His eyes are on the tiger

Again this week, I'm double-posting a major review to permit your comments, which my main site can't accept--although they'll be added to our redesign, soon to be unveiled. Ang Lee's "Life of Pi"...

A statement from Chaz Ebert

CHICAGO, April 4, 2013 -- Chaz Ebert issued the following statement Thursday about the passing of her husband, Roger Ebert, a day after he celebrated 46 years as a film critic: "I am devastated by...

A Leave of Presence

Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and columns and even written to me since that time. Others were...

A Leave of Presense

Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and columns and even written to me since that time. Others were...

Days of Ebertfest: The 2013 schedule

PRESS RELEASE: CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Terrence Malick's 1978 film "Days of Heaven" won an Oscar for best cinematography, and Roger Ebert likely found that no surprise. It is "above all one of the most...

Indivdual presentations of awards by the critics.

New seasons with new names

I have watched with a kind of petrified fascination in recent years as the world creeps closer to what looks to me like disastrous climate change. The poles are melting. Ocean levels are rising....

A shooting in Harsh Park

When I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I must have driven past the little park a few times. Hyde Park, where the University is located, is a neighborhood including fraternity...

How I am a Roman Catholic

On Thursday morning, February 28, I found CNN featuring a continuous shot of a helicopter. The network cut between a close-up and a distant dot. It was Benedict, flying from the Vatican City. This...

My wife Chaz, the television personality

Note: This entry contains several high-quality embedded videos. It's necessary to give them time to load before attempting to view *any* of them. Searching for mention of "Amour" on our 2012 PBS...

What was my Aunt Martha trying to ask me?

After she had the heart attack out in Michigan on Thanksgiving 1988, I stood by her bedside in the recovery room and she tried so hard to tell me something, but it just didn't work. I loved her so...

Siskel & Ebert review B-Rated movies. And C. And D...

Marie writes: It's no secret how we feel about B-rated movie trailers inside the Ebert Club; there's nothing like a steaming pile of crap to inspire a good laugh. And it seems we're not alone. For...

The best bar in the world that I know about

The first Chicago bar I drank in was the Old Town Ale House. That bar was destroyed by fire in the 1960s, the customers hosed off, and the Ale House moved directly across the street to its present...

Outguess Ebert? I may have them all right

This year's Outguess Ebert contest seems a little like shooting fish in a barrel. For the first time in many a year, maybe ever, I think I've guessed every one correctly. A few years ago, I came...

A boy, his dog, and a puddle

I believe it was the writer W. G. Sebald who said: "Men and animals regard one another across a gulf of mutual incomprehension." No animal seems to comprehend us better than the dog. For that...

The Best Bar in the World

The first Chicago bar I drank in was the Old Town Ale House. That bar was destroyed by fire in the 1960s, and the Ale House moved directly across the street to its present location, where it has...

?Sheep, Galloway, Sheep!? Paul Galloway, a beloved legend

Paul Galloway as Tootsie on Michigan Ave. (Photo by Jack Lane) Chicago Sun-Times / February 3, 2009 We will never hear the Sheep Story again. Nor will we enjoy his presence in a room, which was an...

Weaker at the broken places

They are two people accustomed to ruling their physical domains with muscle, sex and beauty. They don't ask themselves a lot of questions about what could stand some improvement in their inner...

Gabby Giffords made me cry. America? And you?

I sense the debate over gun control is entering into a new phase and the gun lobby is losing. After Obama's second victory, the wind changed. Republicans are suffering uncertainty, and many of them...

The great ecstasy of the sculptor Herzog

A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me "A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane   That man can be found at the center of...

Pacino, Walken and Arkin: Three stand up guys in a one-act play in an empty noir city at night

• As told to Roger Ebert Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin walk into a hotel room, and that sounds like the set-up for a joke. It's more like a long-delayed punchline. These guys have...

Jeni le Gon: The first black woman signed by Hollywood was livin' and dancin' in great big way

My good Sun-Times pal from the 1970s at the Chicago Sun-Times, Cynthia Dagnal, wrote me today: "A friend in London sent me this, obituary from the London indpendent and I was stunned to see that...

Orson Welles young, old, drunk, sober, and plenty pissed off about frozen peas

I'm deep in my next blog entry, but thirst for in "Speed 3" has slaked, so I offer this in the meantime. RE ¶ Booked into the Auditorium Theater in Chicago in the 1930s, Orson Welles was confronted...

Orson Welles young, old, drunk, sober, and plenty pissed off about frozen peas

Booked into the Auditorium Theater in Chicago in the 1930s, Orson Welles was confronted by a snowstorm of historic proportions. Most of his audience couldn't make it to the theater. "Good evening,...

?Speed 3?--Winner of my 1999 contest

No favorable review I've ever written has inspired more disbelief than my three stars for "Speed 2." Even its star, Sandra Bullock, started mentioning in interviews her disgust with herself for...

A dozen good documentaries

Here is a collection of a dozen of the best documentaries I saw in 2012. It's not a "best of the year" list. Just some good memories of these films. I will not burden you again with another...

A pretty good set of nominees

The Oscars are the most important way the American film industry can honor what it considers the year's best work. But for millions of movie lovers all over the globes, they are something else: A...

Faster, Quentin! Thrill! Thrill!

Rating: Four stars Consider now the curious character of Dr. King Schultz. He is an itinerant dentist who works from his little wagon, traveling the backroads of the pre-Civil War South. As Quentin...

The death of a young paparazzo

Night on a highway somewhere. A hat and a shoe. In its very simplicity the photograph signals it has some hidden significance. The caption explains that the two objects on Sepulveda Blvd. in Los...

Ebert's Top Movies of 2012

A funny thing happened on the way to the Oscars. Not to the Oscars. To me. I sustained a hairline fracture of my left hip. I didn't fall. I didn't break it. It just sort of... happened to itself....