rogerebert
You are viewing stuff tagged with rogerebert.
You are viewing stuff tagged with rogerebert.
I have always found the cycle of the seasons reassuring. One year at Cannes I was told by Tony Curtis, born in New York, that the problem with living in Los Angeles was that without seasons it was always the same year: “You go to sleep by your pool one afternoon, and when you wake up you’re 60.”
Roger Ebert reviews the movie Blue Valentine:
All marriages have milestone moments, events of startling clarity that allow the new lovers to see themselves as a couple who have been defined.
Have you ever seen anyone without a lower jaw? Roger Ebert: The Essential Man:
Roger Ebert can’t remember the last thing he ate. He can’t remember the last thing he drank, either, or the last thing he said. Of course, those things existed; those lasts happened. They just didn’t happen with enough warning for him to have bothered committing them to memory — it wasn’t as though he sat down, knowingly, to his last supper or last cup of coffee or to whisper a last word into Chaz’s ear. The doctors told him they were going to give him back his ability to eat, drink, and talk. But the doctors were wrong, weren’t they? On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word.
Roger Ebert reviews the movie “The Girlfriend Experience”:
What draws a powerful man to pay for a women outside of marriage? It’s not the sex. In fact, sex is the beard, if you know what I mean. By paying money for the excuse of sex, they don’t have to say: I am lonely. I am fearful. I am growing older. I am not loved. My wife is bored with me. I can’t talk to my children. I’m worried about my job, which means nothing to me. Above all, they are saying: Pretend you like me.
The film was written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien. Believe it or not, the same two wrote the screenplay for Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Thirteen.” I imagine the three of them sitting around on the “Ocean’s” set and asking, “What could we be doing instead of this?”
Chelsea is played by Sasha Grey. She is 21. Since 2006, according to IMDb, she’s made 161 porn films, of which only the first title can be quoted here: “Sasha Grey Superslut.” No, here’s another, which makes me smile: “My First Porn #7.” I haven’t seen any of them, but now I would like to see one, watching very carefully, to see if she suggests more than one level.
I’d like to address a few things, re: Nils, myself, and movies. He and I have disagreed before about Roger Ebert. Nils has said Ebert is too easy on movies, I love Ebert because he reviews the way I would: he first tries to understand the vision and intent of the film, and then analyzes whether the execution works. This is why I believe his reviews tend toward the positive… he’s focusing on the positive because that is his style. Regardless, I think Nils and I can agree with Ebert’s take on The Dark Knight:
I once read in some extended piece about Roger Ebert that writing never came with any sort of difficulty for him. Apparently, he’d come in to the office, sit down for a certain amount of time, and stand up with a finished column in hand. Part of this ability surely stems from the fact that he is truly someone who loves movies. From this great love has grown great knowledge of cinema — so what I really appreciate about his writing is his subtle incorporation of that knowledge. While our local yokel movie reviewer always hits you over the head with movies he has seen by name-dropping a slew of films, Ebert incorporates the experiences gained from other films, not necessarily their titles. Therefore, I am inclined to trust his review of the psychological thriller Awake. Ebert’s conclusion, I believe, speaks to his experience as a reviewer:
There has never been a pirate, or for that matter a human being, like this in any other movie.
— Roger Ebert, about Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean
Knightley’s performance is so light and yet fierce that she makes the story almost realistic; this is not a well-mannered “Masterpiece Theatre” but a film where strong-willed young people enter life with their minds at war with their hearts.
— Roger Ebert, on Pride and Prejudice