Features
Figuring It Out: The Films of Laura Dern
A look at how Laura Dern became one of the most adventurous actresses working today.
A look at how Laura Dern became one of the most adventurous actresses working today.
A tribute to the late Oscar-winning filmmaker, Milos Forman.
Reviews and screenings of "Hair" and "Being There" at Ebertfest 2017, and Q&A with producers Michael Butler and Michael Hausman by Michael Phillips, Nate Kohn and Chaz Ebert; and with Oscar-nominated Caleb Deschanel by Simon Kilmurry and Scott Mantz.
A holiday gift guide compiling RogerEbert.com's reviews of Blu-ray/DVD releases and boxed sets and a few more books from 2014.
San Diego Comic-Con International is a celebration of cartoons, costumes and fictional and real characters. Recent years have brought increasing commercialization. Many of the panels are little more than tantalizing propaganda for upcoming TV programs and movies and the panels bare their wares as brazenly as the whores who used to walk the Gaslamp District before it became a hip place to be. But SDCC is also a venue for introducing and releasing movies that have a link to geek culture and SDCC hosts a Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival.
The Grand Poobah writes: Here's a behind the scenes lookinside our control room! This is where the magic happens.
"Twists of fate, love and humour, perseverance and, finally, a philosophical outlook- his story has it all." - Sarah Hampson.(click photo to enlarge) From the Globe and Mail article "You couldn't write this script" published July 19, 2010.From the Grand Poobah: "A young lady with excellent taste". (click to enlarge) "Ever since I was a child messing around with a terrible paint set from K-mart, I have been obsessed with controlling pigment suspended in water. Now I paint with divine, hand-made watercolors from Holland along with brushes ranging from high-end to dirt cheap, but the obsession remains..." - from Kelly Eddington's artist statement. To read more and see her truly wonderful watercolors, visit Kelly Eddington's Website and Gallery.
Ah, watercolors.... so easy to master; only takes decades....
Scroll down for my earlier entries.
The first five Sundance entries I've seen are the kinds of film the festival exists to showcase. It is possible that many of them won't ever open in most of the places you readers live, but you've impressed me with your resourcefulness in finding them anyway (and no, I don't mean piracy). You guys demonstrate that if you want to find a movie badly enough, you often can.
One of them, "Homewrecker," is for rent right now via YouTube, in keeping with the festival's Reinvention/Rebirth/Renewal and its embrace of new distribution channels such as the net and regional art cinemas.
That one and "Armless" are playing in the new Sundance section named NEXT, which specializes in movies with "low to no budgets." The guidelines specify budgets below $500,000, and both of these look closer to half a million than to "no."
The walls of Roger Smith's office are covered with pictures of Ann-Margret. Here she is as a sex kitten, on the cover of Life. There's a cover from Entertainment World, a forgotten show business magazine. All in a row are three recent covers of People. And here are an oil painting of Ann-Margret, and a lot of cartoonist's caricatures, and some framed ads and telegrams and the usual backstage memorabilia. In one corner, almost hidden behind a file cabinet, is Roger Smith's only souvenir of his own career: A framed ad for his stage appearance as a folk singer at the "hungry i" nightclub in San Francisco, in 1964.
