Great Movies
Chaz's Journal
Our Favorite Roger Reviews: Cloud Atlas
A reprint of Roger Ebert's review of Cloud Atlas, with an introduction from Robert Daniels.
A reprint of Roger Ebert's review of Cloud Atlas, with an introduction from Robert Daniels.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming, including Belfast, West Side Story, and Nightmare Alley.
A preview of the movies that skipped the fall festivals that could still win the next Best Picture Oscar.
A video essay that celebrates Lilly and Lana Wachowki's 2015 film, Jupiter Ascending.
A preview of Cinepocalypse, taking place this weekend and next week at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago, IL.
What the original "Ghost in the Shell" says about gender identity and how the remake fails to do the same.
"Cloud Atlas" (2012), directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, is a thing of beauty, the likes of which I have not seen in American Cinema. While I regard Rian Johnson's "Looper" as easily the best film of the year thus far, this film might be the best film of the decade. Nevertheless, considering how many people walked out of the screening within the first hour, I suspect that this film will successfully alienate or confuse most of its viewers, earning more appreciation in the years to come, long after most of us have expired. If you have the patience, it might take forty minutes to begin to understand it, and to subsequently immerse yourself into it. In that way, it also reminded me of Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" (2011). It is that good. It is so good that I can tell you everything about this movie, and I will still have told you nothing.
I'm posting this review of "Cloud Atlas" both on my web site and as a blog entry, because the blog software accepts comments and I want to share yours. At the end, I have added the post-screening press conference at Toronto.
Even as I was watching "Cloud Atlas" the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time--but I no longer believe repeated viewings will solve anything. To borrow Churchill's description of Russia, "it is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." It fascinates in the moment. It's getting from one moment to the next that is tricky.
