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7 Movies to Watch on the 50th Anniversary of Watergate
Watergate, to filmmakers, is the gift that keeps on giving. Here are some of the best.
Watergate, to filmmakers, is the gift that keeps on giving. Here are some of the best.
A tribute to the late, great Hal Holbrook.
An interview with director Dawn Porter about her new documentary, "John Lewis: Good Trouble."
A look back at the comedic career of the late Carl Reiner.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming, including The Assistant, Bad Boys for Life, and Criterion editions of The Grand Budapest Hotel and Destry Rides Again.
An essay about Martin Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue, as excerpted from the online magazine Bright Wall/Dark Room.
An article about Roger Ebert's August 19th induction ceremony into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame at the American Writers Museum and reprint of lovely speech by Milos Stehlik
A review of the latest from Jeff Nichols from Berlinale 2016.
An AFI Fest 2015 report on "The Big Short" and the Q&A that followed with the filmmakers and stars.
"Life Itself" wins a Founders Prize at the 2014 Traverse City Film Festival.
Richard Roeper reflects on his long friendship and professional association with Roger Ebert.
Longtime readers of the Chicago Sun-Times are familiar with Roger Ebert's "One-Minute Reviews." These are capsule reviews (roughly 75-150 words or so), condensing his responses to current movies. As any writer knows, the short versions can be harder to write than the full-length ones.
UPDATED (4/17/13): A selection of tributes and memories from those who knew, and read, Roger Ebert. More will be added as we collect them:
"For a generation of Americans -- and especially Chicagoans -- Roger was the movies. When he didn't like a film, he was honest; when he did, he was effusive -- capturing the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical.
"Even amidst his own battles with cancer, Roger was as productive as he was resilient -- continuing to share his passion and perspective with the world. The movies won't be the same without Roger, and our thoughts and prayers are with Chaz and the rest of the Ebert family."
-- President Barack Obama, April 4, 2013
We will never hear the Sheep Story again. Nor will we enjoy his presence in a room, which was an invitation to good cheer. Paul Galloway, the most incomparable raconteur I ever met in a newsroom, is dead. Everyone who knew him will know what a silence that creates.
I loved the guy. I introduced him to his wife, Maggie. I couldn't see enough of them. It will be impossible to share with you the joy of his company, but I am going to try. Let others write the formal obituaries. All I know is, Paul died at about 3:30 p.m. Monday, at their "winter home" in Tulsa, Okla. There's a Winter Home Story. With Paul, there was a story about everything. He was somewhere in his 70s. When you get to be our age, "somewhere" is close enough.
Paul Galloway as Tootsie on Michigan Ave. (Photo by Jack Lane)
Chicago Sun-Times / February 3, 2009
We will never hear the Sheep Story again. Nor will we enjoy his presence in a room, which was an invitation to good cheer. Paul Galloway, the most incomparable raconteur I ever met in a newsroom, is dead. Everyone who knew him will know what a silence that creates.
I loved the guy. I introduced him to his wife, Maggie. I couldn't see enough of them. It will be impossible to share with you the joy of his company, but I am going to try. Let others write the formal obituaries. All I know is, Paul died at about 3:30 p.m. Monday, at their "winter home" in Tulsa, Okla. There's a Winter Home Story. With Paul, there was a story about everything. He was somewhere in his 70s. When you get to be our age, "somewhere" is close enough.
Some of the fiercest and most useful satire on the web right now is being written by a man who signs himself Smart Ass Cripple. Using his wheelchair as a podium, he ridicules government restrictions, cuts through hypocrisy, ignores the PC firewalls surrounding his disability, and is usually very funny. Because he has been disabled since birth, he uses that as a license to write things that others may think but do not dare say.
Marie writes: I love photography, especially B/W and for often finding color a distraction. Take away the color and suddenly, there's so much more to see; the subtext able to rise now and sit closer to the surface - or so it seems to me. The following photograph is included in a gallery of nine images (color and B/W) under Photography: Celebrity Portraits at the Guardian."This is one of the last photographs of Orson before he died. He loved my camera - a gigantic Deardorff - and decided he had to direct me and tell me where to put the light. So even in his last days, he was performing his directorial role perfectly, and bossing me around. Which was precious." - Michael O'Neill
Orson Welles, by Michael O'Neill, 1985
"Death disports with writers more cruelly than with the rest of humankind," Cynthia Ozick wrote in a recent issue of The New Republic.
"The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive--dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer's noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other.
"Oblivion comes more cuttingly to the writer whose presence has been felt, argued over, championed, disparaged--the writer who is seen to be what Lionel Trilling calls a Figure. Lionel Trilling?
This introduction to Odienator's Fourth Annual Black History Mumf, a celebration of what we used to call African-American Popular Culture, needs no introduction. Especially to Scanners readers, who've been following it since he challenged Miss Ross's fashion designs in 2008. Of those early days, Odienator (think Odie N. Ator, as in Frank N. Furter, or possibly Meatloaf Aday) now writes:
When I started this series in 2008, I made fun of the Black History Month curriculum we were fed every February in grammar school. I wanted to make my own version of that curriculum, using movies and TV and events from my life to fill in all the holes where public school was lacking. All they told us, in a nutshell, was that we were slaves, we were freed by Abraham Lincoln, and then Martin Luther King showed up. This happened every year, usually sponsored by Budweiser. Boy was I snarky about the lack of depth and detail back then! But now I've been humbled, because as anemic as it may have been, at least they told us the truth and didn't try to change it.
Everywhere I go, as much as I can, I listen to National Public Radio. It's an oasis of clear-headed intelligence. Carefully, patiently, it presents programming designed to make me feel just a little better equipped to reenter the world of uproar.
If they had their choice, 63.1% of people would value "a great video game" over Huckleberry Finn. That's the result of a completely unscientific survey I conducted in two places: Twitter, and my recent blog about video games.
The choice approached the abstract, because I didn't specify they had to play the game or read the novel. Like all web-based surveys, this one is a 100% accurate representation of whoever chose to vote, for whatever reason, whoever they were. In theory, no one could vote twice.
