Join us for the Roger Ebert's Film Festival!!
Schedule of Events:
9:00 am: Megalopolis
Ignore the star rating at the top of this review. It's there because it has to be, and it's high enough to indicate that you should see "Megalopolis," Francis Ford Coppola's four-decade passion project finally brought to the screen in all its insane splendor. That doesn't mean you'll like this movie. I wouldn't argue that strongly with someone who hated or loved it. And I truly think my rating could be higher or lower on the next watch. There's too much to take in on first viewing, especially in the throes of exhaustion. The truth is that I'm not sure a traditional review of this cinematic insanity can possibly convey what it's like to watch it, an experience that sometimes feels like wandering through the dre ams of one of the most important filmmakers of all time.
1:30 pm: Desperately Seeking Susan
I love to read the "personals" on the classified pages - not because I'm looking for the perfect mate, but because I'm a romantic and perhaps a bit of a voyeur; I'm intrigued by the thought of all those strangers going out on dates with each other. I am also a little frustrated by the time-honored abbreviations used in the personals. How can a complex and interesting human being be compressed into "SWM" or "DBF"? I squint, trying to read between the lines: Does "full-figured" mean she's voluptuous, or a candidate for the fat farm?
"Desperately Seeking Susan" is a movie that begins with those three words, in a classified ad. A time and place are suggested where Susan can rendezvous with the person who is desperately seeking her. A bored housewife (Rosanna Arquette) sees the ad and becomes consumed with curiosity. Who is Susan and who is seeking her, and why? So Arquette turns up at the rendezvous, sees Susan (Madonna), and inadvertently becomes so involved in her world that for a while she even becomes Susan.
5:00 pm: Harlan County U.S.A.
The film retains all of its power, in the story of a miners' strike in Kentucky where the company employed armed goons to escort scabs into the mines, and the most effective picketers were the miners' wives - articulate, indominable, courageous. It contains a f amous scene where guns are fired at the strikers in the darkness before dawn, and Kopple and her c amer aman are knocked down and beaten.
9:30 pm: His Three Daughters
Grief tears down what we think of ourselves. It's cruel. It's harsh. It's inevitable. It shatters the walls we put up around our personalities that so often reduce us to easy descriptions like sister, daughter, and mother. Azazel Jacobs' stunning "His Three Daughters" opens with a scene that defines its title characters, then spends 100 minutes revealing how those definitions don't really capture who they are. Yes, they are sisters and daughters (and two are mothers). But in the days leading up to their father's death, they're reminded of the complexity of human emotion, behavior, and understanding. Anchored by three of the best performances in a very long time and a graceful script from Jacobs himself, this is one of the finest films of the year, a movie that moves me so much that I can get emotional just thinking about it. Because it's not just a showcase for powerhouse acting at its finest. Because it feels true in ways that movies about death are rarely allowed to be.
