Roger Ebert Reviews

Ah, the 1980s. Forever associated, in film, TV, and theater, with shoulder pads, big hair, cocaine, and more cocaine. It makes sense that the invention of male exotic dancers took place in the “greed is good” era of American pop culture, but it is slightly more surprising to learn that the inventor in question was […]

Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO,” about a donkey wandering through modern Poland, is a rare animal picture that’s not aimed at kids. In fact, small children, particularly ones conditioned by post-1950s Disney cartoons about lovable creatures, should not be allowed anywhere near it, because the movie doesn’t stint on presentations of the cruelty and brutality that animals suffer in a world of

It’d be interesting to hear the reactions to writer/director Andrew Bujalski’s “There There” from people who don’t know the background story of its filming. The background contextualizes the often startling and seemingly un-motivated visual choices made, all of which creates an awkward and stilted atmosphere. But without the background context, how will people make sense

With its innovative design (including panels that would grow and shrink to help convey a genuine sense of proportion to readers), bold use of color, and trippy storylines, Little Nemo in Slumberland was a comic strip like no other when it debuted in the New York Herald in 1905. Those audacious elements would lead to its

Rebecca Halpern’s “Love, Charlie” is an admiring history lesson about one of Chicago’s greatest chefs, Charlie Trotter. At its peak in the ’90s, his Chicago restaurant Charlie Trotter was considered to be one of the best in the world. Trotter achieved celebrity status alongside the TV chef ascendance of Chef Emeril Lagasse, and could count

Like all addicts, “Taurus” has its moments of clarity. Midway through writer/director Tim Sutton’s mind-numbingly indulgent character study of an uninteresting rap-rock musician, Chris Taurus (Colson Baker, a.k.a. Machine Gun Kelly) sits down for an on-camera interview. Up to this point, the character has barely been sentient enough to form a full sentence. But once

Elegance Bratton’s directorial debut “The Inspection” is a boot camp movie that follows the standard arc of such films: a troubled young person enlists (or is drafted), has a rough training period in which he is targeted with cruel special attention by a drill instructor, considers quitting, but eventually decides to stick it out and make it

We are only at the very beginning of the wave of documentaries that will be released about life in the United States in the early 2020s. It will be defined by the human cost of the pandemic, but that historical event also shook loose a number of other issues, including economic disparity and racial inequality,

On October 5, 2017, a New York Times story by reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor made public what had been whispered about for years. One of the most powerful men in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, who made films that made millions at the box office and got dozens of Oscar nominations and three Best Picture wins, was

In 2007’s “Enchanted,” the clash between the naiveté and eternal optimism of classic Disney-ified animated fairytales and the cynical real world of Manhattan felt fresh and invigorating. Amy Adams’ committed performance as Giselle, a Disney princess personified, catapulted her into mainstream success. But as Disney’s IP continues to saturate the market, it’s fitting that their latest direct-to-streaming