London isn’t what you think. Or at least, it’s not what I thought it was. I moved here from the States back in 2016 and was shocked to find that it doesn’t perpetually rain. Not really, anyway. It drizzles. It’s gray. It’s a mild climate year-round, but it also gets weirdly hot and bone-chattering chilly. … Read more
Join Chaz Ebert this Saturday, October 5th at the Decatur Book Festival, where she’ll be speaking with Gregory Berns, author and neuroscientist. Ebert Digital CEO and Publisher of RogerEbert.com, Chaz Ebert will appear at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel on Saturday, October 5 at 4:15pm EST. More information from the official media advisory can be found … Read more
The leaves are changing, the weather is cooling, and film enthusiasts are gathering outside Alice Tully Hall and the Walter Reade Theater as New York welcomes the fall season with the latest installment of the New York Film Festival. Since its inception in 1963 with the screening of Luis Buñuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” the festival … Read more
For Gotham cinephiles, the New York Film Festival has its annual launch on the last Friday of September (the 2024 edition runs Sept. 27-Oct. 13). For critics, journalists and certain industry folks, though, the event begins a couple of weeks earlier, when festival press screenings commence at Lincoln Center. Those screenings don’t display films in … Read more
A year ago, I wrote about the real challenges the Toronto International Film Festival has faced in trying to reclaim its spot at the top of the fall festival events. With the ascendance of both Venice and Telluride over the last decade, as well as the one-two punch of the COVID lockdown and the WGA/SAG strikes that … Read more
Just like Vegas, Telluride Film Festival has an unspoken ethos: “What happens in — stays in —.” While part of me wants to keep all of its secrets to myself, I can’t help but become an open book when it comes to talking about Telluride and its infamously exclusive film festival. In both 2022 and … Read more
The last time I went to the Telluride Film Festival it was under vastly different circumstances. Back in 2021, the film world (along with the rest of the planet) was still grappling with the effects of the pandemic’s worst stretches. To attend that year, you needed to be vaccinated and have a negative COVID test. … Read more
The Telluride Film Festival historically incorporates a fair number of documentary features and shorts alongside the main attraction, narrative features. This year, the documentary programming was thoughtfully political, and the selections thematically aligned well with the narrative features. This permitted my personal programming to have its own common thread and for synchronicities to shine. The … Read more
I don’t want to say that this Telluride Film Festival has been more “political” this year than in the past, if only because political is such a broad term, but there have been more pictures aware of the effect we have on each other and on the world at this 51st edition of the festival … Read more
There is always abundant suspense in the Telluride Film Festival (TFF) lineup; it’s kept secret until the Thursday before the festival. This year, for its 51st edition, TFF’s programming has a heavy emphasis on exposing and exploring some of the extreme realities we’re experiencing politically and socially. Telluride’s curation is extraordinary. I find that the … Read more