray. We have a priest who wants to be heard, and his only way to get this word out to the world is through possessing the atheist, Frankie. Nor does "Stigmata" imply that the stigmata itself comes through the rosary. It comes due to the possession by the spirit of Father Almeida. At the end of your review you talk about Catholics and the outrage that this film has caused. A Catholic friend watched it with us and thought it was incredible. He even agreed with the corruption of the Catholic Church which was illustrated in the film. (Nathan Miller, Castleton VT)
