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A small, alienated 12-year- old falls into the orbit of an English skinhead gang and finds a surrogate family. But the dues he pays, as the skinheads drift toward neo-Nazis, is more than he can afford or understand. Directed by Shane Meadows (“Once Upon a Time in the Midlands.”
Publ.Date : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:10:00
by ROGER EBERT There's not a soft or sentimental passage in Billy Wilder's "Ace in the Hole" (1951), a portrait of rotten journalism and the public's insatiable appetite for it. It's easy to blame the press for its portraits of self-destructing celebrities, philandering preachers, corrupt politicians or bragging serial killers, but who loves those stories? The public does. Wilder, true to this vision and ahead of his time, made a movie in which the only good men are the victim and his doctor. Instead of blaming the journalist who masterminds a media circus, he is equally hard on sightseers who pay 25 cents admission. Nobody gets off the hook here.
Publ.Date : Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:16:00
Chris Tucker is once again Carter, the motormouth LAPD cop who’s always in trouble, and Jackie Chan is once again Lee, the ace Hong Kong cop called in to partner with him. A case involving an ambassador’s murder and secret documents from a Triad gang sends them to Paris, where of course it is necessary for them to defend their lives while hanging from the Eiffel Tower. Pretty much what you’d expect, but kinda fun.
Publ.Date : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:09:00
by Roger Ebert I have long known and admired the Chicago Reader’s film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, but his recent attack on filmmaker Ingmar Bergman in the New York Times is a bizarre departure from his usual sanity. It says more about Rosenbaum’s love of stylistic extremes than it does about Bergman and audiences. Who else but Rosenbaum could actually base an attack on the complaint that Bergman had what his favorites Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson lacked, “the power to entertain — which often meant a reluctance to challenge conventional filmgoing habits”? In what parallel universe is the power to entertain defined in that way?
Publ.Date : Sat, 11 Aug 2007 23:22:00
Linas Phillips, an admirer of the director Werner Herzog, paid homage to his hero by emulating Herzog’s lifelong habit of very long walks. Phillips set out to walk 1,200 miles from Seattle to Herzog’s Los Angeles home, and encountered strange and sometimes wonderful people along the way.
Publ.Date : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:10:00
A documentary featuring devastating testimony from men and women who had top government or military jobs, had responsibility in Iraq or Washington, implemented policy, filed reports, labored faithfully in service of U.S. foreign policy, and then left the government. Some jumped, some were pushed. They all feel disillusioned about the way the White House stubbornly refused to listen to their advice. All the more powerful because they are not anti-war activists or sitting ducks for Michael Moore, but people who were important to the Bush administration.
Publ.Date : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:09:00
A shooting star (Claire Danes) falls into a forbidden kingdom, and Charlie Cox enters the kingdom to get it for his love (Sierra Miller). Also fighting for the star/woman: A wicked witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) and a dying king (Peter O’Toole). Robert De Niro turns up as a cross-dressing pirate in an airship. Cluttered and too busy; funny, not boring, but “The Princess Bride” it’s not.
Publ.Date : Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:10:00
Q. A blogger named Brian at takes issue with your remarks about Paul Greengrass' long takes in "The Bourne Ultimatum," writing: "I don't recall a single take in this movie that was more than about three seconds long. Either Greengrass really does a spectacular job of not 'calling attention' to those long takes, or Ebert saw a different movie. But it's very strange, no matter what." (From goneelsewhere.wordpress.com:) Who's right? Greg Nelson, Chicago A. This inspired some introspection. I didn't write about long takes in my notes during the movie, but while writing the review, they formed in my memory. If Brian is right, perhaps what happened was that sustained stretches of breakneck action, as assembled by editor Christopher Rouse, played like unbroken takes in their effect, especially since so much of the movie follows the action with a Steadicam or hand-held camera. Rouse tells me there are lots of shots more than three seconds long, and the film's first assistant editor, Robert Malina, writes me: "We have long shots! In Reel 2, we have a 20-second Steadicam shot going through the halls of SRD, following the characters Vosen and Wills (David Strathairn and Corey Johnson)."
Publ.Date : Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:20:00
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