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Thumbnails 5/22/18

Elisha Christian on "Columbus" and "Everything Sucks!"; Superheroes and neoliberalism; Istanbul Film Festival soldiers on; Chatting with William H. Macy; Belafonte and Clark.

Features

Joseph Sargent, 1925-2014

An appreciation of Joseph Sargent, Director of many classic television and theatrical films, including "The Taking of Pelham 123."

Features

Thumbnails 10/15/2013

Forgotten silent star Wallace Reid; Helena Bonham Carter defends 'The Lone Ranger'; Harry Belafonte sues the King estate; the trouble with Kenan Thompson

Roger Ebert

The man who didn't sleep

I met a man who didn't sleep. This was in the summer of 1988. I was in Toulouse, France, to visit a friend I'd made some years earlier in London, Dominique Hoff. Her sister, Marie-Christine, told me: "There is a man you must meet. He's the smartest man I know. He was my professor in dental school. He invents dental tools, and he can fix anything with his hands. He and his wife have converted a big old barn in the country into a home and workshop and a place for his collection." His collection? I said. The sisters laughed. "You'll see."

Toulouse à partir de la fenêtre d'Hervé

Paul Delprat and his wife Danielle Moog did indeed occupy a vast old barn somewhere in the countryside. They called it Cambolevet. They were a jolly middle-aged couple, waiting for us in the farmyard. A dog came to investigate. They exuded that sense of two people who know they belong together.

Roger Ebert

TIFF #8: The protest: A change of mind

I'm writing this the day after first posting this entry. I now regret it. The point I make about artists is perfectly valid but I realize I wasn't prepared with enough facts about the events leading up to the Festival's decision to showcase Tel Aviv in the City-to-City section. I thought of it as an innocent goodwill gesture, but now realize it was part of a deliberate plan to "re-brand" Israel in Toronto, as a pilot for a larger such program. The Festival should never have agreed to be used like this. It was naive for the plan's supporters to believe it would have the effect they hoped for. The original entry remains below. The first 50 or so comments were posted before these regrets.

¶ The tumult continues here about the decision to spotlight Tel Aviv in the City-to-City sidebar program of the Toronto Film Festival. The protesters say the festival is thereby recognizing the "apartheid regime" of Israel. The controversy shows no sign of abating, and indeed on Tuesday it was still big news in the Toronto newspapers, with the Star's front page featuring lineups of those opposing the TIFF decision (including Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Viggo Mortenson, Julie Christie and Danny Glover) and those supporting it (including Jerry Seinfeld, David Cronenberg, Sasha Baron Cohen, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Kudrow and Natalie Portman).

Scanners

TIFF: 'RFK: The Disaster Movie'

Wayne Newton and Suzanne Pleshette -- er, Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore stud the all-star cast of "Bobby."

We're told that Emilio Estevez's "Bobby" takes place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, but it feels like it was originally released back around then. It's "Earthquake" with the RFK assassination as the disaster. It's "Airport." It's "The Towering Inferno." A whole bunch of familiar actors play "colorful" characters swarming around the hotel, and their day will culminate in the death of a Kennedy. They talk about the movies -- new stuff like "The Graduate," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Planet of the Apes" -- but a retired doorman played by Anthony Hopkins explicitly invokes the model for "Bobby" and and its ilk: "Grand Hotel," the 1932 picture with Greta Garbo and an all-star cast. And "Bobby" treats the assassination as an event as strangely distant from its own present-tense as "Grand Hotel" was from 1968.

Sure, the requisite modern political parallels are present, as they are in virtually every film at the Toronto Film Festival this year. On the screen, on TVs in hotel suites, over the soundtrack, are actual speeches and sound bites from Democratic senatorial candidate Robert F. Kennedy, talking about how the country has lost its way in the quagmire of Vietnam, and championing rights for minorities and low-wage workers, etc., etc., etc. (It comes as a bit of a shock to remember that politicians were once articulate and sounded like they knew the meanings of the words they were saying.)

But why make "Bobby," which screened at the Toronto Film Festival as a "work-in-progress"? Why turn this traumatic national event into a Hollywood soap opera? The performances are fine for this kind of glitzy manufactured melodrama ("Where Were YOU When They Shot RFK?"), and on that level it's swell, trashy fun. It's just that the whole concept is inappropriate.

Interviews

Brando was a rebel in the movies, a character in life

1924: Born April 3, in Omaha, Neb., of Dutch-Irish descent, the youngest of three children of a salesman and an amateur actress. 1938: Enrolls in Libertyville High School as a freshman. 1944: Makes his Broadway debut as the teenage son in the hit "I Remember Mama." 1946: Is named Broadway's most promising actor after he plays a World War II veteran in "Truckline Cafe." 1947: Creates his landmark portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" on Broadway. 1950: Makes his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's "The Men," as a paralyzed war veteran. 1952: Receives his first Oscar nomination for "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951). 1955: After losing three consecutive Oscar bids ("Julius Caesar" and "Viva Zapata!"), finally wins for "On the Waterfront" (1954). 1961: Makes his directorial debut on "One-Eyed Jacks," widely regarded as a disaster at the time. 1963: Participates in civil rights march in Washington, D.C., with Charlton Heston, Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin and other luminaries. 1966: Buys a private island off the Pacific coast and lives there off and on for the next three decades. 1972: Is forced to audition for the role of Don Corleone in "The Godfather" because of his diminished reputation in Hollywood. It would become his defining performance. 1973: Rejects the best actor Oscar for "The Godfather" (1972) to protest the treatment of Native Americans and sends Sacheen Littlefeather to the ceremony to make a speech on his behalf.

Festivals & Awards

Sundance standouts reflect black indie tradition

PARK CITY, Utah I saw a group of interesting films about African Americans at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the big annual showcase for new independent films. And as I sat down to write about them, I realized that black films in America have long been "independent." Only recently, with a new generation of stars, have they moved into the studio mainstream.