| This Week's Theatrical Releases |
| Kill the Poor |
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| BloodRayne |
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| Fateless |
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| Grandma's Boy |
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| Hostel |
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| RogerEbert Headlines |
| I.O.U.S.A. / ***1/2 () | |
| My original review appeared on Aug. 21.
by Roger Ebert
A letter to our grandchildren, Raven, Emil and Taylor: I see you growing up into such beautiful people, and I wish all good things to you as you make the leap into adulthood. But I have just seen a documentary titled "I.O.U.S.A." that snapped into sharp focus why your lives may not be as pleasant as ours have been. Chaz and I had the blessing of growing up in an optimistic, bountiful America. We never fully realized that we were paying for many of our comforts with your money. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Flash of Genius / *** (PG-13) | |
| By Roger Ebert
Why do corporations tend to be greedy? I suspect it's because their executives are paid millions and millions to maximize profits, minimize salaries and slash benefits that cut into the bottom line. Sometimes this can be taken to comic-opera extremes, as when the (now) convicted thief David Radler was stealing millions from the Sun-Times and actually turned off the escalators to save on electricity. I guess that helps explain why the Ford Motor Co., followed by Chrysler, stole the secret of the intermittent windshield wiper from a little guy named Robert Kearns. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist / ** (PG-13) | |
| By Roger Ebert
There is one merciful element to "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist." The playlist is not infinite. The movie trudges around the Lower East Side of Manhattan in pursuit of a group of 17-somethings who are desperately seeking a mysterious band named Where's Fluffy. Clues are posted on the walls of toilet stalls, which are an unreliable source of information. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Religulous / ***1/2 (R) | |
| By Roger Ebert
I'm going to try to review Bill Maher's "Religulous" without getting into religion. Is that OK with everybody? Good. I don't want to fan the flames of a holy war. The movie is about organized religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, TV evangelism and even Scientology, with detours into pagan cults and ancient Egypt. Bill Maher, host, writer and debater, believes they are all crazy. He fears they could lead us prayerfully into mutual nuclear doom. He doesn't get around to Hinduism or Buddhism, but he probably doesn't approve of them, either. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Appaloosa / *** (R) | |
| By Roger Ebert
"Appaloosa" started out making me feel the same as I did during the opening chapters of Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove," and its TV miniseries. At its center is a friendship of many years between two men who have seen a lot together and wish they had seen less. This has been called a Buddy Movie. Not at all. A buddy is someone you acquire largely through juxtaposition. A friend is someone you make over the years. Some friends know you better than you know yourself. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| How to Lose Friends & Alienate People / ***1/2 (R) | |
| By Roger Ebert
When a film begins with the proud claim that it was "inspired by real events," the word inspired usually translates as heavily rewritten from. I can't remember if "How to Lose Friends & Alienate People" even makes that particular claim. But it could fairly claim to be "inspired by real events so much more outrageous than anything in this movie that you wouldn't believe it." | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Blindness / *1/2 (R) | |
| By Roger Ebert
"Blindness" is one of the most unpleasant, not to say unendurable, films I've ever seen. It is an allegory about a group of people who survive under great stress, but frankly I would rather have seen them perish than sit through the final three-quarters of the film. Not only is it despairing and sickening, it's ugly. Denatured, sometimes overexposed, sometimes too shadowy to see, it is an experiment to determine how much you can fool with a print before ending up with mud, intercut with brightly lit milk. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Free for All / *** (No MPAA rating) | |
| "Free for All!" (Unrated, 93 minutes). Documentary amassing evidence that the 2004 Ohio presidential election was stolen. Documents voting machine controversies, hurdles for voters, and charges that the official digital election results were moved in the middle of election night to a site in Tennessee designed by the architect of the Swift Boat attacks, and hosted by servers that also hosted Bush's website and GOP.com. Rating: Three stars | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Great Movie: The Godfather, Part II (1974) | |
| By Roger Ebert
The musical score plays an even greater role in "The Godfather: Part II" than it did in the original film. Nostalgic, mournful, evoking lost eras, it stirs emotions we shouldn't really feel for this story, and wouldn't, if the score were more conventional for a crime movie. Why should we regret the passing of a regime built on murder, extortion, bribery, theft and the ruthless will of frightened men? Observe how powerfully Nino Rota's music sways our feelings for the brutal events onscreen. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Movie Answer Man: Drag that critic from the theater! | |
| Q. I saw an article on movieweb .com that said its author was sitting next to a film critic who "remained on his cell phone for the entire duration of 'Towelhead.' While he wasn't talking on the phone, he [spent] most of the two hours click-typing out texts. His head was continuously pulled down, face away from the screen, his zombie-like eyes bathed in that annoying bright blue light." Your reaction?
Charlie Smith, Chicago
A. I went to the site and found that the author, B. Alan Orange, had already answered for me. He quoted one of my Answer Man columns, where I wrote: "Cell phones have no place in a movie theater, and anyone who uses one there should be required to wear a badge saying, 'I am an inconsiderate moron.' The time is coming when theater chains will be forced to take action against audience misbehavior, because it is alienating so much of its customer base. With big pictures, perhaps some multiplex screens could be set aside for the civilized."
This is true of ordinary audience members. When a film critic uses a cell phone, he should be handcuffed, dragged from the theater, shackled to a post in the lobby and pummeled with popcorn until he is greasy all over. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| People: Wayne Wang: Thirty-six years of good movies | |
| By Roger Ebert
Wayne Wang has made 18 films since "Chan is Missing" 1982. I have seen 14 of them, and admired all but one. He's had big box office successes like "The Joy Luck Club," "Maid in Manhattan" and "Last Holiday," and hasn't made a film primarily about Chinese characters since "Chinese Box" (1997). Now he arrives with two mid-length films about changes that set Chinese-Americans apart from their roots. | RogerEbert Headlines |
| People: Time Out Chicago on Roger & Chaz | |
| Time Out Chicago ran this story in its "Chicago Heroes" issue. The author, Hank Sartin, is a TO film critic.
Never mind the tens of thousands of film reviews, the worldwide following and the Pulitzer. For many, Roger Ebert’s name comes with an &; for years, it was Siskel & Ebert. Then it was Ebert & Roeper. But for those who know Roger well (and it’s hard to know him at all without calling him Roger), there’s been another partnership, one that has been getting more public notice during his recent battle with cancer. For the last 16 years, it’s been Roger & Chaz. That would be Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert. In addition to being Roger’s wife, she’s the vice president of the Ebert Company (which handles Roger’s varied business interests). And since Roger lost the ability to speak in 2006, she’s been his public voice. | RogerEbert Headlines |
Commentary: The Wachowskis: From "2001"
to "The Godfather" to "The Matrix" | |
| by Roger Ebert
It was a night out of your dreams. We'd been invited by James Bond, the famed projection wizard, to see the new Kinowerks post-production and screening facility he designed and built on Chicago's north side. You have James to thank if you've ever attended the Grant Park outdoor film festival or Ebertfest. He'd arranged with Robert Harris, the famed restoration wizard, to show us Paramount's new print of "The Godfather." | RogerEbert Headlines |
| Last Film Trailers |
| Flight 93 |
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| Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion |
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| Stormbreaker |
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| Why We Fight |
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| Tamara |
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| Dirty |
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| She's the Man |
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| Kill the Poor |
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| Pizza |
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| Pan's Labyrinth |
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| NYT > Movies |
| Critic’s Choice: New DVDs: ‘Risky Business’ and ‘The Last Laugh’ | Mon, Oct 6 11:02 PM |
A newly remastered edition of “Risky Business” restores the film’s subtle textures. And “The Last Laugh” has never looked as dazzling on home video until now.
| NYT > Movies |
| It’s a Healthy Marriage of Faith and Filmmaking | Mon, Oct 6 10:57 AM |
The film “Fireproof,” about a firefighter who saves his marriage by turning to God, has become a box office success.
| NYT > Movies |
| Arts, Briefly: Actors With Disabilities Seek More Roles | Mon, Oct 6 11:05 PM |
“We are virtually invisible,” Robert David Morgan, a regular on “CSI,” said at a news conference on Monday announcing a plan to expand media-industry employment of people with disabilities.
| NYT > Movies |
| Arts, Briefly: At Box Office, a Dog Has Its Days | Sun, Oct 5 10:04 PM |
The new Disney comedy “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” took the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office.
| NYT > Movies |
| Film: Gambling With a Return to the Mideast | Fri, Oct 3 09:46 AM |
Can “Body of Lies,” with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, finally make the Iraq war entertaining?
| NYT > Movies |
| Young and Out to Redefine What’s Real | Fri, Oct 3 08:54 AM |
“Afterschool,” a film by Antonio Campos, wrestles with the complications of young life in a YouTube world.
| NYT > Movies |
| Film: Wong Kar-wai’s Phoenix Project, Rising at Last | Sat, Oct 4 08:31 PM |
“Ashes of Time Redux” is a martial-arts movie that took years to film and more years to restore.
| NYT > Movies |
| Her Highness Still Rules | Fri, Oct 3 02:28 PM |
How Queen Latifah Inc. keeps on keepin’ on.
| NYT > Movies |
| Film: Revolutionary Hero, Relentless Heroine | Thu, Oct 2 09:11 PM |
Hollywood meets Havana as the 46th New York Film Festival glides and sometimes stumbles into its second week.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist': For Muddled Youth, Music to Live By | Thu, Oct 2 09:09 PM |
As thin as an iPod Nano, as full of adolescent self-display as a Facebook page, “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” strives to capture what it’s like to be young right now.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Rachel Getting Married': Out of Rehab, Wreaking Havoc | Fri, Oct 3 08:13 AM |
The wonderful thing about “Rachel Getting Married” is how expansive it seems, in spite of the limits of its scope and the modesty of its ambitions.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Blindness': Characters Who Learn to See by Falling Into a World Without Sight | Thu, Oct 2 09:26 PM |
“Blindness” is not a great film. But it is, nonetheless, full of examples of what good filmmaking looks like.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'An American Carol': Comic Right-Wing Broadside (Very Broad) | Sat, Oct 4 09:18 AM |
Cheap shots and mean spirits abound in “An American Carol,” a lazy satire of the radical left.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Humboldt County': Waiting to Inhale on the Lost Coast | Thu, Oct 2 09:20 PM |
So much pot is smoked in the agreeable drama “Humboldt County” that you may come away from it with a contact high.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'How to Lose Friends & Alienate People': A Guide to Burning Your Bridges | Fri, Oct 3 12:01 AM |
The crushingly unfunny and slopped-together “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People” has neither the ambition nor the intelligence to do justice to its source material.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Flash of Genius': An Everyman Inventor Fights the Detroit Goliaths | Thu, Oct 2 09:29 PM |
“Flash of Genius” is a doggedly workmanlike variation of an old story: the lone crusader doing battle with the big bad establishment.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua': Barking With Bite | Fri, Oct 3 12:42 AM |
“Beverly Hills Chihuahua” approaches but never quite achieves a truly spectacular level of absurdity.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Allah Made Me Funny': Comedy With a Mission | Fri, Oct 3 12:45 AM |
“Allah Made Me Funny” looks at comedians who, through humor, aim to bring mainstream awareness to the position of Muslims within modern Western society.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Tokyo Gore Police': Splatter Matters | Fri, Oct 3 12:44 AM |
Propelled by geysers of blood and tidal waves of neuroses, “Tokyo Gore Police” plumbs wounds both cultural and physical to deliver splatterific social satire.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'The Pleasure of Being Robbed': Stealing Glances | Fri, Oct 3 12:45 AM |
The initial glimmer of hope “The Pleasure of Being Robbed” inspires with regard to the indie offshoot genre of mumblecore quickly dies.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Ballast': Catching the Heartbeat and Fragmented Poetry of the Delta | Tue, Sep 30 08:16 PM |
“Ballast” is a serious achievement and a welcome sign of a newly invigorated American independent cinema.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Religulous': Believers, Skeptics and a Pool of Sitting Ducks | Tue, Sep 30 09:08 PM |
“Religulous” is a film that aims for laughs, not a scientific survey of the roots of faith.
| NYT > Movies |
| Movie Review | 'Eagle Eye': On the Run From Terrorists and a Disembodied Voice | Thu, Oct 2 09:58 AM |
“Eagle Eye” is the latest evidence that sometimes, at the movies, more is less.
| NYT > Movies |
| Film Series and Movie Listings | Fri, Oct 3 06:40 PM |
MOVIES.
| NYT > Movies |
| Arts, Briefly: Bollywood Union Calls Off Strike | Fri, Oct 3 09:13 PM |
The striking union that briefly brought film and television production to a halt in India said that its demands had been met and that it would call off its strike.
| NYT > Movies |
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| China state TV to air 50-part Bruce Lee biography
(AP)
| Tue, Oct 7 05:33 AM |
 AP - Bruce Lee is getting a belated hero's welcome in China, with the country's state broadcaster set to air a 50-part prime-time series on the late kung fu star.
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Oscar's new documentary rules become hot topic
(Reuters)
| Tue, Oct 7 03:49 AM |
| Reuters - A controversy is brewing over a change to Oscar's feature documentary rules. | Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| "American Carol" an unfunny political spoof
(Reuters)
| Tue, Oct 7 03:19 AM |
| Reuters - Arriving at least one election cycle too late, David Zucker's "An American Carol" uses the less-than-original tack of using Dickens' Yuletide classic to spoof left-wing politics and provocateur filmmaker Michael Moore in particular. | Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Jesse Eisenberg takes on "Zombieland"
(Reuters)
| Tue, Oct 7 02:59 AM |
| Reuters - Jesse Eisenberg is in final talks to join Woody Harrelson in "Zombieland," a horror comedy about a mismatched pair of survivors who find friendship and redemption in a world overrun by zombies. | Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| "5th Quarter" tackles real-life football drama
(Reuters)
| Tue, Oct 7 02:58 AM |
| Reuters - A college football player's tribute to his late brother inspired his team to a record season, and the poignant true story is now headed for the big screen. | Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Anne Hathaway books "Alice in Wonderland"
(Reuters)
| Mon, Oct 6 08:18 PM |
| Reuters - Anne Hathaway, who is generating buzz for her performance in "Rachel Getting Married," has signed for a role in "Alice in Wonderland," which Tim Burton is directing for Disney. | Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| "Mamma Mia" still big with moms overseas
(Reuters)
| Mon, Oct 6 07:22 PM |
 Reuters - Forget the fanboys and their comic-book movies, it's time to hail a long-neglected fan base -- the mature women who kept "Mamma Mia!" on top in the international market for the fifth week in a row. One woman in Germany is reported to have seen the ABBA-inspired musical romance more than 70 times.
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Audiences choose 'Chihuahua' with $29M debut
(AP)
| Mon, Oct 6 02:41 PM |
 AP - Drew Barrymore's "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" pawed its way to the top spot at the weekend box office, debuting with $29.3 million.
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Latest Russian blockbuster fits Kremlin script
(Reuters)
| Mon, Oct 6 01:42 PM |
 Reuters - Russia's latest blockbuster film hopes to woo big foreign audiences with an epic tale of doomed love set amid the chaos of the Russian Civil War; its politics conveniently chime with a Kremlin-sponsored mood of patriotism.
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Dennings pals up to Harrelson for "Defendor"
(Reuters)
| Mon, Oct 6 06:26 AM |
 Reuters - Kat Dennings, who stars in "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," which bowed in theaters this weekend, is in negotiations to join Woody Harrelson and Sandra Oh in "Defendor."
| Yahoo! News: Movie News |
| Rolling Stone DVD Reviews |
|
The Host | |
|
Starring:
Bong Joon-Ho
Review:
Need proof that South Korea is the epicenter of cool Asian
cinema? Look no further than The Host, where a family
battles a huge, contagion-carrying ? fish monster? The film is
hilarious and the action is out-of-control ? simply one of the
greatest monster flicks ever made.
Rating:
3.5 Stars
| Rolling Stone DVD Reviews |
|
Hot Fuzz | |
|
Starring:
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
Review:
Who knew? Apparently, there are English hipsters out there who
revere trashy big-budget buddy-cop flicks like Lethal
Weapon and Bad Boys. Hot Fuzz is the latest
from the U.K. geek squad behind the cult comedy Shaun of the
Dead: writer/director Edgar Wright, writer/star Simon Pegg,
and demented plus-size sidekick Nick Frost. Together, they parody
cop movies with the same fanaticism Shaun of the Dead
brought to zombie flicks. For the first half or so, it's bloody
brilliant. Pegg and Frost are...
Rating:
3 Stars
| Rolling Stone DVD Reviews |
|
You're Gonna Miss Me | |
|
Starring:
Billy Gibbons, Patti Smith
Review:
This documentary traces the life of Roky Erickson, a pioneer of
60s psych-rock whose life becomes ruined by smoke, smack and
schizophrenia. It?s a familiar arc, sure, but the clichés
are averted when the focus turns to the cause of his madness: his
bat-shit crazy mother.
Rating:
3 Stars
| Rolling Stone DVD Reviews |
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