Roger Ebert

Darwin survives as the fittest

Roger Ebert

On February 12, we celebrate the bicentennials of two of the greatest figures of the 19th century: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. In hailing Lincoln, bells will peal from sea to shining sea. The same date is also designated around the world as Darwin Day, and in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, his birthplace, a cake with 200 candles will be presented in the Square, and everyone will be offered a slice. If you’re of school age, living in Shropshire, and your birthday is Feb. 12, the city invites you to Darwin’s Birthday Bash. This is a grand celebration for a man whose Theory of Evolution promoted atheism, inspired Hitler’s genocides, and thinks your grandfather was a monkey.

None of those things are true, but such claims are what I’ve been dealing with since Dec. 3, 2008, when I published a blog entry praising Darwin’s Theory and castigating Ben Stein’s documentary “Expelled,” which claimed the opposing theory of Intelligent Design was being silenced in a crime against freedom of speech. That entry has so far drawn some 280,000 visits and inspired nearly 1,300 comments comprising some 145,000 words, every one of which I have read. The thread is still active and growing every day.

The pot and how to use it

Roger Ebert

First, get the Pot. You need the simplest rice cooker made. It comes with two speeds: Cook, and Warm. Not expensive. Now you’re all set to cook meals for the rest of your life on two square feet of counter space, plus a chopping block. No, I am not putting you on the Rice Diet. Eat what you like. I am thinking of you, student in your dorm room. You, solitary writer, artist, musician, potter, plumber, builder, hermit. You, parents with kids. You, night watchman. You, obsessed computer programmer or weary web-worker. You, lovers who like to cook together but don’t want to put anything in the oven. You, in the witness protection program. You, nutritional wingnut. You, in a wheelchair.

And you, serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. You, person on a small budget who wants healthy food. You, shut-in. You, recovering campaign worker. You, movie critic at Sundance. You, sex worker waiting for the phone to ring. You, factory worker sick of frozen meals. You, people in Werner Herzog’s documentary about life at the South Pole. You, early riser skipping breakfast. You, teenager home alone. You, rabbi, pastor, priest,, nun, waitress, community organizer, monk, nurse, starving actor, taxi driver, long-haul driver. Yes, you, reader of the second-best best-written blog on the internet.

We will begin with a scientific conundrum. You put Minute Rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. Minutes later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Tomorrow night, you put whole grain organic rice and the correct amount of water into the Pot, and click to Cook. An hour later, the Pot clicks over to Warm. Both nights, the rice is perfectly cooked.

Car, Table, Counter, or TakHomaSak®

Roger Ebert

In my third or fourth year of life I ate my first restaurant meal, at the Steak ‘n Shake on Green Street near the University of Illinois campus. I dined on a Steakburger, french fries, and a Coke. I felt extremely important. The eyes of the world were on this capable little man, sitting on a stool at the counter, grasping a Steakburger in his hands and opening up to take the first bite. My dad passed me the ketchup bottle and I felt authority flow into my hands as I smacked it on the bottom. “Aim it on your plate next to the fries,” he advised. I did. “Good job, boy.”

If I were on Death Row, my last meal would be from Steak ‘n Shake. If I were to take President Obama and his family to dinner and the choice were up to me, it would be Steak ‘n Shake–and they would be delighted. If the Pope were to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, “Your Holiness, have you tried the Chili Mac or the Chili 3-Ways?”

Cannes #7: A campaign for Real Movies

Roger Ebert

There’s something in the UK called the Campaign for Real Ale. It was started in The Guardian in the 1970s by Richard Boston, a journalist (naturally) who was alarmed by traditional British pubs being taken over by mass-produced, heavily marketed, rapidly brewed beer.

The real thing, he said, was not carbonated, was brewed in its own time, and had a distinctive flavor. It was drawn up by gravity from a cooled cellar, not forced through hoses under pressure. It wasn’t tweaked to make it taste like all other beers, matching some international formula like Budweiser or Heineken’s. I’ve tasted it. It went down smoothly, and you didn’t belch.

I met a character from Dickens

Roger Ebert

Oh, no. No. No. This cannot be. They’re tearing down 22 Jermyn Street in London. The whole block is going. Bates’ Hat Shop, Trumper’s the Barber, Getti the Italian restaurant, the Jermyn Street Theater, Sergio’s Cafe, the lot. Jermyn Street was my street in London. My neighborhood.

There, on a corner near the Lower Regent Street end, I found a time capsule within which the eccentricity and charm of an earlier time was still preserved. It was called the Eyrie Mansion. When I stayed there I considered myself to be living there. I always wanted to live in London, and this was the closest I ever got.

A campaign film in search of a campaign

Roger Ebert

“The Undefeated” is a documentary about Sarah Palin made by and for the faithful, who may experience it in the way believers sit through a rather boring church service. At nearly two hours, it’s a campaign advertisement in search of a campaign.

But that’s not surprising. What astonished me is that the primary targets in the film are conservative Republicans. Yes, there are the usual vague references to liberals and elitists (although I heard the word “Democrat” only twice). But the film’s favorite bad guys seem to be in the GOP establishment. This seems odd, considering that the target audience is presumably Republicans.

“Ebert Presents:” An update

Roger Ebert

A message from Chaz and Roger: Thank you for your positive feedback on our Classics From The Vault segments on “Ebert Presents.” We are happy to provide these vintage shows augmented with discussions from Christy and Ignatiy, instead of running reruns of our First Season shows, or instead of going off the air for the summer season.

“What’s your favorite movie?”

Roger Ebert

All movie critics are asked two inevitable questions: (1) “How many movies do you see in a week?” and (2) “What’s the greatest film of all time?” Gene Siskel found that it didn’t matter what his reply to (1) was: “I can say one or a dozen–it doesn’t matter. The real answer is between four and ten, but they don’t really care.” The answer to (2), as we all know, is “Citizen Kane.” When naming that film, I sometimes even joke, “That’s the official answer.” The most respected “best film” list in the world is the one the UK film magazine “Sight & Sound” runs every 10 years. They poll the world’s directors, critics, festival heads, archivists and others. Ever since 1962, the top film has been “Kane.”

Talking ’bout my generation

Roger Ebert

Ten years ago I was the emcee of my high school class reunion. This year I sat and watched. It was better this way. As I’d walked into the room I realized I knew almost everyone on first sight.

Now, as they passed in review, called up one by one, I saw a double image: The same person in 1960 and 2010. The same smile, the same gait, the same body language, the same eyes.

TIFF #2: “Antichrist” redux

Roger Ebert

Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist” is poised to detonate at the Toronto Film Festival. This willfully controversial director will inspire, as he often does, a storm of controversy, debate, critics clamoring to get into advance screenings that are already jammed, and a contentious press conference. Of the 400 or so films at TIFF this year, “Antichrist” was the first that sold out in advance. It was the same last May at Cannes, and that was before it has even been seen.

Von Trier was nothing if not canny in his title for the film. By naming it “Antichrist,” he provides a lens through which to view its perplexing behavior. By naming his characters only He and She, he suggests the dark side of an alternative Garden of Eden, and then disturbing his ending becomes a mirror image of Christ welcoming the faithful into the kingdom of heaven. The title instructs us where to begin. If he had named the characters John and Mary, and titled the film “A Nightmare,” what conclusions might we have arrived at?

They wuz robbed

Roger Ebert

Of course, no one is really robbed of an Academy Award nomination. It’s a gift; not a right. The balloting procedure is conducted honestly and reflects a collective opinion, which was demonstrated this year when the Academy voters had the curiosity to seek out Demian Bichir for best actor for his deeply convincing performance as a Mexican gardener in Los Angeles in “A Better Life.” He wasn’t on my mental list of possible candidates, but when I heard the name, I thought, “Of course! Good thinking!”

A bar on North Avenue

Roger Ebert

O’Rourke’s was our stage, and we displayed our personas there nightly. It was a shabby street-corner tavern on a dicey stretch of North Avenue, a block after Chicago’s Old Town stopped being a tourist haven. In its early days it was heated by a wood-burning pot-bellied stove, and ice formed on the insides of the windows. One night a kid from the street barged in, whacked a customer in the front booth with a baseball bat, and ran out again. When a roomer who lived upstairs died, his body was discovered when maggots started to drop through the ceiling. A man nobody knew was shot dead one night out in back. From the day it opened on December 30, 1966 until the day I stopped drinking in 1979, I drank there more or less every night when I was in town. So did a lot of people.

Jay Kovar and Jeanette Sullivan behind the bar

Parrot asks, “What’d the frozen turkey want?”

Roger Ebert

A joke should have the perfection of a haiku. Not one extra word. No wrong words. It should seem to have been discovered in its absolute form rather than created. The weight of the meaning should be at the end. The earlier words should prepare for the shift of the meaning. The ending must have absolute finality. It should present a world view only revealed at the last moment. Like knife-throwing, joke-telling should never be practiced except by experts.

For many laymen, a joke is a heavenly gift allowing them to monopolize your attention although they lack all ability as an entertainer. You can tell this because they start off grinning and grin the whole way through. They’re so pleased with themselves. Their grins are telling you they’re funny and their joke is funny. The expert knows not to betray the slightest emotion. The expert is reciting a fact. There is nothing to be done about it. The fact insists on a world that is different than you thought. The fact is surprising and ironic. It is also surprising–you mustn’t see it coming. That’s why the teller should not grin. His face shouldn’t tell you it’s coming. If the joke is also vulgar, so much the better, but it must never exist for the sake of vulgarity. That’s why “The Aristocrats” is not only the most offensive joke in the world, but also, in the wrong hands, the most boring.

The gathering storm

Roger Ebert

Sometimes in the noise of the news there will be a single item that pops out with clarity. That happened when I heard about Tracy, California, which is charging $300 every time the fire department answers an emergency call that doesn’t involve a fire.

That summons up not only the prospect of little Susie’s kitten being left to die up in the tree, but also of her dad who has just collapsed with an asthma attack. One citizen said if her husband had a heart attack, she’d set her kitchen table on fire to dodge the fee.

Cannes #7: Tarantino the glorious basterd

Roger Ebert

Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to find a climax unique in the history of war movies. Also trust QT to get away with a war movie that consists largely of his unique dialog style, in which a great deal of action is replaced by talk about the possibilities of action. His “Inglourious Basterds,” which premiered Wednesday morning here at Cannes, is a screenplay eight years in the writing, and you can’t fill 148 minutes with descriptions of special effects. At least not if you’re a motormouth like Tarantino.

My review will await the film’s August 21 opening. I know, I wrote a lot about “Antichrist,” but with this one I’d like to hold out until opening day. No, that doesn’t mean I disliked it. It means it inspired other kinds of thoughts–about Cannes, Tarantino, and the way the movie industry seems to be going these days.

TIFF #10: Philosophy, pot, murder, poetry

Roger Ebert

It was my last film of the festival, on the morning of the day I was flying home, and it turns out to have been my favorite one. Tim Blake Nelson’s “Leaves of Grass” is some kind of sweet, wacky masterpiece. It takes all sorts of risks, including a dual role with Edward Norton playing twin brothers, and it pulls them off. It is certainly the most intelligent, philosophical and poetic film I can imagine that involves five murders in the marijuana-dealing community of Oklahoma and includes John Prine singing “Illegal Smile.”

Tim Blake Nelson

Sometimes you cannot believe your luck as a movie unfolds. There is a mind behind it, joyful invention, obvious ambition. As is often the case, I had studiously avoiding reading anything at all about “Leaves of Grass” before going to see the movie, although I rather doubted it would be about Walt Whitman. What I did know is that the actor Tom Blake Nelson has written and directed three films enormously admired: “Eye of God” (1997), “O” (2001) and “The Grey Zone” (2001), all three dealing in a concrete dramatic way with important questions: Religion, redemption, race, the Holocaust. And that the actor Edward Norton has never agreed to appear in a film he didn’t believe he had reason to respect.

A majority of you

Roger Ebert

The Answer Man got a message the other day from a guy who wanted to know why the major critics all run with a herd mentality. He goes to Cream of the Crop at Rotten Tomatoes and on some films they all agree, with maybe a couple of holdouts. I’ve noticed this, too.