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Tilda Swinton leads dance-along to Barry White at Ebertfest 2013

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:37:00 +0000

Tilda Swinton left her box at the MoMa to lead a Barry White dance-along at Roger Ebert's Film Festival on April 20, and the result is pure happiness:

Ebertfest 2013 Dance Along from Ebertfest on Vimeo.

Pick of the week: Terrence Malick’s rapturous, religious love story

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:59:00 +0000

Terrence Malick has followed the six-year creative struggle of his universe-spanning, would-be masterpiece “The Tree of Life” with a period of unprecedented, unexpected and indeed unexplained productivity. For whatever set of reasons, the famously reclusive director who had made five feature films in the previous 38 years has apparently completed four more since 2011. The first of these to reach the public is an abstract and perhaps allegorical story of love and heartbreak called “To the Wonder,” and even in beginning to speak about it I run the risk of leading you down the wrong path. Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko are in the movie, as a man and woman who meet in Paris, fall in love and move to America, and then drift apart, for reasons we (and they) only partly understand.

Someone hates Roger Ebert: Westboro Baptist

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:23:00 +0000

It should come as absolutely no surprise that the attention-whore hate group Westboro Baptist Church announced this weekend it would protest the funeral of Roger Ebert. Ebert, after all, stood for everything WBC will never possess – tolerance, exuberance, rational thought. What is surprising is how blatantly retaliatory this particular protest is – and how it appears to have been prompted by a Salon story.

Twice on March 25, Ebert tweeted a link to a Salon excerpt from Jeff Chu's new memoir, "Does Jesus Really Love Me?" In it, Chu, a gay man, goes undercover in the Topeka, Kan.- based "church," where he spends a day picketing with the group who believes that "Spreading their gospel is their duty and their gesture of kindness to a hell-bound world." It just happens that their method of spreading the love involves screaming, "I don’t even know what’s growing inside your crusty assholes!" at gay men.

Westboro Baptist Church to protest at Roger Ebert’s funeral

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:00:00 +0000

The Westboro Baptist Church, which has been petitioned to be classified as a hate group, plans to picket the funeral of legendary film critic Roger Ebert on Monday morning.

Westboro took issue with the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic, who died on Thursday, after he tweeted out a link to an excerpt from Jeff Chu's book "Does Jesus Really Love Me?" on Salon, in which Chu, a gay man, goes undercover to spend four days in Kansas studying the homophobic group. Ebert tweeted two links, saying in one of them, "Just another day at Westboro Baptist."

Westboro's protest will begin at 9:15 a.m. From the press release:

Chaz Ebert on husband Roger’s death: “I’ve lost the love of my life”

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:34:00 +0000

Chaz Ebert, television producer and widow of legendary film critic Roger Ebert, released a statement on Thursday addressing the loss of her husband and their life together. It is really, really lovely.

In it, Ebert mourned the loss of "my husband, my friend, my confidant and oh-so-brilliant partner," adding:

He fought a courageous fight. I've lost the love of my life and the world has lost a visionary and a creative and generous spirit who touched so many people all over the world. We had a lovely, lovely life together, more beautiful and epic than a movie. It had its highs and the lows, but was always experienced with good humor, grace and a deep abiding love for each other.

Roger Ebert was the original fanboy

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:50:00 +0000

It's no secret that Roger Ebert was a fan of movies. He loved movies passionately and sometimes despite themselves—like when he gave Speed 2: Cruise Control, a movie with a 2% tomato meter rating, a three star review because of its passionate commitment to "goofiness."

But what most people don't know is that he was also in fandom. Ebert began his career as a teenager in sci-fi fandom, writing passionate letters to fanzines and eventually writing for the fanzines himself.

But he didn't just write. In a missive for sci-fi magazine Asimov's, published in 2004, Ebert recalls how "Fandom was a secret society and I had admission to friends everywhere who spoke the same arcane language."

RIP Roger Ebert: Movie criticism’s Great Communicator

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 01:10:00 +0000

Roger Ebert, who died on Thursday at age 70 after a long and debilitating struggle with cancer that never sapped his spirit, was the Great Communicator of movie criticism, a genuine and generous man who became the greatest popular advocate the form has ever had. He reached millions of readers with his straightforward prose, and a vastly larger universe of TV viewers in the ‘80s and ‘90s with his gruff but avuncular presence. Even if you’re too young to have grown up watching Ebert spar on the small screen with his late friend and rival Gene Siskel, you still know who he is. Virtually alone among his generation of journalists, Ebert saw the substantive potential of social media early on and translated his fame in print and on TV to the Internet, becoming a Twitter trailblazer and a mentor who showed the rest of us in this imploding profession not just how to survive but how to prosper in the digital age.

Film critic Roger Ebert dies at 70

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:00:00 +0000

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that legendary film critic Roger Ebert has died. Ebert was 70 years old.

The Sun-Times, home of Ebert's review column for 46 years, wrote on Thursday that Ebert "was without question the nation’s most prominent and influential film critic." He "had been in poor health over the past decade, battling cancers of the thyroid and salivary gland."

The tragic news comes only two days after the Ebert announced that he was cutting back from writing reviews due to his ailing health. The first-ever film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, Ebert had ambitious plans to relaunch his web site and reconnect with audiences through a campaign to bring back his PBS show "At the Movies."

Roger Ebert scales back to review “only the movies I want to” due to cancer

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Preeminent film critic Roger Ebert announced late last night that he is cutting back from his work due to his ongoing struggle with cancer.

Ebert, the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, has been penning reviews for 46 years to the day, and writes over 200 reviews a year. Last year, Ebert wrote a career-high of 306.

Now, the prolific reviewer is taking what he refers to as a "leave of presence":

"What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."

Though narrowing his writing focus, Ebert will expand his reach in other ways, including starting a Kickstarter campaign to bring back his PBS program, "At the Movies," attempting to turn a video game or app into a movie, collaborating with Martin Scorsese over an Ebert biopic and managing the relaunch of his Web site, Rogerebert.com.

My backup mom

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 23:30:00 +0000

After she had the heart attack out in Michigan on Thanksgiving 1988, I stood by her bedside in the recovery room and she tried so hard to tell me something, but it just didn't work. I loved her so much. Did she know how much? I never told her. There are always questions you wish you'd asked after it's too late to get an answer. Sometimes years can pass before you realize they're questions.

Everyone said I "took after her," and I did. My features are more rounded than anyone else on either side of my family. Martha R. Stumm was the youngest of six surviving children of a Dutch-Irish-German couple who raised their family on a farm outside Tayorville, Ill. Years after her father died and her mother opened a boardinghouse in Urbana, enough oil was found beneath the land to make it worth drilling.

I visited the farm in the 1960s with my mom and dad, Aunt Martha and Cousin Bernardine from Stonington. It was a two-story frame house on a smallish footprint. Wallpaper was still hanging from the walls. They remembered their pony that lived in the barn, and they followed the path they ran on barefoot down to the river. Their dad was not only a farmer but ran a billiard parlor in Taylorville, and took out witty wisecracks in the classified section of the local paper.

Roger Ebert: Hospital visit for hairline fracture, not cancer

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:54:00 +0000

Famed film critic Roger Ebert took to his blog Saturday evening to deny rumors about his health and clarify his condition, after a hospital visit. Ebert says he has a "nearly invisible hairline fracture involving my left femur." While the pain is terrible, he said it has nothing to do with the thyroid cancer he has been battling for the better part of a decade.

I didn't fall. I didn't break it. It just sort of...happened to itself.

Most of the time, it causes me no pain at all. But my left leg won't bear any weight, nor can I walk on it. About a week ago I began to feel pain downaround there. On Wednesday I had some X-rays. By Thursday I was nearly immobile. Now I'm back at my alma mater, Northwestwern Memorial Hospital. On Monday I'll probably be checking into the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. This will be my fifth visit there. Once again they'll teach me to walk. I am a slow learner.

The pain is off the charts. It has nothing to do with cancer. It's plain bad luck. That's all the news. I plan to keep right on writing, Some strange news has been flying around. This will set the record straight.

Hello, Mr. President? It’s me, Roger Ebert

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:08:00 +0000

I would ask the president for an emergency education program. Our students at every level are below American historical norms and global standards. We're importing the best and the brightest from overseas, from nations that may not spend as much money on education but seem to produce better-prepared students.

I attended a Catholic grade school for eight years in the 1950s. When my class graduated, all of us (even the "slower" students) whizzed through public high school rhetoric so easily our new teachers remarked on it. Our school was poverty-stricken and had only basic facilities. But every one of us could read, write and do math. I believe we could read and write better than many of today's high school graduates, and some of today's colleges graduates.

Reading is the key to self-education. Let me give an example that has been obsessing me. Nearly 50 percent of all Americans reject the Theory of Evolution and believe Man was "created" pretty much in his present form some thousands of years ago. Anyone who believes that hasn't been paying attention.

Five pop culture items we missed

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:01:00 +0000

1. Cause of the day: Kate Winslet founds "British Anti-Cosmetic Surgery League" (for very famous people) along with Emma Thompson and Rachel Weisz. Maybe they can be like sister suffragettes and battle the Barbie Mom!

2. Celebrity story involving airlines and urine of the day: When Gerard Depardieu wasn't allowed to use the toilet during takeoff, he peed all over fellow passengers on an Air France flight. Says Air France spokesperson: "I confirm the fact that he [Depardieu] did indeed urinate in the plane." That is all.

3. "Gwyneth Paltrow saved my life on 9/11" story of the day: Wait, really? I could almost forgive Paltrow for her multitude of sins if she acted heroically on Sept. 11. So let's check it out:

Ryan Dunn’s alcohol level played factor in fatal crash

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:23:00 +0000

Ryan Dunn, the "Jackass" star who died in a fatal car crash on Monday, had a blood alcohol level of .196 percent at the time of his death, police told the press today. That is over twice the legal amount, confirming reports that Dunn had been intoxicated when he drove home from a Pennsylvania bar early that morning. Dunn's death has been at the center of a media firestorm for the past three days, with "Jackass" fans lashing out at Roger Ebert after the critic tweeted about "not letting Jackasses drink and drive." Photos of Dunn doing shots with friends surfaced on Twitter hours before his death, but until now there was no confirmed evidence that alcohol played role in the crash.

Dunn and his passenger, a Navy SEAL named Zachary Hartwell, skidded off the road at 3 a.m. in Dunn's Porsche. The car was going approximately 132-140 mph when it hit a tree, causing the vehicle to catch on fire. Their deaths were caused by "blunt and thermal trauma," according to the autopsy report.

The best and worst celebrity tweets about Osama’s death

Tue, 03 May 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Yesterday we asked two very important questions about people's reactions to Osama bin Laden's death: "Is it too soon to laugh?" and "Can celebrities be held responsible for their (or their kids') tweets on historic occasions?"

As it turns out, the answer is "yes" and "yes." While some comedians actually provided clever and insightful commentary on yesterday's news, far more went the easy route and just added to the deafening roar of bloodthirsty pro-America shouting. Today we look back and find the good, the bad and the ugly of celebrity Twitter reactions to Osama's death.

First, there was the "What about ME?" response: Both Lily Allen and The Rock celebrated their birthdays yesterday and didn't want that fact to get overshadowed in all the hubbub.

Ebert attacks my “Secretariat” review — it’s on!

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:58:00 +0000

I recently published a review of the new Disney film "Secretariat" that took an unorthodox and admittedly inflammatory approach to a would-be inspirational movie about a lady and a racehorse. Nearly all viewers will choose to see or not see the movie based on their level of interest in watching Diane Lane in an awesome array of early-'70s fashions, or watching exciting re-creations of the 1973 Triple Crown races. I accused the film of concealing -- or embodying, that's a better word -- an ideological worldview that is never made explicit but is present in every frame.

I don't claim the review makes its case with perfect clarity, and I didn't expect many people to agree completely. Being forcefully told that you're full of crap goes with the job description, especially in an inherently subjective endeavor like movie criticism. I was gratified that a lot of people read the review, and e-mailed or Tweeted it onward -- and was somewhere between flattered and startled that Roger Ebert posted a lengthy takedown of my review on his Chicago Sun-Times blog. Like almost everyone in this insular field, I venerate Roger as a passionate movie lover, a generous spirit, and an old-school journalist who has made the transition to new media and now pretty much owns the joint.

Not eating, but still cooking: Roger Ebert pens cookbook

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:01:00 +0000

Cancer may have robbed Roger Ebert of the ability to eat, but it won't stop him from dishing out cooking advice.

Four years after cancer surgery left the famed film critic unable to speak or eat, Ebert is publishing a cookbook dedicated to rice cookers, a kitchen appliance he lovingly calls "The Pot" and champions as an answer for those strapped for cash, time and counter space.

"To be sure, health problems have prevented me from eating," Ebert writes in the book. "That did not discourage my cooking. It became an exercise more pure, freed of biological compulsion."

The idea for the book came after a 2008 blog post he wrote about rice cookers prompted hundreds of comments, with many readers including their favorite recipes. "I think I was somewhat frustrated by not being able to eat and I wanted to live vicariously," the 68-year-old said during an interview at his Chicago home, his laptop computer speaking his typed answers.

The book includes many of those comments, as well as more than two dozen recipes for dishes such as chili, risotto, jambalaya and oatmeal -- Ebert's favorite. He took a witty and funny tone when writing it; he says he didn't want it to sound too specialized or difficult.

Twitter feud: Ebert vs. Breitbart

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:08:00 +0000

Tweet wars are not exactly the stuff epic battles are made of, but they do make for entertaining reads, especially when they occur between two strong personalities like Roger Ebert and right-wing media controversialist Andrew Breitbart. The two were caught up in a tête-à-tête on Tuesday over Timothy Treadwill, the bear enthusiast whose life and death was explored in Werner Herzog's 2005 documentary "Grizzly Man." The squabble started when Ebert tweeted his review of "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," Herzog's 1972 film, which prompted Breitbart to bait the great critic:

Roger Ebert “deeply involved” in TV talks

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:04:00 +0000

Roger Ebert says he and his wife are going ahead with plans to produce a new movie review television program with the working title "Roger Ebert presents At the Movies."

The famous movie reviewer wrote Thursday on his Chicago Sun-Times blog that he can't give details, but they're "deeply involved" in talks. Ebert says they've held video tests with potential hosts and they know who they will use. He says the new show would have a strong presence online.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reviewer writes that he would like to make "occasional appearances" on the air. Ebert lost his ability to speak after cancer surgery.

Ebert also writes: "the Thumbs will return," referring to the well-known "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" reviews.

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On the Net:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/

Roger Ebert on “Oprah”: The critic’s voice

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:05:00 +0000

Roger Ebert is all kinds of badass. He wrote a Russ Meyer movie (one that's crazy even by Russ Meyer standards). He has a Pulitzer Prize. He's done more for thumbs than any individual since the days of the gladiators. And while he's easily lumped into the big fat group of givers of movie marquee exclamations, he remains, in truth, one of the most consistently passionate, insightful, witty and bold film critics the form has ever known. In recent years, throughout his very public battle with thyroid cancer, he has been forthright, and self-deprecating -- writing recently that "Well, we're all dying in increments."

Tuesday, on his old pal Oprah Winfrey's show, Ebert made a rare television appearance and "spoke" for the first time in almost four years -- about cancer, about childhood memories, and about the best movies of the year. Though multiple surgeries have robbed him of his power of speech and his ability to eat and drink (he gets his nutrition via a feeding tube now) – the 67-year-old remains as opinionated – and overscheduled – as ever.