Tonight on CNN: The Roger Ebert Documentary “Life Itself”
Posted on January 4, 2015 at 10:19 am
You will never see a better movie than the documentary “Life Itself,” the story of an extraordinary life. Roger used to say, “‘Rocky'” is not about boxing. It is about Rocky.” And this movie is not about movies or movie criticism. It is about Roger. And it is also about his wife, Chaz, one of the most touching and beautiful love stories ever put on film.
Watch it tonight on CNN. You can also take CNN’s “How Ebert are you?” quiz.
How True Should a “Based on a True Story” Movie Be?
Posted on January 2, 2015 at 8:10 pm
What does “based on a true story” really mean? The Washington Post had a front-page story titled, “‘Selma’ sets off a controversy amid Oscar buzz,” describing the objections by Lyndon Johnson administration insiders to the way he was portrayed. They say it was his idea to go to Selma, that he supported Dr. King’s efforts, and that he had nothing to do with the FBI’s surveillance and J. Edgar Hoover’s sending tapes of King’s supposed affairs to Mrs. King.
Historian Michael Bechloss has posted this handwritten note made by King for his conversation with LBJ:
And now my friend Jen Yamoto is summarizing objections to “Selma” and to other “based on a true story” films “Foxcatcher,” “The Imitation Game,” “Unbroken,” and “Big Eyes.” Some of these are the concerns of those trying to make sure that those who take their “history” from Oscar-worthy feature films at least begin to question the capacity of any dramatic work to be accurate in conveying historical events. But some are just sniping by competitors in the Oscar race.
As Jen writes:
Oscar voting opened Monday, and like clockwork, the haters have come calling. As Deadline’s Pete Hammond wrote on Monday, ’tis the season for controversy over fact-based awards contenders: Now, Bennett Miller’s real-life Olympian tragedy Foxcatcher and Tim Burton’s art exposé Big Eyeshave joined MLK Jr. drama Selma, the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken in ducking for cover over accuracy issues in mixing fact-based stories with narrative structure.
Even the most scrupulous accuracy will still reflect choices of perspective, tone, and emphasis. The best we can hope from any work of art is that it is the beginning, not the end, of an inquiry into the subject.
if the Gotcha Game is here to stay, we can at least agree on some new rules. And we can begin by adjusting our own attitudes toward fact-based films and their inevitable nit-pickers. Rather than the dualistic one’s-right-one’s-wrong model, it behooves audiences to cultivate a third eye — a new, more sophisticated way of appreciating both the art and the reality that inspires it.
If I were going to make a top ten list of movie top ten lists, Christopher Orr‘s would be number one. I love reading his end-of-year pieces in The Atlantic. The best of the year list is just the beginning. Then he goes into a brilliant examination of the year through a series of hilarious categories. This year’s best include:
Best Use of a 10cc Song: “I’m Not in Love,” Guardians of the Galaxy
Runner-up: “Dreadlock Holiday,” Life of Crime
Best Batman: Will Arnett, The Lego Movie
Best Alfred: Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, The Trip to Italy
Trends of the Year: Ironically self-conscious sequels (22 Jump Street, Muppets Most Wanted), drum solos (Birdman, Whiplash), Tilda Swinton in terrifying makeup (Snowpiercer, The Grand Budapest Hotel), Jason Reitman making awful movies (Labor Day; Men, Women & Children), final-act defenestrations (Birdman, Ida), tragic marital outcomes for Sienna Miller (Foxcatcher, American Sniper)
Ten is an arbitrary number, a year is an arbitrary span of time, and it makes no sense at all to try to rank movies that are so different in concept, genre, and aspiration. Nevertheless, as I always say when the topic of ten best lists comes up, they are, to quote Jan Struther, “indefensible but irresistible.” So, here I am, and here is my list. As usual, I have one at the top and then every other title on the list is tied for second place.
The best film of the year is “Selma,” brilliant in every category — as history, as drama, as biography, as advocacy. And it could not be more timely.
Runners-up:
Boyhood
Birdman
Guardians of the Galaxy
Life Itself
Belle
Dear White People
The Boxtrolls
The Book of Life
The Theory of Everything
Honorable Mention: Pride, Top Five, Rosewater, The Imitation Game, A Most Violent Year, Tracks, The LEGO Movie, Beyond the Lights, Begin Again, Snowpiercer, Wild, Whiplash, Only Lovers Left Alive, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Love is Strange, Gone Girl, Coherence, The One I Love, Believe Me, Under the Skin
Deserved a larger audience: Beyond the Lights, Edge of Tomorrow
Outstanding Documentaries: Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me, Finding Vivian Maier, Particle Fever, CitizenFour, 1971, The Unknown Known
A good year for grown-up romance: Words and Pictures, Begin Again, Beyond the Lights, Only Lovers Left Alive, Love is Strange
A great year for movies about food: Luscious meals were the real stars of the delicious Chef, Le Chef, 1000 Foot Journey, The Trip to Italy, and The Lunchbox
Breakthrough performers: Chris Pratt, Rosamund Pike, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ben Schnetzer (two films each), also Nelsan Ellis, Jack O’Connell, Jillian Bell
A great year for heroes who were smart: Big Hero 6, Theory of Everything, Interstellar, Imitation Game
A great year for animation: The LEGO Movie, The Boxtrolls, The Book of Life, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Penguins of Madagascar
Great live-action family films: Dolphin Tale 2, Muppets Most Wanted, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
And the Hall of Shame, the year’s most excruciatingly, painfully bad films:
Blended, Left Behind, Irreplaceable, A Million Ways to Die in the West, The Other Woman, Transcendence, Sabotage, Tammy, Labor Day, Dumb and Dumber To, The Identical, Neighbors, The Nut Job, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Third Person
The Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury is made up of film critics and cinephiles who wish to recognize and celebrate films that use the medium to explore themes of religion, faith, or spirituality. We particularly seek to enlarge or expand the perception of what is meant by either labeling a film a “Christian” film or suggesting that it should be of interest to Christian audiences. The jury seeks to recognize quality films (regardless of genre) that have challenged, moved, enlightened, or entertained us and to draw the attention of Christian audiences to films it thinks have the potential to do the same for them.
This year’s awardees include films from Hollywood and Europe, feature films and a documentary, independents and big-budget studio films. Of particular interest are the “honorable mention” films that did not make it to the list but were selected by individual judges. Awardees included “Fury,” the very violent WWII film starring Brad Pitt, “Ida,” a black and white film about a nun who discovers that she is of Jewish heritage, “The Overnighters,” a documentary about a Lutheran clergyman struggling to help the men who came to his community in North Dakota from out of state to work in the oil industry, and “Calvary,” the story of an dedicated Irish priest trying to heal damage that is almost inimaginable.
