Roger Ebert
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Onrushing Now
Nick Nolte had walked into a bar. Nolte was a constant in a screenwriting partner’s Malibu hinterlands, hair ever elevated, stalking across a parking lot to Coogie’s for the midafternoon breakfast, resplendent in striped Sulka pajamas and happy dudgeon. This time, it was dark and it was Toronto, across from the Sutton Hotel headquarters of the festival. The upstairs of now long-defunct Bistro 990 on this night in the late 1990s is rich with heightened voices but not shouting. I’m standing near Nolte with a cofounder of Indiewire, Mark Rabinowitz. Our eyes literally grow large just as our ears figuratively […]
by Ray Pride on Jun 11, 2018 -
Sexploitation Star Kitten Natividad on Russ Meyer, Roger Ebert, Porn and the Hot Docs-premiering League of Exotique Dancers
Rama Rau’s League of Exotique Dancers is an absolutely delightful and lovingly crafted doc structured around a group of legendary striptease artists as they prepare to return to the stage for the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in Las Vegas — a trip which becomes merely an excuse for the filmmaker to delve deeply into the extraordinary lives of some truly groundbreaking women. Among the timelessly sexy inductees is none other than Kitten Natividad, best known as cult director Russ Meyer’s buxom muse. Prior to the film’s Hot Docs premiere, Filmmaker was fortunate enough to catch up with the Beneath […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 28, 2016 -
Silver Anniversary: The IFP Gotham Awards at 25
The IFP Gotham Awards celebrate their 25th anniversary this November with a ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street. Along with awards going to the top independent films of the year, the Gothams will present Tribute Awards to Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Todd Haynes and Steve Golin. Here, Peter Bowen culls the archives of IFP, Filmmaker’s publisher and parent organization, to find 25 memorable moments from the Gotham’s history of celebrating New York and independent filmmaking. 1991 The Cost of Film In 1991, IFP executive director Catherine Tait stood before a seated crowd of some 400 people at Roseland to explain what […]
by Peter Bowen on Oct 28, 2015 -
At the Death House Door: Steve James on the Roger Ebert Doc, Life Itself
Two heavyweights of Chicago film culture, director Steve James and the iconic late film critic Roger Ebert were fond of each other from afar for years. It wasn’t until James was charged with making a cinematic document of Ebert’s final months and his life and achievements that the two grew close. The filmmaker behind the masterful Chicagoland documentaries Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters gives us an up close and personal look at the final months of Ebert’s life, crafting both a tough-minded look at his physical decline and a warm-hearted celebration of a singular cultural figure’s life and work. James, […]
by Brandon Harris on Jul 1, 2014 -
“This Is The Guy”: Steve James, Roger Ebert and Life Itself
“Who the fuck are you?” Fueled on booze, Flamo was raging. Someone had told the cops he had stashed guns in his house, and so his mum and brother were handcuffed and led away. Craving revenge but thinking better, Flamo phoned Cobe (pronounced KOH-bay), someone he met years earlier in the county jail who was now a violence interruptor, counseling young gangbangers like Flamo to chill out and stop drawing blood in Chicago’s crime-ravaged South Side. When Cobe arrived, Flamo was stunned to find some white man filming him. Luckily, Cobe knew how to vouch for the white man to the youth he […]
by Allan Tong on Mar 26, 2014 -
Should You Stream Your Festival Premiere on VHX?
Good podcast conversation today at TFI Live with Jason Guerrasio speaking with producer Marilyn Ness (E-TEAM) and Indiegogo’s John T. Trigonis about the nascent trend of live streaming features for crowdfunding backers. They discuss the live stream of Steve James’ Life Itself alongside its Sundance premiere. For $25, 1,900 Indiegogo backers took James and his team up on their offer. Trigonis talks about the effort from the Indiegogo point of view, and Ness discusses why she and her team couldn’t do such a release. The conversation expands to include discussion of the types of films that would and would not […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2014 -
Thoughts on Roger Ebert, 35mm and Peter Wintonick
Instant remembrances flower online when strangers die. Twitter turns into an instantaneous altar, as if the site where a hero fell. And some writers are very good at devising a rapid remembrance of a long friendship or acquaintance into a succinct, maybe even final summation. After years of aggregating news headlines at Movie City News, linking to keenly observed obituaries daily, my impulse runs the other direction when I knew the deceased. I’m not ready that soon to thread the nuance of all that time into a tidy dispatch; I want to grip the fragments of soon-fading memory. I didn’t […]
by Ray Pride on Dec 31, 2013 -
Remembering Roger Ebert, 1942 – 2013
“Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet…” — Alain De Botton I hadn’t recalled my dank childhood basement in quite some time, but the room, with its wicker furniture, orange-ish carpet and large, wood-panelled Sony TV, came flooding back last week upon reading of the sad passing of film critic Roger Ebert, just one day after he posted a “leave of presence,” a slowing-down that was still more active than the combined work of two men these days. It was in that basement that I’d faithfully watch […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 11, 2013 -
JAMIE STUART IS NOW ON TWITTER
Scored, color corrected, and spikily punctuated by frames of black, of course. Bringing the social to the social network: Yes, I’m Now On Twitter from The Mutiny Company on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2011 -
Idiot With a Tripod
Jamie Stuart has struck a popular chord with this lovely short shot during the December, 2010 East Coast blizzard. It’s got gorgeous visuals, humor, a slyly organic narrative, and, plus, it’s a tribute to Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera. We at Filmmaker have touted Stuart’s talents for some time, but now Roger Ebert has weighed in, arguing that this new short should win the Best Short Film Oscar. It’s also been picked up Gothamist, New York Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, among many others. It’s shaping up to be Stuart’s viral hit. I blogged it when it […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2010
