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Joan Allen

Reviews

Lisey's Story (2021)
Room (2015)
A Good Marriage (2014)
Death Race (2008)
Yes (2005)
Off the Map (2005)
The Notebook (2004)
The Contender (2000)
Pleasantville (1998)
The Ice Storm (1997)
Face/Off (1997)
The Crucible (1996)
Nixon (1995)
Ethan Frome (1993)
In Country (1989)

Blog Posts

Features

The Political Idealism of Gary Ross

A look at the politics and idealism of director Gary Ross, as reflected over the course of his career in films like "Pleasantville," "The Hunger Games" and "Free State of Jones."

Ebert Club

#102 February 15, 2012

Marie writes: my art pal Siri Arnet sent me following - and holy cow! "Japanese artist Takanori Aiba has taken bonsai trees, food packaging, and even a tiny statue of the Michelin Man and constructed miniature metropolises around these objects, thus creating real-life Bottled Cities of Kandor. Explains Aiba of his artwork:"My source of creations are my early experience of bonsai making and maze illustration. These works make use of an aerial perspective, which like the diagram for a maze shows the whole from above (the macro view) while including minute details (the micro view). If you explore any small part of my works, you find amazing stories and some unique characters." ( click to enlarge.)

Roger Ebert

You wild, beautiful thing. You crazy handful of nothin'

That's the hard-boiled Dragline, speaking of Cool Hand Luke.

After she read my obituary of Paul Newman, my wife Chaz asked me, "Why didn't you write more about his acting?" She was right. Why didn't I? I've been asking myself that. Maybe I was trying to tell myself something. I think it was this: I never really thought of him as an actor. I regarded him more as an embodiment, an evocation, of something. And I think that something was himself. He seemed above all a deeply good man, who freed himself to live life fully and joyfully, and used his success as a way to follow his own path, and to help others.

Interviews

'Yes' is elegant, bold, original, erotic

When I interviewed Joan Allen and Sally Potter about their new film "Yes," I assumed everyone who saw it would love it as I do. I was mistaken. Although it has many supporters, it has opened to some savage reviews ("Ideas of almost staggering banality" -- A.O. Scott, New York Times).

Festivals & Awards

Autumn is rich in 'art films'

TORONTO -- Sometimes it's good to sit down in a quiet corner and take a deep breath and stop running as fast as you can. This year at the Toronto Film Festival, I've averaged three to four films a day and talked about movies in interviews, at lunch, in hotel lobbies, in elevators, corridors, standing next to hot dog stands, waiting in line for coffee, lingering on theater sidewalks and walking down the street. The phone is ringing right now.

Festivals & Awards

Toronto fires starter's gun for Oscar race

TORONTO -- Oscar season starts this weekend. The Toronto International Film Festival has become the showcase for ambitious autumn releases by studios hoping for Academy Awards, or at least for good reviews of movies that adults can enjoy without resorting to their child within.

Festivals & Awards

Telluride: Three very different looks at sex

TELLURIDE, Colo. -- Three of the best films at this year's Telluride festival deal with unusual frankness with sex. Sally Potter's "Yes" (2005) stars Joan Allen as a scientist trapped in a loveless marriage, who begins a passionately physical affair with a Lebanese cook. Bill Condon's "Kinsey" stars Liam Neeson as Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, whose research revolutionized conventional ideas about human sexual behavior. And Todd Solondz's "Palindromes" is a story of messy, sad teenage sexual experiences.

Festivals & Awards

A breath of thin air

TELLURIDE, Colo. -- After years of controversy, one of the most persistent questions in the world of film has finally been settled: Yes, Annette Bening's face was used as the model for the torch-bearing woman on the logo that opens every Columbia Picture.