
In Fabric
Strickland frequently tests viewers’ patience, but his off-putting sensibility is powerful enough to make In Fabric as mesmerizing as its subject: salesmanship as a sinister,…
Strickland frequently tests viewers’ patience, but his off-putting sensibility is powerful enough to make In Fabric as mesmerizing as its subject: salesmanship as a sinister,…
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is its own, wondrous, magnificent thing.
Roger Ebert on James Ivory's "Howards End".
"The Ballad of Narayama" is a Japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. What a space it opens…
An article about today's noon premiere of a new movie about architect Benjamin Marshall at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
An article about the screening of Horace Jenkins' "Cane River" on Friday, November 1st, at the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles.
Scout Tafoya's video essay series about maligned masterpieces celebrates Steven Soderbergh's Solaris.
An article about today's noon premiere of a new movie about architect Benjamin Marshall at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
An FFC on Gavin Hood's Official Secrets.
A celebration of Yasujiro Ozu, as written by a Far Flung Correspondent from Egypt.
A piece on Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci, and what they've meant to the career of Martin Scorsese.
A review of Apple TV's Truth Be Told with Octavia Spencer and Aaron Paul.
Chaz is the Publisher of RogerEbert.com and a regular contributor to the site, writing about film, festivals, politics, and life itself.
Roger's review of "The Last Mistress."
Why did I pick this review?
The reason I love this review is because I think Roger saw something of himself in the desperate characters that populate Catherine Breillat's beautiful "The Last Mistress." He glimpsed a broken reflection of the old libertine ways he'd given up. It brought out poetry in his writing, usually doggedly but engrossingly rational. He begins in his typical style: "In 'The Last Mistress,' a passionate and explicit film about sexual obsession, everything pauses for a scene depicting a marriage. It is 1835, in a church in Paris. Vows are exchanged between Ryno de Marigny, a notorious young libertine, and the high-born Hermangarde, whose wealth will be a great comfort to the penniless Ryno." These are facts, not yet impressions. He finds a curious way into the film. "I wondered why time was devoted to the ceremony, in a film where Hermangarde speaks scarcely 100 words, and the great passion is between Ryno and his mistress of 10 years, the disreputable Vellini. Then I realized it was an excuse to work in the biblical readings …These readings enter the film precisely to be contradicted by Vellini (Asia Argento) in every atom of her being."
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In the Vellini character he sees a kindred hellraiser, someone whose life was similarly and gleefully in thrall to passion. Roger gave himself to his habits (characterized so splendidly time and again in his work), the most beautiful of which was his love of film. He let it define his life, to the point that when he died, he had as much a reputation for his love, his "uncontrollable desire" as Vellini, a famed courtesan. You can sense from his carefully chosen, beautifully evocative sentences in the middle of the review that he feels a twinge of nostalgia for days when he could be as wild as he felt. But he knows the cost of living like there weren't consequences. "Of all the vices he observes, gluttony lasts the longest, and never disappoints." In his honesty and simplicity, Roger could be deeply touching and sage, like he knew his words would be needed hundreds of years from now. Roger's words helped millions of people discover the joy of movies. I'm always touched when you could see films giving back to him.
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An early review of Clint Eastwood's Richard Jewell out of AFI Fest.
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This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a fr...