Roger Ebert Movie Review

Weekend Box Office: January 11-13, 2008

The Bucket List tops the box office with $19.4 million

Daily Box Office: Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Bucket List tops Wednesday's box office with $1.7 million

"Cloverfield" (Pg-13, 84 minutes). Six yuppies flee from a towering monster that is destroying Manhattan; one of them carries a videocam, and the entire movie is shot Queasy-Cam style. Undeniably scary, especially in the first 45 minutes when we don't know quite what is causing the crisis. Produced by J. J. Abrams, creator of TV's "Lost." Rating: Three stars.

Persepolis / **** (PG-13)

"Persepolis" (PG-13, 98 minutes). The story of an Iranian girl's coming of age. Born under the Shah, she and her family were not good fits after his fall and the rise of militant Islam. Outspoken, she's sent to family friends in Vienna to keep her out of truoble, finds unhappiness, returns, is homesick for a nation that no longer exists. Told in beautifully stylized black and white animation, based on the autobiogaphy of Marjane Satrapi, who co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud. Voices by Chiara Mastroianni as Marjane and Catherine Deneuve as her mother. Rating: Four stars.

Honeydripper / ***1/2 (PG-13)

"Honeydripper" (PG-13, 123 minutes). Writer-director John Sayles' new film is set in 1950 at the intersection of the civil rights movement and rhythm and blues. Danny Glover, desperate for cash to save his failing Honeydripper Lounge, books the famous Guitar Sam. But when Sam doesn't turn up, he appeals to a kid who drifted into town: "Tonight, you'll be Guitar Sam." After all, no one knows what Sam looks like. Gary Clark Jr., the rising young real-life guitar star out of Austin, plays the role and fills the movie with music. With Charles S. Dutton, blues singer Mabel John, Stacy Keach. Rating: Three and a half stars .

Cassandra's Dream / ** (PG-13)

"Cassandra's Dream" (PG-13, 108 minutes). Woody Allen's latest uses a plot very similar to Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," to less effect. Colin Farrell and Ewan McEwan play brothers strapped for cash, who are asked by an uncle (Tom Wilkinson) to commit a murder for him. Good supporting work by Hayley Atwell as the babe McEwan is trying to impress, and by Sally Hawkins as Farrell's worrried girlfriend, but the ending, while plausible, is curiously unsatisfactory, and Allen doesn't seem at home with his London cockneys. Rating: Two stars.

Mad Money / *1/2 (PG-13)

"Mad Money" (PG-13, 104 minutes). Curiously casual caper starring Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes and Ted Danson. The women are service workers at the Federal Reserve Bank who find a way to smuggle a fortune out of their building. Their plan is simple, the complications are few, and they don't get excited much beyond some high-fives and hugs and giggles. La-de-da. Rating: One and a half stars.

The Bucket List / * (PG-13)

"Bucket List" (PG-13, 97 minutes). Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play geezers who Meet Cute in a hospital room, where they're both given a year to live. Freeman keeps a list of things he means to do before kicking the bucket, and Nicholson, a billionaire, gleefully insists they use his private jet to circle the globe, see the pyramids, the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal, etc. (none of which are on Freeman's list). The premise is absurb, and the excecution is painful. Rating: One star.

Millions (A Lottery Story) / ***1/2 (No rating)

"Millions (A Lottery Story)" (Unrated, 101 minutes). Portraits of six lottery winners: Six high school kitchen workers from Minnesota, and two New Yorkers. Not so much about their luck as about their good hearts and cheerful coping strategies. The director, Paul La Blanc, has the same ear for the American vernacular and eye for detail that Errol Morris exhibits. Funny, warming, eccentric, fascinating. Rating: Three and a half stars.

Great Movie: Vengeance Is Mine (2008)

By Roger Ebert The title "Vengeance Is Mine" poses an implied question that is never answered: Vengeance for what? This portrait of a cold-blooded serial killer suggests a cruel force without motivation, inspiration, grievance. Unlike most sociologically oriented films in the true crime genre, it lacks the Freudian explanation for everything and shows us pure evil, remote and inhuman. A few scenes from the killer's boyhood feel almost like satirical demonstrations of how any "explanation" would be impossible.

Great Movie: Diva (2008)

By Roger Ebert Peering into obscure corners of Paris, Jean-Jacques Beineix emerged with an assembly of unlikely, even impossible, characters to populate his "Diva" (1981), a thriller that is more about how it looks than what happens in it. Here is an exhilarating film made for no better purpose than to surprise and fascinate. I remember it at Toronto 1981, where it arrived unknown and unsung and won, as I recall, the festival's first audience award. Now released in a restored print, it glistens in its original magnificence.

Movie Answer Man: Movie characters don't talk like real people

Q I have been following the debate about the clever dialogue in "Juno" and there are two things I don't understand: (1) Why do people continue to expect every film they see to be a flawless reflection of reality when no film, not even a documentary, could ever accomplish such a feat? Isn't one of the pleasures of going to the movies is seeing things we don't usually see in the real world? (2) Why aren't more people refreshed that a film has gone against the grain by creating characters more intelligent than real people, as opposed to the Hollywood norm of creating characters who are considerably dumber and more shallow than real people? Adam Breckenridge, Edmond, Okla. A. In other words, to quote Professor Higgins, why can't people be more like us? There's a sort of Mediocrity Enforcement Squad that slaps down anything with the effrontery to be different. Just last week, Jim DeRogatis, the usually infallible pop music critic of the Sun-Times, strayed from his beat to attack "Juno," which he "hated, hated, hated" (a melodious phrase) because, among other reasons, it had the wrong music! He wrote: "Here is a 29-year-old screenwriter (Cody) and a 30-year-old director (Reitman) brainstorming with a nearly 21-year-old actress (Page) and deciding that the intentionally primitive and infantile sounds recorded by a 35-year-old musician (Kimya Dawson) epitomize 'the music that the kids today really listen to.' This sort of contrivance hardly smacks of the honesty and humor the filmmakers brag about, and which many critics have hailed." Ebert again. DeRogatis is right. The movie should have been written, directed and scored by 16-year-olds. Someone easily could have found the funding for them. But to call Kimya Dawson "primitive and infantile," when he complains that the movie uses the wrong track from Sonic Youth (that most mature of bands) seems like indigestion. True, Kimya Dawson is 35. Sonic Youth's average age is 50. Jim's real problem is that Juno doesn't like the same music he likes. I know how he feels. If only these damn kids would listen to the critics, they'd like what we like. His other problem is that real teens don't talk like Juno. Real 16-year-old rock critics don't talk like the Patrick Fugit character in "Almost Famous," either. In short: Movie characters don't talk like real people. If they did, they'd drive us nuts.

People: John Sayles sets 'Honeydripper'
to themes of rhythm & race

By Roger Ebert John Sayles is the living legend of independent film. He and his life partner, Maggie Renzi, have made 19 features entirely on their own terms. To finance them, Sayles has written, rewritten or ghostwritten screenplays entirely on the terms of others, from "Piranha" to the forthcoming "Jurassic Park" sequel. Their latest film, "Honeydripper," is set at the junction of rhythm & blues and civil rights in the 1950s South, and is getting some of his best reviews.