It is also a moving spiritual achievement, a movie whose title could have been shortened to " Life." Inspired by a worldwide best-seller that many readers must have assumed was unfilmmable, it is a triumph over its difficulties.
It is told with classic comedy and tension.Īng Lee's "Life of Pi" is a miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery. The new film reveals surprises about a story we all lived though. This fake "Argo," needless to say, was never filmed. In "Argo," a fake sci-fi movie called "Argo" is floated as a cover story to explain some Americans in Iran during the hostage crisis. The extraction of the six Americans remained top secret for 18 years. Countless movies are "inspired on real events," but these truly took place. It is "based on a true story." Yes, it is. It has the classic values of a Hollywood thriller. This film takes first place on my best movie list because it is above all else a movie - pure, strong and sound. the Volcano," this is known as a Brain Cloud. I wrote the list while in hospital for a fracture, it went through many revisions, and those two got lost between Top Ten and Jury. Life Itself opens July 11 in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, and July 25 in London, Waterloo and Victoria.Footnote: : I've added " Cloud Atlas," " We Need to Talk About Kevin," " West of Memphis," and " Prometheus" to the Grand Jury Prizes. He loved movies, and hated a few, and was never shy about telling you which, and why. (Someone describes the show as “a sitcom about two guys who live in a movie theatre.”) But Ebert’s words will continue to resonate, and viewers touched by this tribute would be well advised to visit his eponymous web site or pick up a collection of his criticism. Life Itself concentrates more on the man than his work, though we do get to hear some of his spirited on-air discussions with Siskel. He stopped drinking in 1979, started attending AA meetings – where he met his wife, Chaz – and has described himself as a recovering alcoholic ever since, though he notes in the film that without a way to physically drink liquids, he is probably safe from relapse. Life Itself has a lot of ground to cover, but it touches on many of the important (and sometimes strange) chapters in its subject’s life – like the time he crossed the critical divide to become screenwriter for Russ Meyer’s almost unclassifiable 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.Įbert, speaking through a synthesizer that recreates his voice from old recordings, also discusses his many trips to the Cannes film festival the Conference on World Affairs in Colorado (where he led frame-by-frame discussions of movies) and the pub.
The gift was conditional on Bahrani passing it forward to another deserving filmmaker one day. In the case of the last, he gave the filmmaker an arguably priceless jigsaw puzzle that had been a present to Marilyn Monroe by Alfred Hitchcock, and then passed down through Lee Strasberg, Laura Dern and finally Ebert. Gregory Nava’s El Norte, Michael Moore’s Roger & Me and Ramin Bahrani’s Man Push Cart have all benefited from Ebert’s imprimatur. But far from merely criticizing bad movies, he would often use his fame to champion smaller films that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. One former drinking buddy notes: “He’s a nice guy but he’s not that nice.”Įven Ebert admits he was no bastion of civility, calling himself tactless, merciless and a showboat. He seems to have lorded the win over friends, enemies and Siskel. Ebert didn’t even apply for that job – he got it when the paper’s previous critic retired – but he excelled at it, to the point where, just eight years later, he became the first film critic to receive the Pulitzer Prize.
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