Roger Ebert

Short Films in Focus: I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry
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Luis Fernando Puente’s “I Have No Tears, and I Must Cry” takes place in the confines of an immigration office where lives are forever changed, providing the prospective citizens correctly filled out their paperwork and followed the rules of citizenship....
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The Synanon Fix
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Rory Kennedy is a phenomenal interviewer. We’ve seen this before in her other projects like the Oscar-nominated “Last Days in Vietnam,” and it’s the main strength of her new project, HBO’s 4-part “The Synanon Fix.” Her skill set in making...
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Steve Martin Is an Auteur Without Having Directed a Thing
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For more than 80 years, the auteur theory has provided a handy guide to thinking about who’s responsible for a movie’s authorship. Yes, films are the hard work of thousands of actors, craftspeople, producers, writers and others, but ultimately, it’s...
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The Unloved, Part 124: Play Dirty
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"Play Dirty" is a witty, acerbic, gorgeously ugly film that says something a lot of people don't want to hear but internalize every day: War is a feature of life, not a bug. We decided it was an acceptable price...
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Beyoncé and My Daughter Love Country Music
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What color is music anyway... Beyoncé dropped her new album "Cowboy Carter" just after midnight Friday morning, and as expected, the BeyHive went wild. But the significance of the act goes beyond just music, it is also a cultural invitation to stop putting  artists in a tight box,...
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A Poet of an Actor: Louis Gossett, Jr. (1936-2024)
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In processing the news that we have lost Louis Gossett, Jr. it is striking that the part that won him the Academy Award in 1983 is not the only role of his that comes to mind. With a whopping 200...
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Why I Love Ebertfest: A Movie Lover’s Dream
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Dear Ebertfest Movie Lovers, In celebration of our 25th Anniversary, several of our longtime audience members have shared their testimonials with us about what drew them to Ebertfest and why they keep coming back. These snapshots of what makes Ebertfest...
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The Listener
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To call "The Listener" minimalist would be an understatement. Shot a year into the pandemic, it played film festivals in 2022 and is only now getting a proper release, and once you watch it you can see why it wasn't treated as...
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Adam Wingard Focuses on the Monsters
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To paraphrase everyone’s favorite AMC Theaters spokesperson, “We come to kaiju films to see giant monsters beat each other up,” and “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” the fifth installment of Legendary’s MonsterVerse franchise, delivers the creature fights in spades....
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Colin Farrell Shines In Apple TV+’s Refined and Genre-Bending Sugar
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When we are first introduced to John Sugar (Colin Farrell), he relays that he doesn’t “like hurting people.” It’s during an early act of violence that he utters this, and he continues to relay this fact throughout different episodes, often...
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