It seems Roger Ebert was unable to make the trek to Cannes , but his wife (and Ebert Co. VP) Chaz sends a report from the South of France with a fantastic breakdown of the fest’s offerings — and sweet words for Rog back home: “Today there may not be starlets jumping nude in the ocean, but we are still being given stories of young love and old love and passion and feelings and ideas that make life worth living. Thank you for introducing me to this world. Now I just want you to hurry back to it.” [ Chicago Sun-Times ]
“Gene did think he had Roger on smarts. Whenever Roger claimed to have the superior intellect, Gene would say , ‘Aren’t you the guy who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ?'” Oh, that Siskel. This and many more great At the Movies nuggets can be found over in Slate’s exclusive excerpt from The Chicagoan’s Roger Ebert -Gene Siskel piece Enemies, A Love Story . Give it a go and settle in for a good, long read on the best frenemyship in film criticism history. [ Slate ]
With its soapy survey of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe, the new NBC potboiler Smash is clinging to reasonably good ratings since launching last week. And now The Weinstein Company, never one to miss an opportunity, has discreetly hitched its double Oscar nominee My Week With Marilyn to Smash ‘s own (alleged) Marilyn-fueled momentum. There’s the obvious Oscarcast factor as well, but the implications in this note just over the ML transom are clear enough: The Weinstein Company announced today that they are expanding MY WEEK WITH MARILYN into 600 theaters nationwide. This will give audiences a chance to see for the first time or revisit the film in theaters in advance of the awards. MY WEEK WITH MARILYN garnered two Academy Award Nominations for Michelle Williams, Best Actress, and Kenneth Branagh, Best Supporting Actor. Audiences are again embracing Marilyn Monroe with the success of the film and now the small screen hit, SMASH. MY WEEK WITH MARILYN is currently in select theaters and will be expanding on February 24th. A little desperate, sure, but at least it beats ” WHAT MOVIE REPRESENTS THE THING THAT HAPPENED IN CINEMA THIS YEAR? ” You’ve come a long-ish way, Harvey. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I wanted to believe James Cameron &mdash I really did! &mdash but it turns out that the 3-D conversion of his megahit Titanic is not only the craven cash grab we all feared, but it’s also a visually drab re-rendering of an otherwise extraordinary technical achievement. Womp wooomp . Paramount and Fox reportedly hosted a few dozen sold-out Valentine’s Day previews of the film, to which press elites like Roger Ebert and David Poland were invited for their reactions. (My invitation must have been lost in the mail, but hey, I had a hot date with Linsanity that night anyway.) And how about those reactions! First Ebert , who gives Titanic a thorough and conscientious second-over before getting to the takeaway we’re all waiting for: Cameron has justly been praised for being one of the few directors to use 3D usefully, in Avatar . But Titanic was not shot for 3D, and just as you cannot gild a pig, you cannot make 2D into 3D. There’s more to it than that. 3D causes a noticeable loss in the brightness coming from the screen. Some say as much as 20 percent. If you saw an ordinary film dimmed that much, you might complain to the management. Here you’re supposed to be grateful you had the opportunity to pay a surcharge for this defacement. If you’re alert to it, you’ll notice that many shots and sequences in this version are not in 3D at all, but remain in 2D. If you take off your glasses, they’ll pop off the screen with dramatically improved brightness. I know why the film is in 3D. It’s to justify the extra charge. That’s a shabby way to treat a masterpiece. ” Welllll ,” the skeptic says, “Ebert’s never liked 3-D.” Fair enough! So — take it away, Mr. Poland : I was happy that when we got to the theater, it turned out not to be IMAX 3D. Those glasses are ridiculous and I have only had one or two happy experiences with that specific format. (I quite like IMAX and don’t always dislike 3D.) So I didn’t get irritated by having the glasses on as we watched the hours of film roll by. However… I found myself wanting to take the glasses off repeatedly. And here is why: it’s like watching the movie through a filter. Call it darkness, call it clarity… call it what you like. But for me, especially on Titanic , the slight facial fur and occasional acne under the make-up on Kate Winslet and the small pock marks on Leonardo DiCaprio’s face are a part of the intimacy of the movie. The movie takes such painstaking efforts to get every detail right… I want to see them, including the imperfections. And with those glasses on, I could not. Some might be happy not to see detail… to have the image smoothed out even more. But not me. These people are beautiful. Their imperfections are beautiful. Anyway, this will make a fortune and quite possibly be your next reason for never going to the movies again , so… yeah. Mark your calendars . Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
In a blog entry yesterday, Roger Ebert announced that Ebert Presents At the Movies , the public television film review show hosted by the AP’ s Christy Lemire and Mubi’s Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, will indeed be forced to go on hiatus at the end of December while he and Chaz Ebert search for funding. “We hope our hiatus will be brief. You have told us you like the show. And we now have options. A touching number of viewers offered to send us money directly. One of the avenues we may take is a Kickstarter campaign, as you suggested. We will let you know as soon as that is worked out.” [ Roger Ebert’s Journal ]
The pop culture parodists at The Hillywood Show bring it with the Halloween movie-music mash-up of the season. Put your paws up and watch as they envision The Nightmare Before Christmas , only with Lady Gaga in place of Jack Skellington. The Monster Queen of Halloweentown! Somehow it’s not much of a stretch. Bonus: It’ll give you a plethora of Gaga Halloween costume ideas (sans the meat dress, which might be a bit tricky to pull off). More in your Thursday Buzz Break!
It’s here! And… it stinks. In fact, the Taylor Lautner action “thriller” Abduction was rocking that all-too-rare, Bucky Larson -esque 0-percent Rotten Tomatoes ranking (“Its Tomato score got abducted!”, a witty reader advised me last night) Thursday night before a couple so-and-so’s from a recklessly forgiving enterprise called “Urban Cinefile” give it a thumbs-up. But there remains plenty of bile to drizzle over your breakfast — and the likes of Roger Ebert haven’t even chimed in yet. In Movieline’s grand, Friday-morning tradition , let’s have a taste!
Also in this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: The Ides of March will debut in August… Guillermo del Toro is intrigued by Maleficent … Sylvester Stallone casts his daughter… and more ahead.
Jackass star Ryan Dunn died earlier today and already, film critic Roger Ebert took him to task over reports that he drank before getting behind the wheel. Dunn’s drinking buddy claims Ryan had at least three beers and three “girly shots” before hitting the road. He was driving when he crashed and passed away. Ebert, of all people, had this to say this afternoon: Sources say Ryan Dunn spent four hours in Barnaby’s of America in West Chester, Pa., before he got behind the wheel of his Porsche this morning. One of his friends says Dunn had three beers and three shots between 10:30 p.m. and 2:10 a.m., but he was “not too drunk to drive.” However, according to another person who was inside the bar that night, Dunn was “wasted” and “had a lot to drink.” Either way, what’s your take on Ebert’s Tweet?
It’s a pain to waste your time watching a bad movie, but how much more frustrating is it to watch an okay movie and realize how much better it might have been with just a couple tweaks here and there? The Adjustment Bureau was, as the President might say, likeable enough — an intriguing concept, congenial stars, and a cool look to the whole thing — but as Roger Ebert says , it’s “a smart and good movie that could have been a great one if it had a little more daring.” So what are the five easy ways that The Adjustment Bureau could go from DVD recommendation to a must-see-movie?
