Roger Ebert Home

Sean Astin

Reviews

Do You Believe? (2015)
Moms' Night Out (2014)
Boys of Abu Ghraib (2014)
Click (2006)
50 First Dates (2004)
Deterrence (2000)
Rudy (1993)
Toy Soldiers (1991)

Blog Posts

Ebert Club

#295 February 7, 2017

Matt writes: You don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy the spectacle and exhilaration of the Super Bowl, and the same is true of sports films. There are endless uplifting pictures charting the triumph of underdogs in various sports, with football being one of the most crowd-pleasing. Roger Ebert gave favorable reviews to several of them, including Warren Beatty and Buck Henry's very funny 1978 comedy, "Heaven Can Wait," Gurinder Chadha's delightful 2002 dramedy, "Bend It Like Beckham" and Peter Berg's 2004 drama, "Friday Night Lights."

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.)

Scanners

Give me irony or give me offense!

The award winner for best short film at the 2007 US Comedy Arts Festival (now known simply as The Comedy Festival) was "My Wife Is Retarded," starring Gary Cole, Sean Astin, Leslie Bibb, Phyllis George and George Segal. It was written and directed by Etan Cohen, co-writer of "Tropic Thunder." Other than that, all I know about it is the IMDb plot description: "A man learns the secret behind his perfect marriage."

Are you offended yet? I can't say if I am, because I haven't seen the movie. If the premise is that an intellectually disabled woman is the ideal spouse, or that all women are intellectually disabled, well... I might find that deplorable, depending on how it's presented. Is the movie advocating that point of view? Is it "joking" the way R--- L------- used to about "feminazis," implying that a woman's place is in a coma? Is it the husband who wishes his wife was intellectually impaired? Does she feel like that's what her husband expects from her? There are so many conceptual approaches you could imagine for a movie of that title, some of which seem to offer comedic possibilities, and others that are maybe not-so-promising. But you never know until you actually see it. And, for some people, not even then.

Festivals & Awards

Some sure bets and wild cards for awards

Shortly after 7:30 a.m. (CST) Tuesday, Motion Picture Academy President Frank Pierson and actress Sigourney Weaver will walk onstage at the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Boulevard and announce the nominations for the 76th Academy Awards, and this article will instantly become obsolete. But until that moment, we can guess and speculate and predict about this year's nominees, and here goes.