An article about RogerEbert.com publisher Chaz Ebert being honored at the University of Illinois Alumni Awards Gala and looking forward to the 25th anniversary of the Roger Ebert Film Festival (Ebertfest).
An announcement of passes going on sale Monday, December 12th, for the next Ebertfest Film Festival, which will take place April 19-22, 2023, in Champaign, Illinois.
A tribute to the director of Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens.
"You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man."
A fond look back at photos of past Ebertfest gatherings as well as the 20th anniversary Ebertfest video, in preparation for resuming the film festival September 8-11, 2021.
A tribute to the late Monte Hellman, director of Two-Lane Blacktop, The Shooting, and more.
An announcement of passes going on sale Friday, November 1st, for the next Ebertfest Film Festival that takes place April 15-18, 2020, in Champaign, Illinois.
An article announcing the 20th Anniversary of Ebertfest April 18-22, 2018 and tickets on sale November 1st.
A tribute to Debra Winger, on the occasion of her first leading role in over 20 years in this week's "The Lovers."
An article about Ebertfest, Roger Ebert's Film Festival 2017 passes, which are now on sale.
For the 30th installment in his series about maligned masterworks, Scout Tafoya examines Hitchcock's dizzying oddities Torn Curtain and Topaz.
A report on the Cannes press conference for Bob Rafelson's "The Postman Always Rings Twice."
An article on Ebertfest 2016 passes available for purchase on November 2nd.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports on the 2014 Ebertfest, including appearances by Oliver Stone & Spike Lee.
Karen Black, who died Aug. 7 at 74, was the “what the hell?” emblem of the American New Wave, its most extreme, improvisational player, its most unusual, unaccountable, unstable presence.
Woody Allen (foreground, center) in "Stardust Memories."
Regarding issues raised by Brian De Palma and "Redacted" (see below): Here are two frame grab from Woody Allen's 1980 feature "Stardust Memories," a United Artists release. The movie is a Felliniesque comedy (it starts right off as a parody of "8 1/2"), not a documentary. The blown-up image on the wall was taken a dozen years before "Stardust Memories" (February 1, 1968) during the Tet Offensive by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams in Saigon.
From "Stardust Memories."
The man with the gun is South Vietnamese National Police Chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan. The man in the plaid shirt, who is or is about to be shot in the head (his death is shown in NBC News footage taken at the same time), is thought to be Nguyễn Văn Lém (or possibly Le Cong Na), and was either a Viet Cong officer or a political operative. His face was disfigured because he had been beaten. The title of the photo, which became instantly famous around the world, is "General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon" and it won a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1969. It was widely reprinted and was used as a symbolic image by the anti-war movement.
Adams later wrote in Time magazine: The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths... What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?'Although a number of "galleries and artists" are acknowledged in the end credits of "Stardust Memories" for the use of photos and artworks in the film, the source for this picture is not cited. The film does contain a standard disclaimer, reading: "The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons is intended or should be inferred."
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László Kovács (May 14, 1933 – July 22, 2007)
Kovács emigrated to the United States with his lifelong friend Vilmos Zsigmond, who became another great Hungarian-American cinematographer.
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For me, perhaps the most indelible image in Kovács' work is the last shot of "Five Easy Pieces" (Bob Rafelson, 1970), a long stationary take of a gray, rainy stretch of Pacific Northwest highway, stuck in the muddy pavement outside an isolated gas station. The only camera movement is a slight pan. All the loneliness, frustration and alienation of the whole movie culminates (in a diminuendo, if that's possible) in this damp, atmospheric image.
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Other notable Kovács films include:
"Psych-Out" (Richard Rush, 1968) "Targets" (Peter Bogdanovich, 1968) "Easy Rider" (Dennis Hopper, 1969) "That Cold Day in the Park" (Robert Altman, 1969) "Getting Straight" (Rush, 1970) "Alex in Wonderland" (Paul Mazursky, 1970) "The Last Movie" (Hopper, 1971) "What's Up, Doc?" (Bogdanovich, 1972) "The King of Marvin Gardens" (Bob Rafelson, 1972) "Paper Moon" (Bogdanovich, 1973) "Shampoo" (Hal Ashby, 1975) "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (Steven Spielberg, 1977 -- additional photography) "New York, New York" (Martin Scorsese, 1977) "The Last Waltz" (Scorsese, 1978 -- additional photography) "Ghostbusters" (Ivan Reitman, 1984) "Mask" (Bogdanovich, 1985) "Say Anything..." (Cameron Crowe, 1989) "Radio Flyer" (Richard Donner, 1992) "My Best Friend's Wedding" (P.J. Hogan, 1997)
The 1994 Chicago International Film Festival will kick off its 30th anniversary season on Thursday with the Midwest premiere of Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway." Its star, Chicago native John Cusack, will be in attendance. The festival will end 18 days later, on Oct. 23, with the world premiere of David Mamet's "Oleanna," based on the play about political correctness that has inflamed theater audiences.
LOS ANGELES In the old Frank Capra movies, Jimmy Stewart or Gary Cooper would stand up and make a passionate speech in defense of old-fashioned American values, and everybody would cheer and the movie would be over.
Great Movies
