Matt writes: After endless days of quarantined viewing, returning to Champaign, Illinois for the 22nd installment of Ebertfest was nothing short of a tonic for the soul.
The bios and headshots for our esteemed guests at Ebertfest 2022.
Matt writes: The 2017 Cannes Film Festival is nearly here! It will run from May 17th through the 28th, and RogerEbert.com will be providing in-depth coverage every step of the way, including our annual video reports from publisher Chaz Ebert. This year's selections include the latest work from such acclaimed filmmakers as Noah Baumbach, Sofia Coppola, Michael Haneke, Michel Hazanavicius, Todd Haynes, Bong Joon Ho, Yorgos Lanthimos and Lynne Ramsay.
An interview with comedian Gilbert Gottfried, the subject of Neil Berkeley's "Gilbert," playing at Hot Docs 2017.
25 emerging filmmakers to watch; St. James's Church gets a lighting makeover; Unintentional hilarity in "Grace of Monaco"; How restaurants breed rebellion; 5 famous people motivated by revenge.
Marie writes: Once upon a time when I was little, I spent an afternoon playing "Winne the Pooh" outside. I took my toys into the backyard and aided by a extraordinary one-of-a-kind custom-built device requiring no batteries (aka: artistic imagination) pretended that I was playing with my pals - Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too - and that there was honey nearby; the bumble bees buzzing in the flowerbeds, only too happy to participate in the illusion. And although it didn't have a door, we too had a tree - very much like the one you see and from which hung a tire. A happy memory that, and which came flooding back upon catching sight of these - the animation backgrounds from the new Winnie the Pooh; thank God I was born when I was. :-)
(click to enlarge images)
Marie writes: every once in a while, you'll stumble upon something truly extraordinary. And when you don't, if you're lucky, you have pals like Siri Arnet who do - and share what they find; smile."Using knives, tweezers and surgical tools, Brian Dettmer carves one page at a time. Nothing inside the out-of-date encyclopedias, medical journals, illustration books, or dictionaries is relocated or implanted, only removed. Dettmer manipulates the pages and spines to form the shape of his sculptures. He also folds, bends, rolls, and stacks multiple books to create completely original sculptural forms.""My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book's internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception," he says. - mymodernmet
[click images to enlarge]
Update on "Teaching the Controversy: Why won't he deny raping and killing?:
Rather than try to fight a First Amendment case (which they would be destined to lose), Glenn Beck's lawyers have filed a complaint (.pdf here) with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a "specialized agency of the United Nations" based in the neutral country of Switzerland, claiming that the satirical domain name glenn beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.com is: 1) a form of cybersquatting, 2) defamatory and 3) an infringement on his trademarked name. (The irony here is that the United Nations and socialist Switzerland are two things Beck does not believe in.)
A new critical thinking meme: This web site features a grating parody of the "Leave Britney alone!" video at the top of the page, and proceeds to explain its purpose:
This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. We don't claim to know the truth -- only that the rumour floating around saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 should be discussed. So we're going to do our part to try and help get to the bottom of this.
Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations? We're not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 - in fact, we think he didn't! But we can't help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations. Why won't he deny that he raped and killed a young girl in 1990?
Psychologists say that depression is rage turned inward. Stand-up comedy, on the other hand, is rage turned back outward again. (I believe George Carlin had a routine about the use of violent metaphors directed at the audience in comedy: "Knock 'em dead!" "I killed!") In the documentary "Heckler" (now on Showtime and DVD) comedian Jamie Kennedy, as himself, plays both roles with ferocious intensity. The movie is his revenge fantasy against anyone who has ever heckled him on stage, or written a negative review... or, perhaps, slighted him in on the playground or at a party or over the phone or online.
"Heckler" (I accidentally called it "Harangue" just now) is an 80-minute howl of fury and anguish in which Kennedy and a host of other well-known and not-well-known showbiz people tell oft-told tales of triumphant comebacks and humiliating disasters, freely venting their spleens at those who have spoken unkindly of them. At first the bile is aimed at hecklers in club audiences (with some particularly nasty invective for loudmouthed drunken women), then it shifts to "critics" -- broadly defined as anybody who says something negative about a figure whose work appears before a paying public. Some of the critics are actually interested in analysis; some are just insult comics who are using the Internet as their open mic. It gets pretty ugly, but it's fascinating -- because the comics, the critics and the hecklers are so much alike that it's no wonder each finds the others so infuriating.
A joke should have the perfection of a haiku. Not one extra word. No wrong words. It should seem to have been discovered in its absolute form rather than created. The weight of the meaning should be at the end. The earlier words should prepare for the shift of the meaning. The ending must have absolute finality. It should present a world view only revealed at the last moment. Like knife-throwing, joke-telling should never be practiced except by experts.
For many laymen, a joke is a heavenly gift allowing them to monopolize your attention although they lack all ability as an entertainer. You can tell this because they start off grinning and grin the whole way through. They're so pleased with themselves. Their grins are telling you they're funny and their joke is funny. The expert knows not to betray the slightest emotion. The expert is reciting a fact. There is nothing to be done about it. The fact insists on a world that is different than you thought. The fact is surprising and ironic. It is also surprising--you mustn't see it coming. That's why the teller should not grin. His face shouldn't tell you it's coming. If the joke is also vulgar, so much the better, but it must never exist for the sake of vulgarity. That's why "The Aristocrats" is not only the most offensive joke in the world, but also, in the wrong hands, the most boring.
Q. My favorite scene in "The Island" is when Ewan McGregor congratulates Scarlett Johansson on being chosen to go to the island. He then leans over and whispers to her, "I'm sorry I didn't get to know you better." This is an obvious allusion to "Lost in Translation," designed to inform us once and for all what Bill Murray whispered to her at the end of that movie. Abraham Leib, Bellevue, Wash.
Great Movies
