2014’s U.S. release of Isao Takahata’s amazing animated swan song “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya” was a gift and a miracle in and of itself, but it’s also yielding some dividends. The first great movie of 2016, as far...
In 2015, we reviewed a huge batch of movies (and chose over 200 titles total in individual top ten lists), but any interview provides an opportunity to take full advantage of a primary reason for why people make art: art, and its ideas, are to be...
When theater critic Michael Coveney asked Maggie Smith if he could write her biography, she replied, “Ooh, how absolutely ghastly. How absolutely awful. I can’t think of anything worse.” But the reclusive Smith, one of our greatest...
I love bad people—in movies, of course [clears throat]. It’s not because they’re bad. It’s because I love the exercise of exploring the deeply mysterious inner workings of people who do bad things.
Who is this baddie?...
There's everything else happening in America cinema, and then there's whatever Charlie Kaufman is up to. Ever since 1999's "Being John Malkovich," he has been on a short list of American screenwriters whose work is so original that he must be...
Catching co-directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson at
the tail-end of a whirlwind festival tour that included premiere screenings at
Venice, Telluride, and Toronto, the two writer/directors were still playful and
engaged in discussing their...
“Watching TV is more complicated than ever,” I remember, in the early ‘80s, some pitchman averring on a spot advertising, what else, the magazine TV Guide, then the biggest periodical publication IN THE WORLD. Man, if that guy were...
Beginning in January 2016, filmmakers Mia-Kim T. Dang and Steven Boone will travel to Ethiopia to shoot footage for their upcoming film, an autobiographical black-and-white romance entitled, "New Flower." For Dang, an African-American of...
Editor's Note: Haskell Wexler, who died yesterday at age 93, was a great and groundbreaking filmmaker, as well as a social activist; when he wasn't shooting commercials and lavishly funded Hollywood features for other directors, he directed his own...
A note from Chaz Ebert, Publisher:
My heart aches that we have lost one of our most legendary filmmakers, the Oscar-winning cinematographer and documentarian Haskell Wexler. My heart goes out to his wife, actress Rita Taggart; his children, Mark...