View image A motley group convenes at the Steak 'n Shake after the opening night film to continue an annual Ebertfest tradition. The shot was e-mailed to Roger and Chaz within moments of being taken. (photo and foreground thumb by Jim Emerson)

Introducing "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" Sunday at Ebertfest, Roger Ebert used a laptop to speak for him. More about the festival in a few days (I'm still on the road and very busy), but if you want to see/hear a Quicktime video of Roger's introduction (I took it with my Treo 680 from the third row, my customary place in the Virginia Theatre -- usually in the third or fourth row next to my movie-mates David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson (check out their Ebertfest blog coverage here), who are about to head off for New Zealand, you can play it by clicking here. It's not great quality, but it plays just swell in Quicktime.

Posted by Jim Emerson at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

View image Roger and Chaz Ebert on opening night. Roger gets his own La-Z-Boy recliner in the back of the Virginia for the duration of the fest! (Thompson-McLellan photo)

Three cheers for Roger Ebert, for the 9th Overlooked Film Festival (aka Ebertfest, now in progress) and for technology! I wrote and filed the following story for Thursday's Sun-Times, sitting on the stairs to the balcony in the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, IL, Wednesday night -- between 7:30 and 8:30. Had my PowerBook G4, which I typed on. Then transferred the story (via synch) to my Treo 680, and wirelessly e-mailed it to the paper in Chicago. More about Ebertfest soon -- I'm kind of in the middle of things, and I'm waiting to borrow a cable or card reader to retrieve my own photos; for some reason mine can't read the XD card....

"It's my happening and it freaks me out!" said Chaz Ebert on behalf of her husband, Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, on stage at opening night of the ninth Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign-Urbana. The line (memorably quoted by Mike Meyers in the first "Austin Powers" movie) is from the Ebert-penned screenplay for Russ Meyer's 1970 cult classic "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," which is among the titles in this year's festival.

It was Ebert's first public appearance since he suffered complications from surgery last June, and it brought down the full house at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign. As he announced in a message featured in the Sun-Times and on his web site (rogerebert.com) Tuesday, Ebert is not able to speak now, pending further surgery, so Chaz had to do the talking for him. As Ebert wrote on a pad before the screening, "After we go onstage, Chaz will read one line from me that will say it ALL."

View image Jim Emerson, Boy Reporter, at Roger's first public appearance -- a reception at the house of U of Illinois President Joseph White (and his wife Mary and dog Webster) Wednesday night. Roger's head is in the lower left; Mark Caro of the Chicago Tribute is also comfortably seated on the floor at the right. (Thompson-McLellan photo)

Chaz recounted how the festival was nearly cancelled late last year, when Ebert was in the hospital and the pace of his recovery was uncertain. But Festival Director Nate Kohn visited Ebert in his Chicago hospital room with a message from Mary Susan Britt, the festival's Associate Director: "The festival passes sold out in a little over a week in November. You have to get out of that hospital bed and come down to Champaign-Urbana."

"At that moment," Chaz said, "Roger made a commitment. If it was at all possible, he would be here tonight.... This is where he wanted to be, this is where he is, this is where he's staying," she said, and the crowd responded with a standing ovation.

Through his wife, Ebert reminded the audience of the personal importance of Champaign's Virginia Theatre, the restored movie palace in which the Ebertfest films are screened. "I saw 'Gone With the Wind' here, and my father saw the Marx Brothers on this very stage."

And he thanked Britt for helping him fulfill "a lifelong dream -- to have my own La-Z-Boy chair in a movie theater." Ebert will be watching the films with the audience from the recliner in the back row of the Virginia.Instead of the usual Ebert introductions and post-screening onstage interviews with filmmakers, the festival organizers have assembled panels of friends, colleagues and experts to discuss the films with the filmmakers, and the audience, after they are shown. Chaz said there were more guests than ever at this year's festival -- among them directors Werner Herzog ("Stroszek"), Paul Cox ("Man of Flowers") and Andy Davis ("Holes"), actor and longtime festival attendee Scott Wilson (with "Come Early Morning"), actor Alan Rickman ("Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"), and actress Fatoumata Coulibaly ("Moolade").

At a reception at the home University of Illinois President Joseph and Mary White before the first film, Davis's 1997 "Gattaca," President White reminded U of I alumnus Ebert that "Tonight's film may have been 'overlooked' by many, but not by me. I've seen it 12 times."

White commended Ebert for his statement published earlier in the week. "Roger said it's about time we talk about the difficulties we face in life -- like illness."

But on this occasion, he said, "The most important thing is to welcome Roger Ebert home to Champaign-Urbana."

Introducing his film "Gattaca," producer Michael Shamberg told the crowd, "Roger Ebert represents not only film but the love of film, and not only the love of film but a love of the moviegoing experience.... Nobody has been more important in telling americans why we should love film than Roger Ebert."

Posted by Jim Emerson at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

View image Roger bounces back. (Photo by Dom Najolia/Chicago Sun-Times)

THIS is the Roger Ebert I know and love! Read the full piece on RogerEbert.com:

Message from Roger Ebert on the eve of the 9th Overlooked Film Festival (aka Ebertfest):

My Ninth Annual Film Festival opens Wednesday night at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and Chaz and I will be in attendance. This year I won’t be speaking, however, as I await another surgery.

I have received a lot of advice that I should not attend the Festival. I’m told that paparazzi will take unflattering pictures, people will be unkind, etc. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. As a journalist I can take it as well as dish it out.

So let’s talk turkey. What will I look like? To paraphrase a line from “Raging Bull,” I ain’t a pretty boy no more. (Not that I ever was. The original appeal of Siskel & Ebert was that we didn’t look like we belonged on TV.)

What happened was, cancer of the salivary gland spread to my right lower jaw. A segment of the mandible was removed. Two operations to replace the missing segment were unsuccessful, both leading to unanticipated bleeding.

A tracheostomy was necessary so, for the time being, I cannot speak. I make do with written notes and a lot of hand waving and eye-rolling. The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding. If all goes well, my speech will be restored.

So when I turn up in Urbana, I will be wearing a gauze bandage around my neck, and my mouth will be seen to droop. So it goes.

I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers. So what? I have been very sick, am getting better and this is how it looks. I still have my brain and my typing fingers....

Posted by Jim Emerson at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (44)

View image "It is happening again."

From my essay on the DVD release of "Twin Peaks Season 2" at MSN Movies:

"A path is formed by laying one stone at a time."
-- The Giant

The robin, the mill, the saw blades, the road, the waterfall, the surface of the water. These are the markers down the path to "Twin Peaks," David Lynch's television town full of mysteries, nestled in the deep, dark woods of the Pacific Northwest. From April 8, 1990, to June 10, 1991 -- as the ABC show rapidly metamorphosed from hypnotic oddity to pop-culture phenomenon to baffling shaggy dog story -- these images in the opening credits (accompanied by the twin keyboard scales of Angelo Badalamenti's lush and ghostly score) provided the ritual entrance to Twin Peaks.

This is a territory circumscribed by ritual and repetition -- of daily life and cryptic clues and incantations. These iconic introductory images are Twin Peaks' Stations of the Cross, representing landmarks in the life of Twin Peaks' sacrificial lamb and lioness, Laura Palmer: high school beauty queen by day, tormented naughty girl by night. The Passion of Laura Palmer, murdered during Lent, the penitential season of grief, was lamented, reconstructed and re-enacted ("It is happening again") in one two-hour television pilot, a seven-episode first season, a 22-episode second season and a feature film prequel/coda, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me."

Seven years after the DVD release of the first season of "Twin Peaks," the second and only full-season has at last appeared. (The two-hour pilot, mired in a tangle of rights issues, has never been released on DVD in North America.) Looking back over the series, with a sense of the overall terrain, it's clearer than ever how "Twin Peaks" was meant to be experienced. A hybrid of supernatural murder mystery and soap-operatic melodrama (and, though genuinely terrifying and disturbing, simultaneously a parody of both), "Twin Peaks" was never quite a serial, in that it did not lay its stones, sequentially, one at a time. It dumped pebbles and boulders all over the place. This is Lynchland, after all.

As the titles (and the title) suggest, Twin Peaks (and "Twin Peaks") is a set of geographical and psychological coordinates -- a spatial and temporal map like the one that, in the series' final hours, reveals the entrance to the Black Lodge (containing the red room with the dancing Man From Another Place) in space and in time. "I just know I'm going to get lost in those woods again tonight," a doomed Laura wrote in her diary. And that's the invitation Lynch extended to viewers: "Let's get lost."

Posted by Jim Emerson at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Wish you were here! Sorry I haven't posted for a while. A death in the family, followed by the Conference on World Affairs (where I'm going through "Chinatown" with the audience, as well as serving on other panels) has kept me from my laptop. (See article in the Boulder Daily Camera.)

Roger Ebert (who is greatly missed this year -- but promises to be back for the 60th CWA next year) has been maestro of the Cinema Interruptus program for about the last 30 years. Maura Clare, the CWA's incomparable Conference Coordinator and Director of Public Affairs, sent me a list of all the amazing films Roger has shown over the decades, which I thought I'd share with you:

1970 – 1974 – No films were shown. Most panels were about an hour long, and were series titled. Roger participated in panel discussions about Unisex, The Future of X-Rated Films, Meditation, The Devil’s Advocate: Moving Pictures, TV: The Man With the Power Saw, and Prurience.

75 – Using the series title Persona, CITIZEN KANE was shown and discussed by Roger every day at the Fox Theater on The Hill. In Addition, Roger participated with others on series titled What the Declaration of Independence Does Not Mention: A Right to Property, The Mythology of the American Experience, The Changing Understanding of What is Human and What is Natural in Human Nature, Created Equal but Everywhere Unequal.

76 – NOTORIOUS (the first Uninterruptus/Interruptus) every day at 4 pm at the Fox Theater on the Hill, using the series title How to Read A Movie.

77 – THE THIRD MAN every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, using the series title Decoding a Movie

78 – 8 1/2, every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, using the series title Analyzing a Film.

79 – LA DOLCE VITA (first of plan to study LA DOLCE VITA at least once every decade) every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, using the series title Analyzing a Film.

80 – AMARCORD every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, using the series title Analyzing a Film.

81 – CRIES AND WHISPERS every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, and the series title changed to Films.

82 – TAXI DRIVER every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, series title Analyzing a Film.

83 – LA DOLCE VITA every day at noon in the Memorial Forum, series title Analyzing a Film (second of every decade study).

84 – Roger did not arrive until Tuesday, and using the Fiske Planetarium Tuesday through Friday he discussed two Werner Herzog films, GOD’S ANGRY MAN and HUIE’S SERMON, one Ranier Werner Fassbinder Film BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VAN KANT, one Louis Malle film MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, Errol Morris’s GATES OF HEAVEN and Les Blank’s WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE. All these were at noon.

85 – CASABLANCA every day at noon in the Memorial Forum series title Film.

86 – THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE every day at noon in the Memorial Forum series title Film.

87 – THREE WOMEN every day at noon at Macky Auditorium (first Macky use), series title Analyzing a Film.

88 – THE THIRD MAN every day at noon at Macky Auditorium series title Analyzing a Film,

89 – OUT OF THE PAST every day at noon at Macky Auditorium series title Film.

90 – RAGING BULL every day at noon Macky Auditorium series title Film.

91 – CITIZEN KANE every day at noon Macky Auditorium series title Analyzing a Film.

92 – SILENCE OF THE LAMBS every day at 4 pm (first 4 pm showing) Macky Auditorium series title Film.

93 – JFK every day at 4 pm Macky Auditorium series title Analyzing a Film.

94 – LA DOLCE VITA (third of every decade study) every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium series title Analyzing a Film.

95 – There was no CWA in 1995.

96 – PULP FICTION at Muenzinger Auditorium every day at 7 pm (designated 19:00 in the program) series titles no longer used.

97 – FARGO every day at 7 pm (19:00 in program) at Macky Auditorium.

98 – DARK CITY (film selection changed after program went to press, program says VERTIGO) 7 pm at Macky Auditorium.

99 – VERTIGO every day at 7 pm at Macky Auditorium.

2000 – CASABLANCA every day at 4 pm (first 4 pm scheduling) Macky Auditorium.

01 – FIGHT CLUB every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium.

02 – MULHOLLAND DRIVE every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium.

03 – FLOATING WEEDS Sunday then Tuesday through Friday, 4 pm at Macky Auditorium; TOYKO-GA Monday only 4 pm at Macky.

04 – THE RULES OF THE GAME every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium.

05 – LA DOLCE VITA (fourth of every decade study) every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium.

06 – THE LONG GOODBYE every day at 4 pm at Macky Auditorium.

Posted by Jim Emerson at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Message from Roger Ebert, now posted at RogerEbert.com:

As I look at the date, I realize I was named film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times forty years ago today. I had no idea I was embarking on a lifelong career, but I was, and I can't think of a better one.

Now here I am with another milestone. Nine months ago I was leaving Northwestern Memorial hospital after surgery for salivary cancer. I was planning to be back in action in a few weeks, but unfortunately, there were complications, and more medical procedures resulted. I was in bed so long that I experienced serious deconditioning that led to a stint at the famous Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

I began my rehabilitation there, and I am continuing it, along with an overhaul of my general health, at the Pritikin Center in Florida. Also, because of a tracheostomy, my speaking voice is on hold until my upcoming completion surgery. I am feeling better every day and my wife Chaz says we can see the light at the end of the tunnel....

I am happy to say my Ninth Annual Overlooked Film Festival will be held as scheduled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign April 25-29. I'll be there, but friends and colleagues will take over the onstage Q&A duties. I'll watch from the audience. I think of the festival as the first step on my return to action. Because I will be under scrutiny there, I'll tell you what to expect: a sick guy, getting better, who still loves the movies and the festival.

Read complete article at RogerEbert.com

Posted by Jim Emerson at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)