Great Movies
Chaz's Journal
Films to Get Us Through The Trump Presidency
Chaz Ebert highlights films with the potential to get us through the confusing political times of the Trump presidency.
Chaz Ebert highlights films with the potential to get us through the confusing political times of the Trump presidency.
Sheila writes: Thank you all for taking the time to answer our survey! We will keep you posted on any changes that may come about. So let's get to the newsletter, shall we? Jack Kerouac famously wrote the majority of "On the Road" on one long scroll of paper. Kerouac found that taking the time to remove the finished pages off of the typewriter and replacing them with a fresh sheet interrupted his flow. California artist Paul Rogers, who has done ten book covers for Random House UK of Hemingway classic, has created an online scroll of beautiful illustrations for Kerouac's novel. Evocative and gritty, they make a great companion piece for "On the Road". You can see more of Paul Rogers' cool work at his site.
Marie writes: Last week, in response to a club member comment re: whatever happened to Ebert Club merchandize (turned out to be too costly to set up) I had promised to share a free toy instead - an amusement, really, offered to MailChimp clients; the mail service used to send out notices. Allow me to introduce you to their mascot...
"The First Grader" is streaming On Demand via Amazon and Vudu, and the DVD is on Netflix and on sale.
by Steven Boone
It doesn't matter that "The First Grader" is as shamelessly, sappily manipulative as that TV commercial where Sarah Mclachlan wails a tune while the camera zooms in on miserable animals peering out of their rescue shelter cages. Nope. It doesn't even matter that the musical score, which I will give the alternate title "Mother Africa Weeps," is the World Music equivalent of an Oreo McFlurry -- a real pancreas-buster. Never mind all that. The imagery in "The First Grader" places it on par with cinema's great sentimental masterpieces, "Umberto D," "Tokyo Story" and "Ikiru." From the first frame, this film warns that it is working in a universe of pure emotion.
The film's true story concerns Maruge (Oliver Litondo), a former Kenyan freedom fighter and political prisoner who has been forgotten in the post-colonial age. He walks around the countryside in rags while the new generation of power brokers benefiting from his sacrifices zip through Nairobi in Benzes. When he learns that the government is now offering free education to all, he tries to enroll in a local elementary school. He's illiterate, it turns out, and he wants to learn how to read an important old letter for himself. Of course, the 84 year-old has a tough time convincing the overcrowded one-room schoolhouse to let him in.
The Grand Poobah shared the following recently and which struck me as just the thing to put in here - for it amounts to someone inventing a moving still akin to those seen on the front page of Harry Potter's famous newspaper."You know how people sometimes say that jazz is the only truly American art form? Animated GIFs are like the jazz of the internet: they could only exist, and be created and appreciated, online. That said, PopTart Cat is not exactly on par with Thelonious Monk. But photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg may have finally found a way to elevate the animated GIF to a level approaching fine art, with their "cinemagraphs" -- elegant, subtly animated creations that are "something more than a photo but less than a video." - fastcodesignAnd sadly, they won't work in here; Movable Type doesn't like animated gifs. It's easily solved however, just visit Far Better Than 3-D: Animated GIFs That Savor A Passing Moment to see an assortment in play!
