Great Movies
TV/Streaming
Home Entertainment Guide: February 20, 2020
The latest on streaming and Blu-ray, including 21 Bridges, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and a Criterion edition of Roma.
The latest on streaming and Blu-ray, including 21 Bridges, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and a Criterion edition of Roma.
The Limey is the point when Soderbergh confidently admitted his comfort zone is the genre film.
Fellini's major but overlooked "Roma" has received an excellent restoration by the Criterion Collection.
An extensive preview of 50 films coming out within the next four months, from "Sully" to "Toni Erdmann."
The movie questionnaire and 2015 reviews of RogerEbert.com film critic Susan Wloszczyna.
Writer Susan Wloszczyna responds to our Movie Love Questionnaire.
Susan Wloszczyna will be covering the Toronto International Film Festival for us. Here's what to expect.
Terence Stamp opens up about singing in "Unfinished Song," the long acting dry spell he had in the 1970s, and working with Steven Soderbergh.
Marie writes: The unseen forces have spoken! The universe has filled a void obviously needing to be filled: there is now a font made entirely of cats. Called Neko Font (Japanese for "cat font") it's a web app that transforms text into a font comprised of cat pictures. All you need to do is write something in the text box, press "enter" on your keyboard and Neko Font instantly transforms the letters into kitties! Thanks go to intrepid club member Sandy Kahn for alerting the Ebert Club to this important advancement in typography. To learn more, read the article "There is now a font made entirely of cats" and to test it out yourself, go here: Neko Font. Meanwhile, behold what mankind can achieve when it has nothing better to do....
Marie writes: Behold the amazing Art of Greg Brotherton and the sculptures he builds from found and re-purposed objects - while clearly channeling his inner Tim Burton. (Click to enlarge.)
"With a consuming drive to build things that often escalate in complexity as they take shape, Greg's work is compulsive. Working with hammer-formed steel and re-purposed objects, his themes tend to be mythological in nature, revealed through a dystopian view of pop culture." - Official website
Marie writes: As TIFF 2012 enters its last week and the Grand Poobah nurses his shoulder in Chicago (having returned home early for that reason) the Newsletter presents the final installment of Festival trailers. There was a lot to chose from, so many in fact there was no room for theatrical releases; they'll return next week. Meanwhile, enjoy!
"American Experience: Billy the Kid" is available on demand at PBS.org after its January 10 broadcast at 9 p.m. (ET/PT). Check local listings.
Who hasn't heard of Billy the Kid? He's often portrayed in Westerns -- sometimes as a blood-thirsty killer -- but the PBS "American Experience" documentary "Billy the Kid" gives us a sympathetic portrayal of an orphan who "became the most wanted man of the west." Instead of drama, blood, and lust in the dust, you'll get a more multicultural view of a homeless kid gone wrong after being wronged.
The one-hour film, narrated by Michael Murphy, begins with a hangman's noose. The date is April 28, 1881 and the 21-year-old man known as Billy the Kid is in the custody of Sheriff Pat Garrett. He escapes his appointment with the hangman, but he won't be alive much longer.
Q. I don't think I've read more consistently outstanding reviews for a movie than I have for Visconti's "The Leopard" (1963). For being an award-winning foreign film, it is strangely absent from video, DVD, movie houses, cable, etc. Any idea why this great film hasn't been converted for public consumption? (Lynn Phillips, Urbana IL)
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - "Election," "Boys Don't Cry" and "Being John Malkovich" were multiple award winners Saturday at the 15th annual Independent Spirit Awards - but 79-year-old Richard Farnsworth stole the show while winning as best male lead for his work in "The Straight Story."
CANNES, France -- The Cannes Film Festival heads into its second weekend, still without a likely Palme d'Or winner, unless we have already seen it, and it is Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother." We have been here a week, and that entry, first screened Saturday, is the film most people mention when you ask them what they liked the most.
CANNES, France -- The Cannes Film Festival has its first unqualified hit in a ribald new comedy by Spain's Pedro Almodovar, and an oddball conversation piece in "The Limey," by the American Steven Soderbergh. As Hugh Hefner's Playmates slug it out with the Hawaiian Tropics girls for the photo op prize, the 52nd annual event is in full swing. Even Chicago's world-famous gate-crasher is in attendance.
The Festival International du Film, held annually in Cannes, France, has become the world's most prestigious film festival—the spot on the beach where the newest films from the world's top directors compete for both publicity and awards.
Britain's Ken Loach has been directing films for 30 years, and if he is still not widely known outside film festivals, that may be because he adheres so fiercely to an unpopular subject matter: His best movies are about the ordinary lives of working-class English people.
`Hey, these are new carrots," James Caan said, grabbing one and chewing on it. "Not the old carrots we had before. You stick them in that stuff, though, you undo all of the good." He looked sternly at a bowl of sour cream dip. He had a bandage around the arm he was using to eat the carrots, and I asked him what had happened, and he said nothing, stupid football thing, not worth talking about. So I made a note of that. There is hardly anything that James Caan thinks is not worth talking about.
LOS ANGELES -- On those few occasions when a dream does come true, its reality can look like this:
