Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
This is a movie that’s annoying in part because it doesn’t care if you’re annoyed by it. It doesn’t need you, the individual viewer, to…
John Waters
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Tab Hunter Confidential (2015)
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Himself
Odie Henderson -
Hairspray (2007)
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Screenplay by
Roger Ebert -
Seed of Chucky (2004)
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Pete Peters
Roger Ebert -
A Dirty Shame (2004)
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Written and directed by
Roger Ebert -
Cecil B. Demented (2000)
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Written and Directed by
Roger Ebert -
Sweet And Lowdown (1999)
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Mr. Hayes
Roger Ebert -
Pecker (1998)
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Written and Directed by
Roger Ebert -
Pink Flamingos (1997)
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Written, Produced and Directed by
Roger Ebert -
Serial Mom (1994)
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Written and Directed by
Roger Ebert -
Cry-Baby (1990)
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Written and Directed by
Roger Ebert -
Grievous Bodily Harm (1989)
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Morris Martin
Roger Ebert -
Hairspray (1988)
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Written and Directed by
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.
Inclusion Rider: Backstage at the 90th Academy Awards
A report from the Oscar press room at the 90th Academy Awards.
Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: May 12, 2017
The latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including "Gold," "Heat," 'Age of Shadows," 'Serial Mom" and more!
A Moment of Significance: Nacho Vigalondo on Making "Colossal" to Scale
An interview with the writer and director of this week's "Colossal."
Home Entertainment Consumer Guide: March 23, 2017
The latest on Blu-ray, including "Elle," "Sing," "Robocop 2," "Being There" and "Ghost in the Shell"!
Holiday Gift Guide 2016
A guide to the best Blu-rays and DVDs you can give this holiday season.
Herschell Gordon Lewis: 1929-2016
A tribute to the late Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis.
"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" Freaks Out the Criterion Collection on September 27
Russ Meyer's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," written by Roger Ebert, will be released on Criterion Blu-ray/DVD on September 27.
The Unloved, Part 31: "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me"
For the 31st installment in his series about maligned masterworks, Scout Tafoya examines David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me."
Thumbnails 11/6/15
Why Tarantino shouldn't apologize; Gender-flipped "Ocean's Eleven"; "Mulholland Dr." is a movie and a TV show; Trumbo sisters are proud of their father; Why old women are the face of evil.
Blu-ray: The Year in Review, OR Blu-ray Holiday Gift Guide: A “Choose Your Own Adventure” Deciders Feature
A recap and guide to the most interesting Blu-rays of 2014.
Thumbnails 12/11/14
Death of mid-budget cinema; Lena Dunham speaks out; Antonio Sanchez on "Birdman"; 25 best superhero movies since "Blade"; Men need to stop calling women crazy.
Thumbnails 10/31/14
Reverse Shot's Halloween programming; Rise of the VHS collector; Top 10 favorite witches; Bob Gale on Spielberg; Apple CEO is proud to be gay.
"Skeleton" Crew: Cult Movie Maestro Larry Blamire On Completing The "Lost Skeleton" Trilogy Using Kickstarter
An interview with Larry Blamire on the "Lost Skeleton" trilogy.
On "Ms. 45" and Revenge Movie Feminism
Critics Christy Lemire, Sheila O'Malley and Susan Wloszczyna talk about 1980s cult film "Ms. 45" on the occasion of a re-release.
Book Excerpt: Rainer on Film, Thirty Years of Film Writing in a Turbulent and Transformative Era
"Rainer on Film: Thirty Years of Film Writing in a Turbulent and Transformative Era" is a remarkable collection of reviews and essays from critic Peter Rainer. This essay on film noir and neo-noir is excerpted from the book.
Mondo Meyer: Critic and Author Irv Slifkin talks about Russ Meyer
We catch up with Irv Slifkin, the man behind MONDO MEYER, a Philadelphia event celebrating the work of filmmaker Russ Meyer.
Happy birthday, "Blood Feast": digging into the guts of the very first "splatter" film
"Blood Feast" is a terrible film, and a historically important one, too. On the fiftieth anniversary of its release, Simon Abrams revisits this gore-fest.
#155 February 13, 2013
Marie writes: If I have a favorite festival, it's SXSW and which is actually a convergence of film, music and emerging technologies. However it's the festival's penchant for screening "quirky" Indie movies which really sets my heart pounding and in anticipation of seeing the next Wes Anderson or Charlie Kaufman. So from now until March, I'll be tracking down the best with the zeal of a Jack Russell terrier! Especially since learning that Joss Whedon's modern B/W take on Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" is set to screen at SXSW 2013 in advance of its June 21st US release date; they'll cut an official trailer soon, rubbing hands together!
Faster, Quentin! Thrill! Thrill!
Rating: Four stars
Consider now the curious character of Dr. King Schultz. He is an itinerant dentist who works from his little wagon, traveling the backroads of the pre-Civil War South. As Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" opens, we see a line of shackled slaves being led through what I must describe as a deep, dark forest, because those are the kinds of forests we meet in fairy tales. Out of this deepness and darkness, Schultz (Christoph Waltz) appears, his lantern swinging from his wagon, which has a bobbling tooth on its roof.
Django America
Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" (2012) is a very good Tarantino movie. Save for "Pulp Fiction," I tend to appreciate and respect Tarantino movies more than I enjoy them. "Pulp Fiction," however, was so entertaining that I did not want it to end. Such were my feelings with "Django Unchained." As a mash of bloody pulp cinema with great aspirations, it is as entertaining as anything I have seen from Tarantino. For Tarantino diehards it is as Tarantino-esque as everything else from him.
The best greatest movies ever list
UPDATED (08/01/12): Scroll to the bottom of this entry to see my first impressions of the newly announced critics' and directors' poll results.
Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" (1948) topped the first Sight & Sound critics' poll in 1952, only four years after it was first released, dropped to #7 in 1962, and then disappeared from the top ten never to be seen again. (In 2002 only five of the 145 participating critics voted for it.) Orson Welles' "Citizen Kane" (1941) flopped in its initial release but was rediscovered in the 1950s after RKO licensed its films to television in 1956. From 1962 to 2002 "Kane" has remained at the top of the poll (46 critics voted for it last time). This year, a whopping 846 top-ten ballots (mentioning 2,045 different titles) were counted, solicited from international "critics, programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles" -- including bloggers and other online-only writers. Sight & Sound has announced it will live-tweet the 2012 "Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time" (@SightSoundmag #sightsoundpoll) August 1, and as I write this the night before, I of course don't know the results. But, for now at least, I'm more interested in the process.
Given the much wider and younger selection of voters in 2012, ist-watchers have been speculating: Will another movie (leading candidate: Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo," number 2 in 2002) supplant "Kane" at the top of the list? Will there be any silent films in the top 10? (Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" and Murnau's "Sunrise" tied for #7 on the 2002 list, but the latter was released in 1927 with a Fox Movietone sound-on-film musical score and sound effects.)
Though there's been no rule about how much time should pass between a film's initial release and its eligibility (the Library of Congress's National Film Registry requires that selections be at least ten years old), most of the selections ten to have stood the test of time for at least a decade or two. The newest film on the 2002 list was the combination of "The Godfather" (1972) and "The Godfather, Part II" (1974) -- but they won't be allowed to count as one title for 2012.
Tim and Eric Mediocre Movie, Great Job!
"Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" is available for streaming/download on iTunes, Amazon Instant, Vudu and YouTube. In theaters March 2.
"Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" is a lot like "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!." They're both experimental video art posing as sketch comedy. In them you can see DNA from Ernie Kovacs, John Waters, the Kuchar brothers, Robert Downey, Sr., Tom Rubnitz, early Beck music videos, Damon Packard, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (and every other Adult Swim psychotic episode) and Harmony Korine, to name just a random few. But it's likely that actor-writer-directors Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim took inspiration from none of these freaks.
The duo's work seems to flow directly from three sources: Bad corporate promotional and instructional videos, absurd local TV programming and assaultive blockbuster films. Their collages of chopped-and-screwed sounds with spastic motion graphics and sloppy green screen don't seem much different (in effect, if not production values) from what's on cable any given Sunday. It's just that they put unattractive, demented-seeming people in front of the green screen instead of the usual telegenic emoters. They spout nonsense where platitudes and corporate messages usually go. When celebrities appear on the show, they flub and stutter like robot hologram versions of themselves. It's as if the show's editor was a spam bot.
Whether any of it is funny is almost beside the point. The creeping surrealism often takes away your ability to blink, especially, I suspect, when, like me, you have no history with the show.
In the meadow, we can pan a snowman
You better watch out You better not cry You better have clout We're telling you why Two Thumbs Down are comin' to town We're making a list, Checking it twice; Gonna find out whose movie was scheiss. Sandy Claws is comin' to town. We see you when you're (bleeping), We know when you're a fake We know if you've been bad or good So be good for cinema's sake!
It moves! It speaks! It smells!
This week we'll be treated to a big advertising campaign for "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D." I have not seen the film, but I have experienced the process.
Yes, the Scratch-n-Sniff card is back, this time advertised as Aromascope. We have come a long way since Odorama and Smell-O-Vision. Well, maybe not that long a way.
Elizabeth Taylor, pagan goddess
Camille Paglia is known for being both brilliant and wacky (possibly wacko) -- often at the same time, which is probably when she's at her most inspired. A founding contributor at Salon.com (and co-star of "It's Pat: The Movie"), Paglia spoke on the phone to Salon editor Kerry Lauerman yesterday after the news of Elizabeth Taylor's death, and offered up an extraordinary tribute. I just wanted to share some of it with you. Lauerman begins by quoting something Paglia wrote about Taylor in Penthouse in 1992:
"She wields the sexual power that feminism cannot explain and has tried to destroy. Through stars like Taylor, we sense the world-disordering impact of legendary women like Delilah, Salome, and Helen of Troy. Feminism has tried to dismiss the femme fatale as a misogynist libel, a hoary cliche. But the femme fatale expresses women's ancient and eternal control of the sexual realm." Paglia takes it from there:
Exactly. At that time, you have to realize, Elizabeth Taylor was still being underestimated as an actress. No one took her seriously -- she would even make jokes about it in public. And when I wrote that piece, Meryl Streep was constantly being touted as the greatest actress who ever lived. I was in total revolt against that and launched this protest because I think that Elizabeth Taylor is actually a greater actress than Meryl Streep, despite Streep's command of a certain kind of technical skill. [...]
