Chaz's Journal
My Telluride Film Festival Diary 2008
A look back at my Telluride Film Festival Journal from August 28th to September 1st, 2008
A look back at my Telluride Film Festival Journal from August 28th to September 1st, 2008
A guide to the latest on Blu-ray and DVD, including Game Night, Red Sparrow, Mishima, Graduation, Black Panther, and more!
An interview with writer/director Greta Gerwig from the Telluride premiere of her new film, "Lady Bird."
An interview with Paul Schrader, director of "Dog Eat Dog."
Meredith Brody recaps the films she saw, of past and present, at the 2016 Telluride Film Festival.
A preview of the films playing at the 2016 Telluride Film Festival.
A shorts program that includes work by Jean-Luc Godard, Agnes Varda and Jean Renoir.
A gallery of photos, videos and links illustrating Chaz's journey relating to Roger's legacy in the two years since his death.
A bi-weekly feature on the best new streaming and Blu-ray releases, including "Comet," "L'Avventura," "Les Blank: Always For Pleasure," "Starry Eyes," and more.
The legacy and impact of Roger Ebert will forever be a part of the Telluride Film Festival, which hosted a screening of "Life Itself" this year.
The Telluride Film Festival, which Roger loved dearly, is dedicated, in part, to him.
Hollywood and indie film directors, actor John Cusack, actor Chris Tucker, comedian and philanthropist Dick Gregory, former Playboy chair Christie Hefner and the president of Sony Pictures Classics, and the lead critics from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and the Chicago Film Critics Association, will join other celebrities, friends and colleagues to pay tribute to iconic film critic Roger Ebert’s life and prolific career at “Roger Ebert: A Celebration of Life,” this Thursday, April 11, at 7 p.m. at the Chicago Theatre, 175 N. State St.
A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me "A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
That man can be found at the center of Werner Herzog's films. He is Aguirre. He is Fitzcarraldo. He is the Nosferatu. He is Timothy Treadwell, who lived among the grizzlies. He is Little Dieter Dengler, who needed to fly. She is Fini Straubinger, who lived in a land of silence and darkness since she was 12. He is Kaspar Hauser. He is Klaus Kinski. He is the man who will not leave the slopes of the Guadeloupe volcano when it is about to explode. He is those who live in the Antarctic. She is Juliana Koepcke, whose plane crashed in the rain forest and she walked out alive. He is Graham Dorrington, who flew one of the smallest airships ever built to study the life existing only in the treetops of that rain forest.
Manny Farber has died. The great iconoclast of American film criticism was 91. He coined the term "underground film," contrasted "termite art" with "white elephant art" in a way that started you thinking about movies in such terms, and once described the auteur theory thusly (I quote from memory): "A bunch of guys standing around trying to catch some director pushing art up into the crevices of dreck."
Kyle and Alison Eastwood with their father Clint on a big night out in Cannes.
Dear Roger,
I've just returned from the official dinner given by the Festival for Clint Eastwood's movie. I felt like Cinderella at the ball. The dinner was held at the swanky Restaurant La Palme d'Or on the Croisette. I wore my long evening gown just like all the French women wear at night. That's usually the last thing you want to do after watching movies all day, and most of the American women journalists skip the gowns, but I am a hybrid this year, not quite journalist and not quite guest. Besides, this was a special evening and I wanted to make a good showing for you.
Q: In response to the Answer Man item about the significance of the horses in the field of "Michael Clayton," the reason Clayton stopped at the horses and the tree was because this was a significant image in the red book his son had given him to read -- the book he couldn't find time for. The image of the tree and the horses gave Clayton reason to pause and ponder his son and his life, which ultimately saved him, since it removed him from the vehicle.
Q. If this was such a great year for movies, why are box-office receipts so far down from last year, even though admission prices are at an all-time high? Do you feel that there is such a growing disconnect between Hollywood and America that Hollywood had better wake up or face serious consequences? Cal Ford, Corsicana, Texas
CANNES, France -- There are two species of journalists at Cannes, described by the festival as critics or chroniclers. The critics review the films. The chroniclers write the gossip, review the fashions, attend the press conferences and pray for scandal. One year, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren (remember them?) got in a pushing match on the steps of the Palais, and the chroniclers dined out for a week. The critics, however, savor moments of quieter savagery, as when Dogma founder Lars von Trier didn't win the top prize from a jury headed by Roman Polanski, and accepted his lesser award ''with no thanks to the midget.''
TELLURIDE, Colo.--Some sort of symbolic divide was crossed here Friday, on the opening night of the 28th Telluride Film Festival, when the Telluride Medal was presented to Colin Collender, head of HBO Films.
The autumn movie season begins for me on the night when the curtain goes up on the first screening at the Telluride Film Festival. After a long summer of special effects, explosions, stabbings, shootings, gross-out comedies, supernatural mystifications, horror stories and movies about the alarmingly sophisticated sex lives of teenagers, September brings relief.
Most film festivals trumpet their offerings, bragging about their premieres and stars. The Telluride Film Festival, which begins Thursday, treats its films like a poker player treats his hole cards. One imagines Bill Pence and Tom Luddy, the co-founders, looking at the programs from Montreal, Toronto and Venice, and sneaking another peek at their hands.
There is a kind of shyness, a modesty, about Francis Ford Coppola that is so surprising. Here is the director of "The Godfather," and the epic "Apocalypse Now," and the paranoid psychodrama "The Conversation," and he talks about whether he has the right to put his name above the title. Kids out of film school put their names on their first films, and here he is explaining why his movies are called "Mario Puzo's The Godfather" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "John Grisham's The Rainmaker."
The Telluride Film Festival shares a double distinction, as one of the best of all festivals, and as one of the hardest to get to. But this weekend, instead of flying to Denver, transferring to the Montrose flight and then driving 90 minutes into the Rockies, movie lovers can simply find their way to the Film Center at the School of the Art Institute, where a selection of the Best of Telluride '97 will be playing.
