December 22, 2024 2:57 am

Roger Ebert Reviews

AMC’s Interview with the Vampire is a Cheesy but Curious Series Adaptation

Previously tackled by Neil Jordan nearly 30 years ago, Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire now receives an episodic treatment from AMC this week (premiering right after more of “The Walking Dead”). Adapted here by Rolin Jones and with the first two episodes directed by Alan Taylor (“Game of Thrones,” “Thor: The Dark World”), the […]

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Bros

“Bros,” co-written by and starring Billy Eichner, has been touted as the first mainstream Hollywood studio-backed rom-com to feature gay men as the leads. Directed by Nicholas Stoller and produced by Judd Apatow, the film consciously evokes tropes from the hey-day of studio-backed romantic comedies, including nods to more than one Meg Ryan classic and

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Blonde

“Blonde” abuses and exploits Marilyn Monroe all over again, the way so many men did over the cultural icon’s tragic, too-short life. Maybe that’s the point, but it creates a maddening paradox: condemning the cruelty the superstar endured until her death at 36 while also reveling in it. And yet writer/director Andrew Dominik’s film, based on the

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Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project Returns with Fourth Criterion Box Set

Usually, this feature would offer mini-reviews of the six films in the latest “World Cinema Project,” an essential release from the Criterion Collection. However, life got hectic enough (including three Covid diagnoses in my house) that I haven’t been able to sample the set like I wanted to but didn’t want to let its release

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Michael Kutza Details Legacy of Chicago International Film Festival in Starstruck

The subhead for Michael Kutza’s autobiography really says it all: “How I magically transformed Chicago into Hollywood for more than fifty years.” Centered on a cover that includes shots of Tom Cruise, Sophia Loren, Jack Lemmon, and Anna Nicole Smith (?), Kutza’s intention is clear: This is a book about star power and how the

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God’s Creatures

“God’s Creatures” is yet another movie about a mother realizing too slowly that her son may be a dangerous sociopath. Screenwriter Shane Crowley’s thin characterizations do little to make this tired trope worth revisiting, instead opting to shroud the film in mystery regarding its central crime. The mother in question, Aileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) immediately

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Vesper

An ecological catastrophe has launched the world into “the new dark ages,” as an opening title announces at the start of “Vesper,” a dystopian fairy tale about a 13-year-old girl who wants more than she’s taught to expect. Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), the curious title character, scavenges for seeds (to grow her own food), for power

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The Good House

Wine doesn’t really count as drinking, Sigourney Weaver’s character insists in “The Good House.” She’s not really drinking alone, because the dogs are with her in the kitchen as she pours merlot from her secret stash into a coffee mug. And she’ll be extra careful this time, she promises, so she’s fine to drive into

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Dead for a Dollar

These days, for a good number of notable directors, six years between films isn’t necessarily an unconscionably long time. So why, you may wonder, has there been so much excited anticipation about “Dead for a Dollar,” the first feature in six years from the protean action director Walter Hill? Well, for one thing, he turned

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