The video essay is the first in a series about critics by Kevin B. Lee, who is editor of the Press Play video essays at Indiewire.com--which he and Matt Zoller Seitz have built into the best video essay source on the web. Kevin was a special correspondent for our TV show, "Ebert Presents at the Movies." He had the idea of beginning with my list of the Greatest Films of All Time for the 1982 Sight & Sound poll. This was rather inspired, because that first list is my "purest," almost instinctive, before 30 years of tweaking and fiddling. Notice his artistry in selecting film clips to illustrate the words. He focuses on the films that have survived through all of my lists. This video ... Continue reading →
BY ROGER EBERT / May 23, 2012 "First, do no harm," the Hippocratic Oath admonishes doctors. By this standard, Dr. Robert Dalrymple must have been one of the few practitioners of the Victorian era with a sterling record. He knew no more than most other doctors of his time and was treating a condition that didn't exist, female hysteria. But give the doctor his due. His treatments consisted of inducing orgasms in his patients, and he didn't lose a one. In fact, his waiting room was usually jammed. Tanya Wexler's quietly saucy "Hysteria" takes place in London at a time when medical authorities didn't know the word for or the concept of "orgasm," and apparently many women never experienced them. His treatments consisted of modestly ... Continue reading →
by Barbara Scharres The sun is finally shining, and Cannes becomes a resort town once again. Aside from the thousands of film industry visitors, this place is clogged with tourists of all nations and in all manner of beach attire, many of them senior citizens. As far as I can tell, the main thing they do is promenade. They stroll up and down the Croisette on the waterfront side and then the window-shopping side. They walk up and down the town's main drag, the Rue d'Antibes. They eat ice cream cones; they buy red, caramelized peanuts hot from the vendors' pans, and gummi bears and licorice; they watch costumed mimes perform under the palm trees; and they walk their little ankle-biter dogs, of which there ... Continue reading →
BY ROGER EBERT / May 23, 2012 "Men in Black 3” comes 15 years after the entertaining original and 10 years after the sequel laid an egg, and the surprise is, it’s better than the first one. Given the passage of time, the entire concept may be new to some audience members, but it still does service: There is a secret agency assigned to keeping track of all aliens on Earth, and there are as many of them as makeup expert Rick Baker can possibly devise. I am not sure how undercover an MiB agent can be when he dresses exactly like the Blues Brothers, but never mind, they get the job done. The story until now: Veteran Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) and his ... Continue reading →
My Daily Streamer. When Fincher's "Zodiac" (2007) was released, it reminded many of the classic South Korean thriller about a serial killer, "Memories of Murder" (2003), by Bong Joon-ho. The film told its story against the backdrop of the nation's military dictatorship at that time. It's vividly evoked here by Seongyong Cho, my correspondent in Seoul. Available via Amazon and Netflix, or there's a link at the bottom here telling you where to legally download or stream it for free: http://bit.ly/KaMQcu Continue reading →
In the early years of the Iranian Revolution, an obscure cleric named Ayatollah Gilani became a sensation on state television by contemplating bizarre hypotheticals at the intersection of Islamic law and sexuality. One of his most outlandish scenarios -- still mocked by Iranians three decades later -- went like this: Imagine you are a young man sleeping in your bedroom. In the bedroom directly below, your aunt lies asleep. Now imagine that an earthquake happens that collapses your floor, causing you to fall directly on top of her. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you're both nude, and you're erect, and you land with such perfect precision on top of her that you unintentionally achieve intercourse. Is the child of such an encounter ... Continue reading →
My Daily Streamer. When Fincher's "Zodiac" (2007) was released, it reminded many of the classic South Korean thriller about a serial killer, "Memories of Murder" (2003), by Bong Joon-ho. The film told its story against the backdrop of the nation's military dictatorship at that time. It's vividly evoked here by Seongyong Cho, my correspondent in Seoul. Available via Amazon and Netflix, or there's a link at the bottom here telling you where to legally download or stream it for free: http://bit.ly/KaMQcu Continue reading →
But comparing Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder" (2003) to "Zodiac" is akin to comparing tangerine to grape fruit. While both share some common elements, they are different from each other in many aspects. While "Zodiac" firmly looks at the Zodiac case itself, "Memories of Murder" uses a fictional story inspired by its serial killing case as the window to the South Korean society during the 1980s, an era when lots of infuriating injustices and accompanying brutal violence took place under the military dictatorship. Even though I was very young at that time, I remember several things about the Hwaseong serial killing case because it was hot news on TV whenever someone was found murdered. Between 1986 and 1991, 10 women of various ages were savagely ... Continue reading →
