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Rolex Yacht-Master II Oyster, 44 mm, Oystersteel and Everose gold m116681-0002

Rolex achieved perfection when it turned its attention to redefining the purpose and functionality of the bezel. Typically, a bezel operates independently from the internal mechanism; however, the Ring Command bezel in the Yacht-Master II regatta chronograph operates in conjunction with it. As a mechanical component linked to the movement, the bezel literally acts as the key to the programmable countdown, allowing it to be set and synchronised to the sequence of race start times. Complex in design, but simple in use, it is functionally beautiful.

The Yacht-Master II is equipped with a new dial, and new hands that are characteristic of Rolex Professional models, enhancing legibility and sharpening its aesthetic appeal. The dial now features a triangular hour marker at 12 o’clock and a rectangular hour marker at 6 o’clock for more intuitive reading of the watch. A luminescent disc on the hour hand clearly distinguishes it from the minute hand. The Yacht-Master II’s countdown can be programmed for a duration of between 1 and 10 minutes. The programming is memorized by the mechanism so that at a reset it returns to the previous setting. Once launched, the countdown can be synchronized on the fly to match the official race countdown.

Gold is coveted for its lustre and nobility. Steel reinforces strength and reliability. Together, they harmoniously combine the best of their properties. A true Rolex signature, Rolesor has featured on Rolex models since the early 1930s, and was trademarked as a name in 1933. It is one of the prominent pillars of the Oyster collection.

All Rolex watches are assembled by hand with the utmost care to ensure exceptional quality. Such high standards naturally restrict Rolex production capacity and, at times, the demand for Rolex watches outpaces this capacity.

Therefore, the availability of certain models may be limited. New Rolex watches are exclusively sold by Official Rolex Jewelers, who receive regular deliveries and independently manage the allocation and sales of watches to customers.

R.F. Moeller Jeweler is proud to be part of the worldwide network of Official Rolex Jewelers and can provide information on the availability of Rolex watches.

Light and robust, the new Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master 42 in RLX titanium is the ally of those seeking freedom of movement. Especially suited to the demands and pressures of competitive sailing, it puts watchmaking excellence at the service of sporting performance.

The Yacht-Master 42 is the second watch in RLX titanium released by Rolex after the Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge, confirming that lightness is a quality to be taken seriously.

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All Rolex watches are assembled by hand with the utmost care to ensure exceptional quality. Such high standards naturally restrict Rolex production capacity and, at times, the demand for Rolex watches outpaces this capacity.

Therefore, the availability of certain models may be limited. New Rolex watches are exclusively sold by Official Rolex Jewelers, who receive regular deliveries and independently manage the allocation and sales of watches to customers.

Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry is proud to be part of the worldwide network of Official Rolex Jewelers and can provide information on the availability of Rolex watches.

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List Of Rolex Watches Discontinued At Watches & Wonders Geneva 2024 Including Every Yacht-Master II

As always, new Rolex releases bring the quiet discontinuation of Rolex watches, and Watches & Wonders Geneva 2024 is no different. Here’s a quick look at the watches Rolex discontinued from April 09, 2024.

Rolex Daytona Le Mans 126529LN

One of the most collectible and rare Rolex watches right from the moment when it was released in June 2023 , the Rolex Daytona “Le Mans” reference 126529LN was always destined to be unobtainable for the overwhelming majority of VIP customers of the brand. In a rather shocking development, Rolex drops it from its collection after less than a year, as the Rolex Daytona Le Mans was in production just from June 2023 until April 2024. Basically, it is a Daytona in 18k white gold with a black Cerachrom ceramic bezel with a red “100” marker in honor of the centenary of Le Mans. In other words, the Rolex 126529LN was produced just for the centenary of this legendary race, and no longer. It is back in 18k yellow gold for 2024.

Rolex Datejust 36 126200 & 126233 With A Palm Dial & Fluted Dial

The Rolex Datejust 36 reference 126200 with so-called Palm dials and Fluted dials also got the axe for 2024. These laser-etched dials were beautifully made as they displayed depth and fascinating light-plays between their bright and dark surfaces. They well and truly were a tour de force of Rolex’s in-house manufacturing know-how, and are discontinued after just 3 years in production for the Rolex Datejust 36 Palm dials and Rolex Datejust 36 Fluted dials.

The Entire Rolex Yacht-Master II Collection

It is extremely rare for Rolex to drop an entire collection, and such a development is all the more surprising for a watch fitted with an expensively developed, fully bespoke movement. The Rolex Yacht-Master II is such a watch, as its Rolex 4161 caliber with its programmable countdown regatta chronograph operated through a crown, two pushers, and a Ring Command is as quirky as they could ever get not just in the world of Rolex, but in the world of luxury watchmaking in general. This is to say that we wouldn’t be surprised to see the Yacht-Master II or its 4161 caliber return at some point. The Yacht-Master II was updated a few years ago with the Rolex “Professional” style handset replacing the straight hands that debuted on the piece in 2007, but the collection was otherwise left largely untouched by Rolex, other than dropping the 18k white gold reference 116689 in 2022.

These are the most important and notable discontinuation news of Rolex watches for 2024. We will keep our eyes out for others that might have slipped through, but Rolex axing the laser-etched dials on the Datejust 36, dropping the Yacht-Master II collection in its entirety, and producing the Rolex Daytona “Le Mans” for such a brief period in the brand’s history is big news for 2024. You can learn more at the brand’s website. 

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OYSTER PERPETUAL DAY-DATE 36

TIME STAMPED WITH EMOTION

With these versions of the Day-Date 36, Rolex brings an unexpected creative twist to one of its iconic models. By displaying a new emotion each day, the watch brings an element of spontaneity into the wearers’ daily life and allows them to invest the reading of time with their changing mood.

Rolex unveils three new variants of its Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 36, full of joy and energy. Crafted from 18 ct yellow, white or Everose gold, these watches have adopted an original face. Rather than showing the day of the week, the arc-shaped aperture at 12 o’clock displays an inspirational keyword in English – ‘Happy’, ‘Eternity’, ‘Gratitude’, ‘Peace’, ‘Faith’, ‘Love’ and ‘Hope’. The window at 3 o’clock reveals daily one of 31 exclusive emojis in place of the date. Entirely created using champlevé enamelling, the dial is striking for the depth and intensity of its gleaming colours and decoration. The motif is inspired by a jigsaw puzzle. Turquoise blue, red, fuchsia, orange, green and yellow pieces fit together on a single-colour background, each representing one of the key moments in life. The hours are marked by 10 baguette-cut sapphires in six different hues set according to the main colour of the dial, which is turquoise blue on the 18 ct yellow gold and 18 ct white gold versions, and orange on the watch in 18 ct Everose gold. The new versions of the Day-Date 36 are equipped with calibre 3255, a movement at the forefront of watchmaking technology, enabling them to display a special keyword each day of the week and an individual emoji each day of the month, as well as the hours, minutes and seconds. Like all Rolex watches, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 36 carries the Superlative Chronometer certification, which ensures excellent performance on the wrist.

EXCLUSIVITY ACCORDING TO ROLEX   At its launch in 1956, the Day-Date was a major innovation: it was the first calendar wristwatch to indicate, in addition to the date, the day of the week spelt out in full in an arc-shaped window at 12 o’clock on the dial – a technical feat at the time. The day of the week is available in a choice of 26 languages. Watches in the Day-Date range are made only of precious metals – 18 ct yellow, white or Everose gold, or 950 platinum. Worn by many of the world’s political figures, directors and visionaries, the Day-Date is instantly recognizable, in particular thanks to its emblematic President bracelet, whose evocative name, together with the eminent figures who have worn it, ensured the Day-Date became known as the ‘presidents’ watch’.

THE OYSTER CASE, SYMBOL OF WATERPROOFNESS A paragon of robustness and elegance, the 36 mm Oyster case of the new versions of the Day-Date 36 is guaranteed waterproof to a depth of 100 metres (330 feet). The middle case of these versions is crafted from a solid block of 18 ct yellow, white or Everose gold. Its case back, edged with fine fluting, is hermetically screwed down with a special tool that allows only Rolex watchmakers to access the movement. The Twinlock winding crown, fitted with a double waterproofness system, screws down securely against the case. The crystal, which features a Cyclops lens at 3 o’clock, is made of virtually scratchproof sapphire and benefits from an anti-reflective coating. The waterproof Oyster case provides optimal protection for the movement it houses.

PERPETUAL CALIBRE 3255 The new versions of the Day-Date 36 are equipped with calibre 3255, a movement entirely developed and manufactured by Rolex that was released in 2015 and fitted on this model in 2019. A distillation of technology, this self-winding mechanical movement delivers outstanding performance in terms of precision, power reserve, convenience and reliability. Calibre 3255 incorporates the patented Chronergy escapement, which combines high energy efficiency with great dependability. Made of nickel-phosphorus, this escapement is resistant to strong magnetic fields. The movement is fitted with a blue Parachrom hairspring, manufactured by Rolex in a paramagnetic alloy. The hairspring offers great stability in the face of temperature variations as well as high resistance to shocks. It is equipped with a Rolex overcoil, ensuring the calibre’s regularity in any position. The oscillator is mounted on the Rolex-designed, patented high-performance Paraflex shock absorbers, increasing the movement’s shock resistance. The oscillating weight is now fitted with an optimized ball bearing. Calibre 3255 is equipped with a self-winding system via a Perpetual rotor. Thanks to its barrel architecture and the escapement’s superior efficiency, the power reserve of calibre 3255 extends to approximately 70 hours.

PRESIDENT BRACELET The new variants of the Day-Date 36 are fitted on a President bracelet in 18 ct yellow or white gold for those with a turquoise blue puzzle-motif dial, or in 18 ct Everose gold for the orange puzzle-motif dial. Created specially for the launch of the prestigious Oyster Perpetual Day-Date in 1956, this three-piece link bracelet, made only from 18 ct gold or 950 platinum, is still reserved exclusively for the Day-Date and precious metal versions of the Datejust. The President bracelet is equipped with an elegant concealed folding Crownclasp and includes patented ceramic inserts – designed by Rolex – inside the links to enhance its flexibility on the wrist and its longevity.

SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER CERTIFICATION Like all Rolex watches, the Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 36 is covered by the Superlative Chronometer certification redefined by Rolex in 2015. This designation testifies that every watch leaving the brand’s workshops has successfully undergone a series of tests conducted by Rolex in its own laboratories according to its own criteria, following the official certification of the movements by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC). The in-house certification tests apply to the fully assembled watch, after casing the movement, guaranteeing superlative performance on the wrist in terms of precision, power reserve, waterproofness and self-winding. The precision of a Rolex Superlative Chronometer is of the order of −2 /+2 seconds per day – the rate deviation tolerated by the brand for a finished watch is significantly smaller than that accepted by COSC for official certification of the movement alone. The Superlative Chronometer status is symbolized by the green seal that comes with every Rolex watch and is coupled with an international five-year guarantee.

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OYSTER PERPETUAL COSMOGRAPH DAYTONA

The emblematic style and technical performance of the Cosmograph Daytona have cemented its iconic status well beyond the motor racing circuits. To mark the 60th anniversary of the watch, Rolex ensures the legend lives on by revisiting the entire range.

PERPETUAL 1908

Elegant, classic and decidedly contemporary, the 1908 immortalizes Rolex’s age-long daring spirit. Its conception is the result of the brand’s comprehensive in-house expertise and unwavering commitment to excellence.

OYSTER PERPETUAL YACHT-MASTER 42

Light and robust, the new Yacht-Master 42, in RLX titanium, is the ally of those who revel in freedom. Especially suited to the demands and pressures of competitive sailing, it delivers exceptional performance.

OYSTER PERPETUAL SKY-DWELLER

With its two time zones and annual Saros calendar, the Sky-Dweller is an elegant and trusted companion for world travellers. The range has been updated with numerous enhancements illustrating the role that excellence plays even in the tiniest details.

OYSTER PERPETUAL GMT-MASTER II

The GMT-Master II is available this year in two new versions – yellow Rolesor and 18 ct yellow gold – with a Cerachrom bezel insert in grey and black ceramic, an entirely new colour combination.

OYSTER PERPETUAL EXPLORER 40

The Explorer range is expanded with the arrival of a new 40 mm model. Offering enhanced legibility, this timepiece carries all the qualities that have made the Explorer – one of the brand’s first Professional watches – a reference throughout the decades. Simple, robust and corrosion resistant, the new Explorer 40 is crafted from Oystersteel, a Rolex proprietary alloy.

OYSTER PERPETUAL

Alive with colour, vitality and positivity, the new dials of the Oyster Perpetual in 31 mm, 36 mm and 41 mm are dotted with many-coloured bubbles that joyfully reunite the five hues introduced to the range in 2020.

The new Day-Date 36 welcomes dials made of decorative stone in shimmering tones that evoke the atmosphere of the Mediterranean coast. 

All the New Rolex Releases from Watches and Wonders 2024

The Crown has a few surprises in store for the year ahead.

It's that time of year again. Watches and Wonders is well and truly upon us, as evidenced by the fact that it's time to talk about Rolex and yet another slate of surprises. Last year, we got some unexpected color and pattern with pieces like the "Puzzle Dial" Day-Date (known to fans as the "Emoji" for the 31 of 'em that pop up in place of the actual date) and the "Celebration" Oyster Perpetual, otherwise known as "Bubbles." Then there was the unexpected use of materials—a titanium Yacht-Master!—and even a whole new watch in the form of the dressy 1908.

This year, we're still seeing some surprising color, but Rolex is flipping the script. Before Watches and Wonders kicked off, rumors were swirling about the GMT-Master II—namely, that we were about to see a black-and-red "Coke" bezel for the stainless-steel version. Turns out, fans will have to keep holding out hope on that front. Instead, the Crown decided to take the black-and-gray bezel that proved so popular on the gold GMT and drop it onto the steel version. It's a subtle, tonal approach that seems tailored to real life instead of Instagram. Because while that color combo may not be the kind of thing that stops folks mid-scroll, it's exactly what a lot of guys would love to look down and see on their wrist every damn day. You can get it on an Oyster or a Jubilee bracelet—a difficult choice if ever we've heard of one.

When it comes to new metals on old favorites, this time around it's 18K gold on the dive-ready Deepsea. Paired with a blue lacquer dial, a blue Cerachrom bezel, and even blue lume, the effect of all that gold is undeniable. This thing is an eye-grabber of the highest order, especially with its robust 44mm diameter. You could take it with you to the depths of the ocean, should the fancy strike; it's rated to a whopping 3,900 meters. But if we're all being honest with ourselves, this watch feels less like the one you wear searching for sunken treasure and more like the treasure itself.

Speaking of fancy watches: the Cosmograph Daytona got gussied up this year. Two new versions feature white gold, diamonds, and mother-of-pearl dials and sub-dials. One, on an Oysterflex bracelet, is a panda. The other, on the three-link Oyster bracelet, is a reverse panda. Both are opulent and interesting, blending all the sporty heritage of the Daytona with a hefty dose of preciousness and taking a watch that was already a status symbol to an entirely new level.

More traditionally dressy is the 1908, which launched just last year. For 2024, it's getting more intricate, with a platinum case and a guilloche rice-grain motif on the icy-blue dial. The sense of movement, depth, and dimension that dial treatment lends the watch is something to behold—and solid evidence that despite the clean, somewhat minimal lines of the 1908, there's a lot of ground left to explore.

Rounding out the offerings? Even more gold! First up, we've got the Sky-Dweller in yellow and Everose gold, both with a Jubilee bracelet. (It's the first time the watch has been offered with the Jubilee in precious metal.) The Everose version is more subdued, with a slate dial that plays nicely with the pinkish hue of the case and bracelet. But for our money, the glitz and contrast of yellow gold and a striking white dial just can't be beat.

And finally—didn't we say there was more gold?—a quartet of Day-Dates. You've got the 40mm in two iterations: Everose gold with a (very cool and very new) slate ombré dial that darkens at the edges, and white gold with a "pearlized" mother-of-pearl dial that comes from "the oldest and noblest part of the oyster shell," according to Rolex. Those two are joined by a couple of 36mm versions. The Everose gold one has a blue-green dial and a bezel set with ten baguette-cut diamonds, and its yellow-gold sibling features a white lacquer dial.

In all, despite the GMT rumor mill missing the mark, it's another impressive—and sometimes unexpected—lineup of new releases from the Crown. In fact, just taking it all in is enough to make you thirsty. Maybe a Coke will do the trick—though it looks like we'll have to wait until next year to see.

@media(max-width: 73.75rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.4375rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1ktbcds:before{margin-right:0.5625rem;color:#FF3A30;content:'_';display:inline-block;}} Dialed In: Esquire's Essential Guide to Watches

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This year’s releases may be a little boring, but we think Rolex is back on form.

Allen farmelo, allen farmelo's most recent stories, vacheron constantin just unveiled the world’s most complicated watch.

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Until recently, that is.

Over the past few years, Rolex stopped acting like the Rolex we knew. The Day-Date—a serious watch associated with multiple U.S. presidents—morphed into a pastel puzzle with hippy-dippy messages in place of the weekdays and emoticons in place of the date. Upon that release last year, I noted on Instagram that “Switzerland was, after all, the birthplace of LSD.” I expect trippy watches from the subversive conceptual minds at Moser or the goofy folks at Konstantin Chaykin , but what are we to make of Rolex getting all groovy? It reminded me of the time my tweed-and-khakis father came home in a pair of boot-cut Levi’s and a shearling pilot’s jacket. “What’s going on with Dad?” we wondered.

Now that Rolex is back to being good old Rolex, we can get excited about the little iterations again. What a joy to watch Rolex’s fan base get all worked up over a slightly narrower lug on the Submariner, or the inclusion of a minuscule movement upgrade in the Oyster Perpetual, or—OMG!—a Jubilee bracelet on a six-digit GMT Master II.

This year’s steel GMT Master II with the black and gray Cerachrom bezel and green accents embodies Rolex’s return to normalcy. It’s not a flashy watch. It’s not causing anyone to scratch their head. It’s not forcing us writers to make outlandish claims like, “This one is probably already being lined up at auction houses.” The new GMT Master II is just one of the best tool watches on the market, offered here in a classic colorway with a touch of Rolex green—in other words, it’s perfect.

And if that’s not enough Rolex normalcy for you, it’s been said that you can now also order either the steel Jubilee or Oyster bracelet directly from your local authorized dealer—just like in the good ol’ days. We don’t need LSD-infused dials or crowns on the wrong side; just give us boring options like choosing a 3- or 5-link bracelet on a gray and black tool watch, and we will swoon in adulation.

Consider the updates to the Day-Date this year. Nothing here blows us out of the water, but each iteration looks great. We see the ombré dial in the rose gold 40 mm for the first time, which is lovely. The other 40 mm Day-Date rocks a mother-of-pearl dial with diamond markers, and it looks fantastic without screaming its uniqueness across the room. The two 36s look inevitable.

Are this year’s Sky-Dwellers even new? Oh, I suppose they are, if I really think about it. Now that’s Rolex.

Meanwhile, Rolex plays a little bit with its dress watches, just as it always has—though certainly not to the extent that it did during the 1970s. The new 1908 in platinum with that icy blue dial is pure class, its guilloché engraving utterly traditional, its visible movement impressive. The Daytona got a very cool mother-of-pearl treatment we’re playfully nicknaming the “Pearl Panda.” While original, it’s not like we’ve never seen a diamond bezel on a Daytona before. And that’s just about as playful as we need Rolex to be.

As my colleague Paige Reddinger put it, Rolex seems to enjoy giving us something unexpected every year. All the talk among Rolex fans of a Coke GMT Master II, or another trippy Day-Date, or another retro-styled Daytona appears to have set Rolex up perfectly to drop these relatively reserved releases that have caused a shrug heard around the world. Did we expect this of Rolex? No, not at all—so, we must admit this release was very well played.

Thankfully my father’s jeans-and-leather phase was very short, and I’m relieved to say that Rolex’s hippy phase appears to have passed just as quickly. Welcome back, Rolex. We missed you!

Allen is Robb Report's digital watch editor. His writing and photography have appeared in Fortune, Hodinkee, WatchTime, International Watch and many others. When he's not obsessing over vintage…

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Elektrostal, Russia

Region: Moscow Oblast

Geographic coordinates: 55.783300, 38.466700, temperature range: -40.0°c to 30.0°c (-40°f to 86°f), climate: cold and snowy winters, mild summers with occasional heat waves., population: 158508, language: russian.

Elektrostal, Located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, Is a city known for its industrial heritage and diverse economy. With a population of around 150, 000 people, It lies approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow. Founded in 1916 as an industrial center for steel and metal production, Elektrostal’s most notable landmark is the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant (EMZ). The plant produces various steel products including railway wheels, Pipes, Wire rod, And sheet metal. Apart from its industrial significance, Elektrostal offers several cultural attractions that are worth visiting.

The Museum-Estate Kuskovo features an impressive collection of art and artifacts from the 18th century. Lake Senezh – a large freshwater lake outside Elektrostal’s city limits – provides opportunities for swimming, Boating or fishing during summer months. Elektrostal also has several parks where visitors can enjoy outdoor activities such as hiking or cycling. Gorky Park features walking paths along with sports facilities like tennis courts and basketball courts. Public transport within Elektrostal itself is convenient with numerous bus routes connecting different parts within the city limits as well as nearby towns like Noginsk or Dmitrovskiy Districts in Moscow Region.

Overall Elektrostal offers visitors an interesting mix of industrial heritage, Cultural attractions and natural beauty making it definitely worth a visit whether you’re interested in learning about Russia’s steel industry or simply want to enjoy the outdoors.

Important Landmarks

• The Museum of Local Lore – it showcases the history and culture of the town.
• The Church of St. Nicholas – a beautiful Orthodox church built in the 19th century.
• Victory Park – a large park with several monuments dedicated to World War II heroes.
• Ice Palace Vityaz – a modern ice arena that hosts various sports events and concerts.
• Elektrostal Central Park – a popular spot for picnics, walking, and outdoor activities.
• The Monument to Soviet Soldiers – located in Victory Square, it honors soldiers who died during World War II.
• Elektrostal History Museum – displays artifacts from ancient times to present day including photographs, documents, paintings etc.,
• Kuzminsky Park- A beautiful park with greenery all around perfect for spending some quality time with family or friends

Primary Industries

• Metallurgical Industry: Elektrostal is renowned for its steel production industry that involves the manufacturing of steel pipes, wires, sheets and other metal products.
• Chemical Industry: The city boasts several chemical plants that produce chemicals such as ammonia, fertilizers and plastics.
• Machinery Industry: Elektrostal has a significant machinery industry that produces machine tools, mining equipment and other industrial machinery.
• Construction Materials Industry: There are several cement factories in the city producing cement and concrete products.
• Food Processing Industry: Several food processing plants operate within the city producing dairy products, meat products and other food items.
• Energy Sector: The city houses a thermal power plant which supplies electricity to the region.
• Retail and Service Sector: Additionally, there is a well-developed retail sector with shopping centers, supermarkets and small shops catering to the local population’s needs.

Noteable History

• The city was founded in 1916 as a center for steel production during World War I.
• During World War II, Elektrostal played a crucial role in supplying the Soviet army with weapons and ammunition.
• In 1957, the first nuclear power plant in Russia was built near Elektrostal.
• The city is known for producing high-quality steel that is used in various industries such as automotive, aerospace, and construction.
• Notable people from Elektrostal include Olympic gold medalist figure skater Irina Slutskaya and former Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko.
• In recent years, the city has undergone significant modernization efforts to improve its infrastructure and attract new businesses to the area.

Museums and Things To See

• Museum of Local Lore: This museum showcases the history and culture of Elektrostal and the surrounding region.
• Victory Park: A large park dedicated to the victory in World War II, with monuments, memorials, and a military museum.
• Church of St. Nicholas: A beautiful Orthodox church with stunning frescoes and icons.
• The House-Museum of V.V.Vorovsky: This museum is dedicated to the revolutionary leader Vorovsky who lived in Elektrostal for a time.
• The Central Culture and Leisure Park: A popular park with various attractions like amusement rides, sports facilities, cafes etc.
• The Monument to the First Builders of Elektrostal: This monument commemorates those who built the city’s first industrial complex.
• Art Gallery Art-El: An art center featuring works by local artists as well as exhibitions from around Russia and beyond.
• Museum Elektrosvet: A unique museum showcasing lighting equipment from various periods starting from 19th century till present day.

Cultural Events

• City Day Celebration: This festival is held annually on the first weekend of September to celebrate the founding of Elektrostal.
• International Festival The World of Dance: A dance festival featuring performances from various countries around the world.
• Folklore Kaleidoscope Festival: A cultural event showcasing traditional folk music, dance, and costumes from different regions of Russia.
• Art-Electro Festival: An art exhibition featuring works by local artists as well as artists from other parts of Russia.
• Jazz Festivals: There are several jazz festivals held throughout the year in Elektrostal which feature performances by local and international jazz musicians.

• Shashlychnaya No. 1 – A restaurant specializing in shashlik (Russian kebabs) and other grilled meats.
• Cafe U Dvukh Medvedey – A cozy cafe serving traditional Russian dishes like borscht, pelmeni (dumplings), and blini (pancakes).
• Pivnaya Apteka – A beer bar with a wide selection of craft beers from Russia and around the world.
• Kebab House – A fast-food chain offering various types of kebabs, falafel wraps, and salads.
• Cafe Podkova – Another cozy cafe serving Russian dishes like beef stroganoff, chicken Kiev, and dumplings with different fillings.
• Restaurant Kolbasny Dom – A meat lover’s paradise with various types of sausages, smoked meats, and steaks on the menu.
• Sushi Master – For those who crave Japanese cuisine; this sushi restaurant offers fresh sushi rolls and sashimi plates.
• Pizzeria Mama Mia!- If you’re in the mood for Italian food; this pizzeria offers delicious pizzas made from scratch using fresh ingredients.
• Cafe Kamelot- A cozy café serving traditional Russian dishes such as borscht soup,pelmeni (dumplings),and vareniki(boiled dumplings).
• Restaurant “Gagarin”- Named after Yuri Gagarin; this restaurant serves European cuisine including steaks,pasta,and salads along with exotic cocktails to choose from!

Parks and Recreation

• Central Park of Culture and Rest
• Park of the 50th Anniversary of Victory
• Park of the 300th Anniversary of Elektrostal
• Sports and Recreation Complex Olympic
• Ice Palace Elektrostal
• Ski resort Krugloye Ozero
• Beach complex Sunny Beach
• Tennis club Elektrostal
• Bowling club Strike
• Paintball club Delta Force

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air movie review roger ebert

‘Air’ Review: Ben Affleck Turns Nike’s Quest to Sign Michael Jordan Into This Generation’s ‘Jerry Maguire’

Reteaming with longtime friend Matt Damon, Affleck never shows the NBA star's face, focusing instead on how Jordan’s mom (Viola Davis) negotiated his game-changing endorsement deal. 

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Americans spend tens of billions of dollars on basketball sneakers every year. Sure, everybody needs shoes, but it shouldn’t matter if your choice bears the Nike swoosh, Adidas’ three stripes or the Converse star. So why does it? In most cases, consumers aren’t simply buying footwear; they’re investing in the fantasy of walking in someone else’s shoes, be it a sports star or a personal idol, and the promise that switching one’s kicks has a direct impact on your potential for greatness.

Instead, “Air” ought to be taken as the ultimate example of the American dream, a funny, touching Cinderella story about how the third-place sneaker brand wished upon a star, and how that man — and his mother — were smart enough to know their value. “Air” reveals how an exceptional Black athlete leveraged his talent — and the power of being pursued by a bunch of white men in suits — to change the game. Not just basketball, but the whole field of celebrity endorsements. It’s remarkable and fitting that Affleck focuses these negotiations not on Michael Jordan but the woman he trusted most, his own personal “King Richard”: mother Deloris (Viola Davis).

The year is 1984, as an opening pop-culture montage reminds/educates audiences about the early days of the ultra-sophisticated advertising world we now live in: Apple hired Ridley Scott to direct a Super Bowl commercial; Wendy’s turned “Where’s the beef?” into a national catchphrase, and sports stars were everywhere from Wheaties boxes to TV commercials. Nike had branded itself as a running shoe company, and no serious basketball player wanted to sign with it. Sales were down, and company founder Phil Knight was ready to pull the plug on the entire division.

Enter Sonny, Nike’s in-house basketball guru, whom “Air” introduces as a betting man: He stops by Vegas after a scouting trip, and loses it all on craps. But it’s more than a hunch that tells him Nike should invest its entire quarter-million-dollar basketball marketing budget on one player, as opposed to spreading it among several lower-ranked draft picks. Never mind that Jordan is an Adidas guy; forget that the German company (at which “Air” takes a few sharp digs) can outspend anything Nike offers.

Jordan’s genius on the court practically goes without saying, and yet screenwriter Alex Convery shrewdly decodes the 21-year-old’s potential, spelled out after Sonny studies tape of Jordan’s first year on the University of North Carolina’s team. This and other key moments play like classic Aaron Sorkin scenes, blending the inside-baseball insights of “Moneyball” with “The Social Network”-style power games. His characters aren’t quite as compelling as Sorkin’s, but they express themselves beautifully. Between nostalgia-baiting ’80s radio hits, they walk and talk strategy (around production designer François Audouy’s great sets) or else cut one another down in private (as old friends Damon and Affleck do at several points).

In the film’s most galvanizing monologue, Sonny finally gives Jordan (whose face appears only in archival footage) and his parents (Davis and Julius Tennon) the pitch. Who knows what Sonny really said in that room, but this speech — intercut with the triumphs and pitfalls of Jordan’s career — summarizes everything Michael Jordan means to us, his fans and the legions of Americans he inspired. To get to this moment, Sonny must first convince Phil to endorse his plan; he has to deal with Jordan’s agent, David Falk (Chris Messina, hilariously hostile); and he has to drive out and face Deloris in person.

Casting Davis was the smartest thing Affleck could have done, as the EGOT winner is to acting what Jordan is to sports: Her strength inspires, and she can move us to tears while making it look easy. We all know what happened with the Air Jordan deal — more than Adidas’ early-’70s Stan Smith alliance, the shoe launched our now-ubiquitous sneaker culture — and yet, Deloris forces Sonny to work for the family’s approval.

Meanwhile, as Sonny, Damon channels the same nervous energy that defined his career-best performance in Steven Soderbergh’s underrated “The Informant!” At times, the entire scheme seems to be cratering around him, and in those moments, Damon brings the competitive spirit we associate with sports movies into the boardroom. It’s too bad the character doesn’t have a personal life to speak of. At least Nike marketing exec Rob Strasser (played here by Jason Bateman) does, spelling out the stakes in a touching birthday scene.

Then as now, Nike’s shoes weren’t necessarily any more stylish or advanced than its competitors’ — although the original Air Jordans are a thing of beauty. The company’s sneakers owed nearly all of their mystique to the athletes who wore them. In 1984, Michael Jordan was still a rookie, destined to become a legend. The novelty of “Air” comes in trying to imagine Nike as the underdog, given what the brand has become, but that’s as fine a place as any for a sports movie to begin.

Reviewed at SXSW (Closing Night), March 18, 2023. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 112 MIN.

• Production: An Amazon Studios release of an Amazon Studios, Skydance Sports presentation of an Artists Equity, Mandalay Pictures production. Producers: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, David Ellison, Jesse Sisgold, Jon Weinbach, Madison Ainley, Jeff Robinov, Peter Guber, Jason Michael Berman. Executive producers: Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Kevin Halloran, Michael Joe, Drew Vinton, John Graham, Peter E. Strauss, Jordan Moldo.
• Crew: Director: Ben Affleck. Screenplay: Alex Convery. Camera: Robert Richardson. Editor: William Goldenberg. Music supervisor: Andrea von Foerster.
• With: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Viola Davis, Matthew Maher, Julius Tennon.

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‘Air’ Review: Director Ben Affleck Shoots and Scores with His Biographical Sports Drama

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival. Amazon Studios releases the film in theaters on Wednesday, April 5.

Today, there are 37 different variations of Air Jordan models available. From the basketball court to the streets and even the catwalk, the Nike sneakers have become a staple of American culture. Director Ben Affleck ’s “Air” invites audiences into Nike headquarters to experience the story behind the popular shoe that was built solely for the legendary athlete for which it is named: Michael Jordan.

Set in 1984, Affleck stars as Nike founder Phil Knight. An ambitious, rebellious, and passionate leader who likes to live by — and reiterate — Douglas McArthur’s famous quote “you are remembered for the rules you break,” Knight thrived on taking risks. During this time, Nike was not as successful as its competitors Adidas and Converse, and their NBA division was struggling to sign an athlete to sponsor their gear. Nike’s basketball guru in charge of changing that slump was Sonny Vaccaro (played in the film by Matt Damon ). As the Nike board began questioning the relevance of his position at Nike, Vaccaro sought to do something wild: sign Chicago Bulls’ rookie Michael Jordan to literally change the game for Nike and marketing a brand at large.

Affleck’s directing style is on point, with several aerial and close-up shots that allow the actors to really shine. He also includes old footage from famous commercials, music videos, and sports games to set the stage for the era audiences are about to revisit or enter for the first time. Interludes of quotes from Nike’s 10 principles also help viewers to understand the ethos of the dedicated company employees, many of which are fans and former athletes or runners themselves. For example, “our business is change,” “we’re on offense, all the time,” and “if we do the right things we’ll make money damn near automatic,” are shown throughout the film. Several references to the company’s history are mentioned throughout the film’s 1 hour and 52 minute running time and potentially could have been pulled from Knight’s inspirational memoir “Shoe Dog.”

In order to sign Jordan, Vaccaro has to go through Michael’s arrogant agent David Falk (hilariously played by Chris Messina). The competitive banter between Vaccaro and Falk comprise some of the best comedic scenes in the film and will have audiences rolling thanks to writer Alex Convery’s smart script. While Falk is primarily concerned with financial gain, Vaccaro’s approach to their corporate competition is to go around Jordan’s agent and approach his parents face-to-face, a bold approach viewed as unprofessional by his colleagues. Driving to North Carolina, Vaccaro meets James R. Jordan Sr. (Julius Tennon) and Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis) in an attempt to win them over.  

As the Nike crew prepares for the big pitch to the Jordan family, audiences are introduced to the other key players. Jason Bateman stars as Rob Strasser, VP of Marketing, and Chris Tucker as Howard White, the man who eventually became VP of the Jordan Brand for Nike. Bateman brings a cautionary yet supportive approach to Strasser, while Tucker’s vibrant and electric energy breaks through and captivates the Jordans as White. Each actor’s performance in “Air” is a phenomenal in their own right and they work like a team to create one of the most engaging buisness success stories in history on screen.  

Cinematographer Robert Richardson captures initial scenes with a grainy haze synonymous with old school VHS tapes one would use to record games back in the ‘80s. As the image clears throughout the film, Richardson is able to counterbalance the vintage set design courtesy of production designer François Audouy extremely well. Shoe dogs and sneaker heads will enjoy several Easter eggs in the Nike office including newspaper clippings from Nike’s original Blue Ribbon days and several artifacts from Knight’s international travels.

Costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones does an amazing job conveying the times and showcasing all of the vintage Nike clothing worn by the staff. This creative team behind the camera excels at immersing audiences into the business world of the ‘80s while also playing on the modern day love of nostalgia.  

The decision to not have an actor play Michael Jordan was wise. Affleck clearly took a great amount of care with this project by respecting the legend and his loving family. He consulted with Jordan to get his blessing on the film, receive any input, and honor Jordan’s condition to have the supreme Viola Davis play his mother. While many may assume “Air” is about the game or MJ himself, it is actually about the underdogs of Nike creating a brand that was revolutionary for the times. Before Air Jordans, there had not been a marketing strategy to this degree. As Strasser says, “a shoe is just a shoe until someone steps into it.”  

Another impactful aspect of the film is how the story becomes about family. Davis brings such a large amount of warmth and strength to playing Deloris Jordan, a woman who knew her son’s worth and fought for him to get his share of the pie. Subtle yet stern, her performance evokes such empathy and class as Deloris navigates the business deals proposed to her and her adoring husband. On several occasions, her presence on screen has the tendency to give audiences goosebumps because of just how perfectly she honors Mrs. Jordan and how she carries herself knowing that her son is a legend whose impact to the game will be forever lifechanging. It’s all quite beautiful.  

Each actor in Affleck’s latest film gives a powerful and awards-worthy performance. “Air” is a slam dunk and ultimately one of the best sports movies ever made. Affleck successfully captures Nike’s heartwarming and hilarious marketing   journey while paying respectful homage to all involved. “Air” is a tremendous underdog story filled with lovable characters. It’s truly a film about legends made by legends.  

“Air” premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival. Amazon Studios will release it in theaters on Wednesday, April 5.

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Air review – Ben Affleck and Matt Damon drop the ball in Michael Jordan shoe drama

Affleck’s dramatisation of the bid to get Jordan to endorse Nike’s radical new sneaker almost ignores the most compelling character

T here’s a lively all-star lineup here and, theoretically at any rate, a great true story from American sports with all the relatability your heart could desire. But this film winds up looking like the most expensive in-house corporate promo in history: shallow, parochial and obtuse. By the time the credits roll, we’re apparently supposed to be euphoric – not so much at individual sporting achievement, but at all the billions of dollars that Nike has been making.

In the mid-80s, a Nike executive called Sonny Vaccaro dreamed of signing up basketball star Michael Jordan to promote the revolutionary new Air Jordan sneaker, which was to be designed entirely for the basketball player – an integral part of his brand identity. Converse and Adidas had more money to offer, so Vaccaro drove to Jordan’s family home in North Carolina on a risky mission to bypass Jordan’s lawyers, agent and management team and instead befriend Jordan’s formidable mother, Deloris.

Matt Damon gives a cordially undemanding performance as Vaccaro, but Michael’s mother Deloris Jordan is played by Egot legend Viola Davis with all the charisma and force you’d expect – which is to say, more charisma and force than the rest of the cast put together. For some reason, however, she is hardly in the movie at all. The relationship between her and Vaccaro doesn’t really feature, and her personal life with her husband, James (Julius Tennon), is evidently not interesting enough to merit much or any screen time - unlike all the grinning, besuited execs such as Nike CEO Phil Knight (played by director Ben Affleck), marketing director Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), Nike’s NBA liaison Howard White (Chris Tucker) and Jordan’s own aggressive sub-Jerry-Maguire agent David Falk (Chris Messina).

Jordan himself does not appear on screen, which is an interesting and legitimate artistic decision, but his mother, the most compelling character, is reduced to a cameo. Air could have an audience with diehard basketball fans, but it’s frustrating. It might, however, be interesting to show it as a double bill with One Man and His Shoes , Yemi Bamiro’s recent documentary about the Air Jordan phenomenon.

• Drama films
• Michael Jordan
• Ben Affleck
• Viola Davis

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Roger Ebert's 10 greatest films of all time

By David Morgan

April 8, 2013 / 1:54 PM EDT / CBS News

Updated April 8 1:53 p.m. ET

(CBS News) There were few more passionate advocates for films as art than Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert, who died Thursday at the age of 70 after a long battle against cancer.

Despite the seeming limitations of serving as the co-host of a syndicated TV review show and plying his trade in the Midwest (where distribution of independent or foreign-language films can be spotty at best), Ebert helped shine a light on deserving films to millions. He was an early supporter of such noted directors as Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Werner Herzog, and his published collections of film criticism offered a bracing celebration of cinematic innovation and emotional clarity (and, in the case of "I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie," a piercing cry against mediocrity).

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In 2012 the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine polled international critics to choose their 10 favorite films, as it has every decade since 1952. Ebert once again offered his selection , despite his qualms about reducing his passion for the medium into a tidy Top-10 list. ("Lists are ridiculous, but if you're going to vote, you have to play the game," he relented.) Films which he'd previously included in his S&S polls, such as "Notorious" and the documentary "Gates of Heaven," he considered thusly canonized, and was willing to cut loose, to welcome new entries into the pantheon.

• "Vertigo" tops "Kane" in critics' poll of greatest films

The following, in alphabetical order, are Ebert's 2012 choices. Click through this gallery by the tabs up top to read excerpts from his published reviews.

"Aguirre, Wrath of God" (1972), directed by Werner Herzog

"Werner Herzog's 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' is one of the great haunting visions of the cinema. It tells the story of the doomed expedition of the conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro, who in 1560 and 1561 led a body of men into the Peruvian rain forest, lured by stories of the lost city. . . .

"The film is not driven by dialogue . . . or even by the characters, except for Aguirre, whose personality is created as much by [Klaus] Kinski's face and body as by words. What Herzog sees in the story, I think, is what he finds in many of his films: Men haunted by a vision of great achievement, who commit the sin of pride by daring to reach for it, and are crushed by an implacable universe."

• Ebert review: "Aguirre, Wrath of God"

"Apocalypse Now" (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Ebert wrote in 1999, "[S]een again now at a distance of 20 years, 'Apocalypse Now' is more clearly than ever one of the key films of the century. Most films are lucky to contain a single great sequence. 'Apocalypse Now' strings together one after another, with the river journey as the connecting link. The best is the helicopter attack on a Vietnam village, led by Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall), whose choppers use loudspeakers at top volume to play Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries' as they swoop down on a yard full of schoolchildren. Duvall won an Oscar nomination for his performance and its unforgettable line, 'I love the smell of napalm in the morning.' His emptiness is frightening ..."

• Ebert review: "Apocalypse Now"

"Citizen Kane" (1941) directed by Orson Welles

" 'Rosebud' is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby's pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the air in '2001.' It is that yearning after transience that adults learn to suppress. 'Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost,' says Thompson, the reporter assigned to the puzzle of Kane's dying word. 'Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.' True, it explains nothing, but it is remarkably satisfactory as a demonstration that nothing can be explained.

"'Citizen Kane' likes playful paradoxes like that. Its surface is as much fun as any movie ever made. Its depths surpass understanding. I have analyzed it a shot at a time with more than 30 groups, and together we have seen, I believe, pretty much everything that is there on the screen. The more clearly I can see its physical manifestation, the more I am stirred by its mystery."

• Ebert review: "Citizen Kane"

"La Dolce Vita" (1960) directed by Federico Fellini

"Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw 'La Dolce Vita'' in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom 'the sweet life'' represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.

"When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself."

• Ebert review" "La Dolce Vita"

"The General" (1927) directed by Buster Keaton

"Buster Keaton was not the Great Stone Face so much as a man who kept his composure in the center of chaos. Other silent actors might mug to get a point across, but Keaton remained observant and collected. That's one reason his best movies have aged better than those of his rival, Charlie Chaplin. He seems like a modern visitor to the world of the silent clowns. ...

"Today I look at Keaton's works more often than any other silent films. They have such a graceful perfection, such a meshing of story, character and episode, that they unfold like music. Although they're filled with gags, you can rarely catch Keaton writing a scene around a gag; instead, the laughs emerge from the situation; he was 'the still, small, suffering center of the hysteria of slapstick,' wrote the critic Karen Jaehne. And in an age when special effects were in their infancy, and a 'stunt' often meant actually doing on the screen what you appeared to be doing, Keaton was ambitious and fearless. He had a house collapse around him. He swung over a waterfall to rescue a woman he loved. He fell from trains. And always he did it in character, playing a solemn and thoughtful man who trusts in his own ingenuity."

• Ebert review: "The General"

"Raging Bull" (1980) directed by Martin Scorsese

" 'Raging Bull' is not a film about boxing but about a man with paralyzing jealousy and sexual insecurity, for whom being punished in the ring serves as confession, penance and absolution. It is no accident that the screenplay never concerns itself with fight strategy. For Jake LaMotta, what happens during a fight is controlled not by tactics but by his fears and drives.

"Consumed by rage after his wife, Vickie, unwisely describes one of his opponents as 'good-looking,' he pounds the man's face into a pulp, and in the audience a Mafia boss leans over to his lieutenant and observes, 'He ain't pretty no more.' After the punishment has been delivered, Jake (Robert De Niro) looks not at his opponent, but into the eyes of his wife (Cathy Moriarty), who gets the message. . . .

" 'Raging Bull' is the most painful and heartrending portrait of jealousy in the cinema -- an 'Othello' for our times. It's the best film I've seen about the low self-esteem, sexual inadequacy and fear that lead some men to abuse women. Boxing is the arena, not the subject. LaMotta was famous for refusing to be knocked down in the ring. There are scenes where he stands passively, his hands at his side, allowing himself to be hammered. We sense why he didn't go down. He hurt too much to allow the pain to stop."

• Ebert review: "Raging Bull

"Tokyo Story" (1953) directed by Yasujiro Ozu

"It is clear that 'Tokyo Story' was one of the unacknowledged masterpieces of the early-1950s Japanese cinema, and that Ozu has more than a little in common with that other great director, Kenji Mizoguchi ('Ugetsu'). Both of them use their cameras as largely impassive, honest observers. Both seem reluctant to manipulate the real time in which their scenes are acted; Ozu uses very restrained editing, and Mizoguchi often shoots scenes in unbroken takes.

"This objectivity creates an interesting effect; because we are not being manipulated by devices of editing and camera movement, we do not at first have any very strong reaction to 'Tokyo Story.' We miss the visual cues and shorthand used by Western directors to lead us by the nose. With Ozu, it's as if the characters are living their lives unaware that a movie is being shot. And so we get to know them gradually, begin to look for personal characteristics and to understand the implications of little gestures and quiet remarks.

" 'Tokyo Story' moves quite slowly by our Western standards, and requires more patience at first than some moviegoers may be willing to supply. Its effect is cumulative, however; the pace comes to seem perfectly suited to the material. And there are scenes that will be hard to forget: The mother and father separately thanking the daughter-in-law for her kindness; the father's laborious drunken odyssey through a night of barroom nostalgia; and his reaction when he learns that his wife will probably die."

• Ebert review" "Tokyo Story"

"The Tree of Life" (2011) directed by Terrence Malick

"Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling. There were once several directors who yearned to make no less than a masterpiece, but now there are only a few. Malick has stayed true to that hope ever since his first feature in 1973.

"I don't know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience. In uncanny ways, the central events of 'The Tree of Life' reflect a time and place I lived in, and the boys in it are me. If I set out to make an autobiographical film, and if I had Malick's gift, it would look so much like this."

• Ebert review: "The Tree of Life"

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) directed by Stanley Kubrick

"The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science-fiction movies, '2001' is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe. ...

"The film did not provide the clear narrative and easy entertainment cues the audience expected. The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling. The overnight Hollywood judgment was that Kubrick had become derailed, that in his obsession with effects and set pieces, he had failed to make a movie.

"What he had actually done was make a philosophical statement about man's place in the universe, using images as those before him had used words, music or prayer. And he had made it in a way that invited us to contemplate it -- not to experience it vicariously as entertainment, as we might in a good conventional science-fiction film, but to stand outside it as a philosopher might, and think about it."

• Ebert's review: "2001: A Space Odyssey"

"Vertigo" (1958) directed by Alfred Hitchcock

" 'Vertigo,' which is one of the two or three best films Hitchcock ever made, is the most confessional, dealing directly with the themes that controlled his art. It is *about* how Hitchcock used, feared and tried to control women. He is represented by Scottie (James Stewart), a man with physical and mental weaknesses (back problems, fear of heights), who falls obsessively in love with the image of a woman -- and not any woman, but the quintessential Hitchcock woman. When he cannot have her, he finds another woman and tries to mold her, dress her, train her, change her makeup and her hair, until she looks like the woman he desires. He cares nothing about the clay he is shaping; he will gladly sacrifice her on the altar of his dreams."

• Ebert review: "Vertigo"

For more on Roger Ebert:

• rogerebert.com
• "Life Itself: A Memoir by Roger Ebert (Grand Central)

1 hr 42 min

The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Air, How To Blow Up A Pipeline, Showing Up, Paint, Ride On, You're Killing Me, One True Loves Roger (Ebert) & Me: Movie Reviews

• Film Reviews

6:52 The Super Mario Bros. Movie 26:19 Air 40:52 How To Blow Up A Pipeline 51:28 Showing Up 01:04:01 Paint 1:12:58 Ride On 01:21:01 You're Killing Me 01:26:33 One True Loves   *Sorry for Brett's occasional audio issues, some internet troubles appeared to mar the recording despite it appearing fine* On this Friday's episode of 'Roger & Me,'  join Brett Arnold and co-host Mark Dujsik of markreviewsmovies.com as they tackle EIGHT (8) movies out in theaters and one out on streaming the week of Friday April 7th (04/07/2023). For more on HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE check out The New Flesh,  Brett's other show, out Monday. Thank you to Banshee Beat for the incredible original theme song.  Alien Ant Farm's music video for 'Movies' closes the show.  And thanks to Mary Houlihan for the killer hand-drawn artwork. "Roger & Me" is a celebration of the late, great Roger Ebert, keeping his unique spirit of film criticism alive by reviewing new movies in the easily digestible format that he pioneered. In other words, it's a movie review podcast. A podcast that features movie reviews. It's an imitation 'Siskel & Ebert!' Every Friday, join Brett and film critic Mark Dujsik as they review all the movies set for theatrical release that day and let you know if they're worth your time and money.

• More Episodes
• © 2023 Roger (Ebert) & Me: Movie Reviews

Con Air (United States, 1997)

Con Air , producer Jerry Bruckheimer's generic follow-up to 1996's blockbuster, The Rock , is the kind of motion picture that critics refer to when they moan about the "dumbing down" of American cinema. This movie is a perfect example of what's wrong with many big-budget films today: no characters, no intelligence, and, worst of all, little fun. Although director Simon West intends for Con Air to be a comic book come to life, it lacks the visual flair and imagination of all but the most trite comics. The film relies on impressive pyrotechnic displays, but it has been a long time since a well-executed explosion enraptured an audience. Con Air is noisy and flashy, but that can be said about any of the numerous, same-genre pictures that reach screens every year. What the movie lacks are tension and excitement to go along with all the bangs. The action sequences are presented in a pedestrian fashion, and there are too few instances when we feel that the protagonist is in any real danger.

Our hero is Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage), an ex-Army Ranger and Desert Storm veteran who has spent the last eight years in prison serving a sentence for manslaughter (he accidentally killed a man who was threatening his pregnant wife). Now, he has been paroled, and he's on his way home to be reunited with his wife and meet his daughter for the first time. One problem: the flight he's on is carrying a load of vicious criminals bound for detention at a new prison in Alabama. They get loose and take over the plane, and suddenly Cameron finds himself taking orders from Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), the self-proclaimed "poster child for the criminally insane." Meanwhile, on the ground, a U.S. Marshal named Vince Larkin (John Cusack) is trying to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion, despite interference from a Federal agent (Colm Meaney), who wants to shoot down the plane.

At least Con Air isn't as obviously bad as Turbulence . For starters, this film has a couple of assets that the earlier "terror in the sky" film lacked: Nicolas Cage and John Cusack. While the actors are far from their career best here (in fact, Cage often looks bored), mediocre acting from these two is preferable to what we got from Ray Liotta and Lauren Holly. Actually, the really colorful performances belong to the actors playing the criminals. In addition to Malkovich's predatory Cyrus (a role he could probably do in his sleep), Ving Rhames gives us a nasty black militant named Diamond Dog Jones, Steve Buscemi is at his creepy best as The Marietta Mangler, and Danny Trejo is a serial rapist with a tattoo on his arm for each of his victims. (Incidentally, the movie's ambiguous attitude towards Buscemi's character, a child murderer, is disturbing.)

Con Air divides the characters into clearly-defined groups of good and bad (with the members of the latter category vastly outnumbering those of the former). Predictably, with no shades of gray, there isn't one interesting character. Cameron, a candidate for sainthood, has a spotless record -- even the murder that sent him to prison was justifiable. He's too clean to be anything but bland, and, worse still, Scott Rosenberg's script doesn't give him any of the one-liners that we've come to expect from action heroes in this sort of movie. He's like John McLane of Die Hard without the wisecracking charisma.

Another thing that's noteworthy about Con Air is how poorly it's patched together. In his recent review of the movie Rough Magic , film critic Roger Ebert made the observation that "It's a cliché to talk about great visuals, since if you point a camera in the right direction you can make almost anything look good." Somehow, the cinematographer of Con Air (with an assist from the editor) manages to disprove this theory. With the exception of a few nicely composed shots, the film's look is uniformly stale.

Action movies are typically lauded for their tremendous special effects and their ability to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. Con Air falls short in both categories. In fact, beyond some scenery-chewing by several over-the-top actors and a couple of mildly engaging chase sequences, there's little here to justify the seemingly endless two hour length. Sitting through this movie is like watching a dog running in circles chasing its tail -- the amusement factor dies quickly as the situation become repetitive. Unless you're desperate for a way to kill time, Con Air is one flight you can afford to miss.

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Roger Ebert In Review: A 'Fresh Air' Survey

The iconic Chicago photographer Art Shay took portraits of presidents, prizefighters, prose poets — and in the person of Roger Ebert, at least one Pulitzer-winning critic. Art Shay hide caption

The iconic Chicago photographer Art Shay took portraits of presidents, prizefighters, prose poets — and in the person of Roger Ebert, at least one Pulitzer-winning critic.

Fresh Air remembers the film critic and bon vivant Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, with a roundup of interviews from our archive.

In one, from all the way back in 1984, host Terry Gross talks with Ebert alone; in a second conversation, from 1996, Terry interviews both Ebert and his late partner Gene Siskel onstage at Northwestern University.

In two very special conversations, Ebert himself interviews iconic directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

And finally, critic-at-large John Powers discusses Ebert's 2011 memoir Life Itself.

20 Horror Movies That Roger Ebert Actually Liked

I t's no secret at all that horror is the genre that gets the worst rap of all. Regardless of its popularity, critics and some viewers look down on it as a shameful form of art that doesn't deserve much attention because of its constant use of formulas and its narrative format that's based on supposedly banal elements that can't be taken seriously. In recent years, "good" horror has been remodeled as "elevated" horror , a curious way to say that liking horror is no longer embarrassing. And that is looked down upon by true fans of the genre.

Roger Ebert , the most important film critic of all time, is no stranger to this conversation. In fact, during his run as a critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and on the TV shows he hosted, he was very vocal about horror films and what they represented. He didn't exactly love the genre, and his appreciation for it is very scarce. He famously derided slasher films, and horror sequels weren't even featured in the books listing his reviews. Luckily, there's proof of those he actually liked, and for your leisure, we've compiled a fine list of the horror films Ebert liked and, in some cases, loved.

The following list may contain minor spoilers.

The Shining (1980)

The shining.

Release Date May 23, 1980

Director Stanley Kubrick

Cast Philip Stone, Barry Nelson, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, Jack Nicholson

Main Genre Horror

Runtime 146

Roger's Rating - 4/4 Stars

Stanley Kubrick's horror classic, The Shining , is loosely based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. In the story, Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance are a family who accept a job offer made to Jack, in which he must take care of The Overlook Hotel during the winter season. Jack will use his spare time to finish his book , but quickly things take a darker turn. Ghosts lurk in the hallways, but they're nothing compared to Jack's deteriorated state of mind. The isolation will prove to be too much for the household leader, who will eventually give in to the demands of his demons and those who live inside the Overlook.

Alongside other Kubrick joints, Ebert put The Shining in his Great Movies series. He entices us to see beyond the simplicity of the genre and ask ourselves the important questions about the reliability of the observer, and that's a very sharp observation. Who are we supposed to believe in the film? Is Danny as reliable as Jack? Is the hotel really haunted? Or is everything a product of Jack's disturbed mind?

Per Ebert's review : "At some level, it is necessary for us to believe the three members of the Torrance family are actually residents in the hotel during that winter, whatever happens or whatever they think happens. Those who have read Stephen King's original novel report that Kubrick dumped many plot elements and adapted the rest to his uses. Kubrick is telling a story with ghosts (the two girls, the former caretaker, and a bartender), but it isn't a "ghost story," because the ghosts may not be present in any sense at all except as visions experienced by Jack or Danny." You can rent The Shining on Prime Video.

Lucky McKee's extremely underrated film, May , tells the story of May Canady, a veterinary assistant who's socially awkward. Since her childhood, May has been disturbed by people noticing her lazy eye. She only seems to be able to speak with her doll Suzie, and when she meets a dreamy guy, she can't even bring herself to spew out a few words. A very uncomfortable encounter breaks any chance of them taking it further, but May continues trying to meet people, which sends her deeper into a spiral of violence and paranoia that ultimately flows into a conclusion where the truth is bent towards May's destroyed state of mind.

Ebert loved May when it was released. He indicated Angela Bettis' performance of the title character is key to understanding the psychology of the film and the direction of what McKee is trying to transmit with his version of logic, heavily twisted for the sake of the film's true meaning. It was a very bizarre case of an indie horror film, perhaps the most obscure one on this list, that truly grabbed his attention.

He says, "The movie subtly darkens its tone until, when the horrifying ending arrives, we can see how we got there. There is a final shot that would get laughs in another kind of film, but May

earns the right to it, and it works, and we understand it. There are so many bad horror movies. A good one is incredibly hard to make. It has to feel a fundamental sympathy for its monster, as movies as different as Frankenstein , Carrie , and The Silence of the Lambs did. It has to see that they suffer, too. The crimes of too many horror monsters seem to be for their own entertainment, or ours. In the best horror movies, the crimes are inescapable, and the monsters are driven toward them by the merciless urgency of their natures." You can stream May on Tubi.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Blair witch project.

Release Date July 14, 1999

Director Eduardo Snchez, Daniel Myrick

Cast Sandra Snchez, Jim King, Bob Griffith, Michael C. Williams, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard

In Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick's The Blair Witch Project , audiences are treated to a horrific situation. Three students have vanished in the forest after going deep inside the woods for the filming of a documentary about a local legend. Heather, Michael, and Joshua disappeared without leaving any clues, and a year later, their footage was found. One that has been cut together to depict their last moments on this earth. By far, the greatest found footage horror film ever made.

The Blair Witch Project is a horror statement from 1999, the year when everything changed. Even movie marketing had to rearrange itself as the internet took on a huge role in promoting films. Roger Ebert seemed to take a dive into the cinéma vérité phenomenon, and he bought into the film's theme and its effect.

In his review , he called it "an extraordinarily effective horror film." He also stated the following: "At a time when digital techniques can show us almost anything, "The Blair Witch Project" is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. Any kid can tell you that. Not that he believes it at the time." You can stream The Blair Witch Project on Freevee.

Related: 20 Horror Films That Bent the Rules and Became Iconic Because of It

Body Snatchers (1993)

Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers was a modern reimagining of Jack Finney's novel that had been adapted before in 1956 and 1978 , respectively. In the film, Marti, the daughter of an EPA agent, experiences strange events while living with her dad, her brother, and her stepmother on a military base. People begin to behave erratically and with no emotion, and Marti and her boyfriend discover this may be an alien invasion taking place very slowly.

While the film wasn't a massive hit like Warner hoped for, the presence of Ferrara in a whole new genre seemed to work. Body Snatchers is a very effective horror sci-fi film with fantastic special effects, good performances, and a very eerie depiction of the premise.

Ebert was more than kind with his four-star review of the film: "There are scenes of genuine terror. One shot in particular, involving a helicopter, is as scary as anything in The Exorcist or Silence of the Lambs . And the fright is generated, not by the tired old slasher trick of having someone jump out of the screen, but by the careful establishing of situations in which we fear, and then our fears are confirmed." Now, that's a good comparison. You can rent Body Snatchers on Prime Video.

Psycho (1960)

Release Date June 22, 1960

Director Alfred Hitchcock

Cast Simon Oakland, John McIntire, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles

Runtime 109

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is the story of Marion Crane, a woman who decides to take a leap of faith, steals a lot of money, and makes a run for it. Marion gets on the road, but during a rainstorm, she's forced to pull over at the Bates Motel. There are rooms available, and she strikes up a connection with Norman, the hotel manager, who lives with his mother on the premises. When Marion decides to take a shower, someone enters her room and succeeds in bringing to life the most important horror twist of all time.

Psycho is a horror classic that completely changed the genre when it was released in 1960, under Hitchcock's terms. Its legacy is unquestionable , and critics regard it as the film that introduced the slasher figure in cinema history. Ebert wasn't exactly a detractor, exclaiming how effective it is and putting it in his list of Great Movies: "What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers." You can rent Psycho on Apple TV.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Dawn of the dead.

Release Date September 2, 1978

Director George A. Romero

Cast David Early, David Crawford, Gaylen Ross, Scott H. Reiniger, David Emge, Ken Foree

Runtime 126

Dawn of the Dead is George A. Romero's continuation of his zombie saga that puts zombies in full color and in a shopping mall, where survivors of the apocalypse have decided to take shelter. Whatever's left of their consciousness drives the zombies to the mall in a fascinating statement about consumerism and capitalism in an era where social commentary was rare in movies, and in horror, it was just atypical. Needless to say, it's one of the best zombie films ever made.

Not only that, but Ebert called Dawn of the Dead one of the best horror films ever made. In a bizarre statement from the critic, he said the following: "But, even so, you may be asking, how can I defend this depraved trash? I do not defend it. I praise it. And it is not depraved, although some reviews have seen it that way. It is about depravity." He accompanied this glowing consideration for Romero's film with constant warnings about the film's graphic violence. All we can say is "not bad at all, Romero." You can rent Dawn of the Dead on Prime Video.

The Exorcist (1973)

The exorcist.

Release Date December 26, 1973

Director William Friedkin

Cast Lee J. Cobb, Max Von Sydow, Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn

Runtime 2hr 2min

William Friedkin's The Exorcist takes us on a journey where Chris MacNeil, a Hollywood actress living with her daughter in Georgetown, begins experiencing strange phenomena. Regan exhibits unusual behavior, which forces Chris to seek help from doctors, who eventually decide to make an uncanny recommendation: what about an exorcism? Chris convinces Father Karras to pay her a visit, and he bears witness to the Devil himself, trapped inside Regan's body. With the help of Father Merrin, he will try to force the entity out of the child before causing any further damage.

In the '70s, The Exorcist became an extremely important piece of art . The film changed the rules of horror, and it's still regarded as the greatest horror film ever made, both by audiences and critics.

Don't let anyone tell you it's not a horror film, but if you feel doubtful, here's Ebert's statement about it: "We don’t necessarily believe them ourselves, but that hardly matters during the film’s two hours. If movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, then The Exorcist is one of the most powerful ever made. Our objections, and our questions, occur in an intellectual context after the movie has ended. During the movie, there are no reservations, but only experiences. We feel shock, horror, nausea, fear, and some small measure of dogged hope." You can stream The Exorcist on Max.

The Possession (2012)

The possession.

Release Date August 30, 2012

Director Ole Bornedal

Cast Jay Brazeau, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Madison Davenport, Natasha Calis, Matisyahu, Kyra Sedgwick

Rating PG-13

Roger's Rating - 3.5/4 Stars

Based on an article published in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, The Possession is the story of the Breneks as they decide to part ways, and Clyde's daughters end up spending a lot of time with him. He tries to cover their every need, and this includes buying Em a strange box she sees at a yard sale. The problem is that it seems too impossible to open, but after trying, she's able to do it. This is how they release an evil spirit that ends up possessing the girl, a dybbuk who will stop at nothing before completing its goal.

The Possession , a solid demonic possession film , is the strange case of an average horror film that managed to cause great effect on the critic by basically being authentic and portraying well-built characters. After you check out his review, you will be convinced to revisit this very underrated horror film. It was actually one of the last horror films he praised before his passing. In his review, he states, "the scene where he goes mano a mano with the dybbuk will remind lots of people of Max von Sydow's face-to-face with a demon in The Exorcist . Comparisons can be made with Linda Blair's suffering in that film, and Natasha Calis' tortured performance here. Fair enough. The Exorcist has influenced a lot of films, and this is one of the better ones." You can rent The Possession on Prime Video.

Paranormal Activity (2005)

Paranormal activity.

Release Date October 16, 2009

Director Oren Peli

Cast Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Katie Featherston

Runtime 1hr 26min

Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity is the found footage horror film that depicts the last days in the lives of Katie and Micah, a young couple who have moved into a new house in California. Katie begins feeling she's being haunted by an unseen spirit, and Micah installs cameras and uses handheld devices to record any evidence of the violent ghost. But as the footage will prove, the evil entity is much "closer to home" than he thinks.

The film was a groundbreaking event in independent cinema, and it's perhaps the most important independent film ever made. It's, without a doubt, a very scary film, a fact that Roger Ebert was sure to include in his very glowing review of the film : "I learn from IMDb that Paranormal Activity does indeed have a writer-director, Oren Peli, and other technical credits.

But like The Blair Witch Project , with which it's routinely compared, it goes to great lengths to seem like a film found after the event. It works. It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk F/X. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored." You can stream Paranormal Activity on Max.

Related: The Only Horror Franchises to Make More Than $1 Billion at the Box Office

Orphan (2009)

Release Date July 24, 2009

Director Jaume Collet-Serra

Cast Jimmy Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, CCH Pounder, Vera Farmiga, Margo Martindale, Isabelle Fuhrman

Main Genre Mystery

Runtime 105

In Orphan , Kate and Coleman are having a rough time after their last pregnancy didn't have a good result. Still, they decide to incorporate a new member into the family: Esther, a Russian-born girl who seems very ideal. At first, it's all perfect, but then Daniel, one of Kate and John's children, starts noticing strange things about Esther. Violent stuff starts to happen, and Kate decides to see where Esther comes from. To her surprise, she isn't the 9-year-old she says she is.

Cleverly written, very well-acted, and powerfully executed by Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, Orphan is a thrilling and very violent horror film with a chilling premise that hasn't lost a single touch of authenticity. Ebert was very vocal about this supposedly true story being so effective, but warned against its display of violence: "The climax is rather startling, combining the logic of the situation with audacity in exploiting its terror. Yet you have to hand it to Orphan . You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this." You can stream Orphan on Max.

Blade II (2002)

Roger's rating - 3.5/4.

Blade II , Guillermo del Toro's continuation of the Blade franchise, puts the title character in a whole new battle. The vigilante, who can defend humans against vampires, is forced to join an elite group of bloodsuckers in order to defend humans and vampires against a new breed of mutant creatures of night, who have the power to exterminate every living being on Earth. This is one of the best horror sequels you've never seen.

Blade is, without a doubt, a very interesting franchise. When it comes to superhero horror films , it just works, and Blade II is great proof. Del Toro makes sure to add his own ingredients to the formula and makes the film a big jump ahead of its predecessor. With Dawn of the Dead, it's the only horror sequel to appear on the list.

Per Ebert's review where he praises del Toro: "Still in his 30s, the Mexican-born director doesn't depend on computers to get him through a movie and impress the kids with fancy fight scenes. He brings his creepy phobias along with him. You can sense the difference between a movie that's a technical exercise ( Resident Evil ) and one steamed in the dread cauldrons of the filmmaker's imagination." You can rent Blade II on Prime Video.

Jaws (1975)

Release Date June 18, 1975

Director Steven Spielberg

Cast Carl Gottlieb, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss

Main Genre Adventure

Runtime 124

In Jaws , Amity Island is under the threat of an underwater monster that no one understands. Chief Brody tries to keep beaches closed after body remains show up on the shore, but the town's mayor disagrees. A child dies, and things change. Brody, with an oceanographer by the name of Hooper and a shark hunter named Quint, decides to go on a hunt for the largest predator he will ever face. And just like he says while chumming the water, they're going to need a bigger boat.

Spielberg's Jaws was the first blockbuster film to ever be released, and Ebert wasn't foreign to the phenomenon. He saw it as confirmation of what summer movies meant from then on. Eventually, he put it in the Great Movies series.

In his review, he says the following: "Spielberg's first big hit contained elements he repeated in many of his movies. A night sea hunt for the shark provides an early example of his favorite visual hallmark, a beam of light made visible by fog. He would continue to devote close attention to characters, instead of hurrying past them to the special effects, as so many 1990s f/x directors did. In Jaws and subsequently, he prefers mood to emotional bludgeoning, and one of the remarkable things about the picture is its relatively muted tone." You can rent Jaws on Prime Video.

Anaconda (1997)

1997's Anaconda takes audiences to the Amazon Rainforest as a film crew goes deep inside the jungle in order to shoot a documentary about an Amazonian tribe that wishes to remain undiscovered. However, the threat comes in the form of a menacing monster lurking underwater and in the foliage of a very hostile environment. Terri Flores, the director, leads the group in the survival against a green anaconda, which is also being hunted by an experimented snake hunter.

Anaconda is probably the most "absurd" film on the list. It's not a high-profile monster film, and it has everything a creature feature must comply with in order to follow B-movie standards. Nevertheless, Roger seemed to love it, and in his review, he speaks out loud about the value of the film: "A movie like Anaconda can easily be dumb and goofy (see Piranha ). Much depends on the skill of the filmmakers. Here one of the key players is the cinematographer, Bill Butler, who creates a seductive yet somehow sinister jungle atmosphere. The movie looks great, and the visuals and the convincing soundtrack and ominous music make the Amazon into a place with presence and personality: It's not a backdrop, it's an enveloping presence." You can stream Anaconda on Netflix.

Mimic (1997)

Release Date August 22, 1997

Director Guillermo del Toro

Cast Charles S. Dutton, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Alexander Goodwin, Jeremy Northam, Mira Sorvino

Guillermo del Toro's Mimic tells the story of entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who creates an insect that she believes will save lives. In New York City, cockroaches are responsible for spreading a lethal disease that's claimed the lives of dozens of children. Tyler breeds an insect that causes the cockroaches to die, and the city celebrates her scientific discovery. The problem is that the insect evolves to the point of reaching a huge size and acquires the ability to mimic other organisms.

Ebert loved '90s Guillermo del Toro. There's no way around that. Mimic is a very underrated film that had a good box-office return , but not even its director was happy with the final result, as he believed it was massacred in the editing room.

Fortunately, Ebert had more to say about it: There are expected payoffs, yes, and the usual scenes where a false shock is followed by a real one. Mimic is a loyal occupant of its genre. But Del Toro is a director with a genuine visual sense, with a way of drawing us into his story and evoking the mood with the very look and texture of his shots. He takes the standard ingredients and presents them so effectively that Mimic makes the old seem new, fresh and scary." You can stream Mimic on PlutoTV.

Altered States (1980)

Ken Russell's Altered States tells the story of Edward Jessup, a psychopathologist who wishes to shed some light on the mystery of schizophrenia. He uses sensory deprivation tanks for his experiments and, at some point, goes as far as to include substances to cause hallucinatory states. He realizes he's gone too far in his experiments when strange things begin to happen. From the materialization of organisms only present in Jessup's mind to the physical devolution.

The last film Paddy Chayefsky ever wrote is an insanely underrated horror feature with state-of-the-art special effects and the film debut of John Hurt and Drew Barrymore. Altered States is a great example of body horror based on an interesting premise.

Roger Ebert liked it enough to give it a solid rating back in the early '80s: " Altered States is a superbly silly movie, a magnificent entertainment, and a clever and brilliant machine for making us feel awe, fear, and humor. That is enough. It's pure movie and very little meaning. Did I like it? Yeah, I guess I did, but I wouldn't advise trying to think about it very deeply." You can stream Altered States on The Criterion Channel.

Carrie (1976)

Release Date November 16, 1976

Director Brian De Palma

Cast William Katt, Amy Irving, Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, John Travolta

Runtime 1hr 38min

Brian De Palma's version of Stephen King's first novel, Carrie , is the story of poor Carrie White, a teenager who's suffering from constant bullying and the extreme views of her religious mother. What they don't know is that Carrie has telekinetic abilities, and while she doesn't have enough malice to use them against her peers, a prank during prom will awaken the real Carrie, one who will bring down Hell on earth, and nothing will stop her.

Ebert was quick to observe De Palma's growth in his display of this religious horror icon . He observes the importance of Carrie as a character built on something tangible, not a theory of horror that was created to create shock.

In his review, he states the following: "Well, what makes the movie's last twenty minutes so riveting is that they grow so relentlessly, so inevitably, out of what's gone before. This isn't a science-fiction movie with a tacked-on crisis, but the study of a character we know and understand.

When she fully uses (or is used by) her strange power, we know why. This sort of narrative development hasn't exactly been De Palma's strong point, but here he exhibits a gift for painting personalities; we didn't know De Palma, ordinarily so flashy on the surface, could go so deep. Part of his success is a result of the very good performances by Sissy Spacek, as Carrie, and by Piper Laurie, as Carrie's mother. They form a closed-off, claustrophobic household, the mother has translated her own psychotic fear of sexuality into a twisted personal religion." You can stream Carrie on Max.

Related: 15 Actors Whose Best Performance Is in a Horror Movie

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The last house on the left.

Release Date August 30, 1972

Director Wes Craven

Cast Marc Sheffler, Jeramie Rain, Fred J. Lincoln, David Hess, Lucy Grantham, Sandra Peabody

The Last House on the Left by Wes Craven depicts the ordeal that teenagers Mari and Phyllis go through after sadistic criminals interrupt their trip to a concert. It is based on Ingmar Bergman's Swedish film The Virgin Spring. The girls are tortured and eventually killed, but what the killers don't notice is that right after they arrive at the doorstep of Mari's parents, When they realize these people may be responsible for their daughter's death, they go on a rampage of absolute revenge.

Roger observes the true nature of the very controversial The Last House on the Left . He speaks highly of the experience, but he also makes sure his readers understand what kind of film this is—one that perhaps you have to see, but just once in your life.

In his review , he also puts Craven in the spotlight as a natural horror storyteller: "Wes Craven's direction never lets us out from under almost unbearable dramatic tension (except in some silly scenes involving a couple of dumb cops, who overact and seriously affect the plot's credibility). The acting is unmannered and natural, I guess. There's no posturing. There's a good ear for dialogue and nuance. And there is evil in this movie. Not bloody escapism, or a thrill a minute, but a fully developed sense of the vicious natures of the killers. There is no glory in this violence. And Craven has written in a young member of the gang (again borrowed on Bergman's story) who sees the horror as fully as the victims do." You can stream The Last House on the Left on Prime Video.

Play Misty for Me (1971)

Clint Eastwood's feature directorial debut, Play Misty for Me , stars him as Dave Garver, a radio DJ who, after a broadcast, goes to a bar to let out some steam. There he meets Evelyn Draper, a woman who admits she's a fan and who compels Garver enough to drive her home. It doesn't stop there, as Garver sleeps with her, unaware of what it may represent for Evelyn. Shortly after, she begins exhibiting obsessive behavior. If you know this film and Draper's character, you may be aware that this is an understatement.

Play Misty for Me shot Eastwood into stardom as a capable filmmaker . Jessica Walter, who plays Draper, was actually nominated for a Golden Globe for her role. In Ebert's review, he mentions how the film naturally affects the viewer with an experience in which, very slowly, we become aware that there aren't limits to what Draper can do in order to achieve her goal: "And so the movie, by refusing to release any emotion at all until the very end, absolutely wrings us dry. There is no purpose to a suspense thriller, I suppose, except to involve us, scare us, to give us moments of vicarious terror. "Play Misty for Me" does that with an almost cruel efficiency." You can rent Play Misty for Me on Netflix.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the living dead.

Release Date October 4, 1968

Cast Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones

Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero puts audiences in the middle of a zombie invasion when there were simply none of those. The first zombie film takes place in a remote house, where survivors are trying to protect themselves from the flesh-eating creatures that are surrounding their haven. However, the undead aren't actually their only threat, as the tension between them proves to be too high, and eventually, they're no longer safe inside.

In 1968, things changed in cinema, and Night of the Living Dead was one of the reasons . The film's importance lies in its being the basis for the future of a culture that never fizzled out and which served as a backdrop for commentary, regardless of detractors and their pointless hatred.

Ebert was kind enough to see the value in Romero's feature: "I supposed the idea was to make a fast buck before movies like this are off-limits to children. Maybe that's why Night of the Living Dead was scheduled for the lucrative holiday season, when the kids are on vacation. Maybe that's it, but I don't know how I could explain it to the kids who left the theater with tears in their eyes." You can stream Night of the Living Dead on Shudder.

The Vanishing (1988)

Release Date October 27, 1988

Director George Sluizer

Cast Gene Bervoets, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu

Main Genre Thriller

Runtime 107 min

George Sluizer's The Vanishing , also known as Spoorloos in its original language, tells the story of Rex and Saskia, a young couple on a road trip in France. While at a rest stop, Saskia goes missing. She's nowhere to be seen, and this is how Rex's desperate journey to find her begins. Years go by and there is still no trace, but then the abductor contacts Rex, promising to give some answers. This is the best and most nihilistic thriller you've never seen.

The film is a great approach to the genre that's filled with all the dread and lack of hope you would expect. But it's mostly because of where the story leads and the inevitable that eventually takes place, where all the truths are revealed.

Ebert's remarks were more than kind: " The Vanishing is a thriller, but in a different way than most thrillers. It is a thriller about knowledge - about what the characters know about the disappearance, and what they know about themselves. The movie was directed by George Sluizer, based on a screenplay he did with Tim Krabbe, which in turn was based on Krabbe's novel The Golden Egg. Together they have constructed a psychological jigsaw puzzle, a plot that makes you realize how simplistic many suspense films really are. The movie advances in a tantalizing fashion, supplying information obliquely, suggesting as much as it tells, and everything leads up to a climax that is as horrifying as it is probably inevitable." You can stream The Vanishing on The Criterion Channel.

To keep celebrating the greatest film critic there ever was, let's take a look at a video with Roger's favorite movies of all time:

Roger Ebert In Review: A 'Fresh Air' Survey

• Arts & Life
• Movie Interviews
• Remembrances

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we remember film critic Roger Ebert.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SNEAK PREVIEWS")

ROGER EBERT: Across the aisle from me, Gene Siskel, film critic of the Chicago Tribune.

GENE SISKEL: And this is Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times.

GROSS: That's how Roger Ebert and his rival Chicago film critic the late Gene Siskel used to introduce each other on their PBS program "Sneak Previews," the show that made them famous in the late '70s. Ebert died yesterday at the age of 70, just a few days after blogging that a painful fracture that had made it difficult to walk was diagnosed as cancer.

His life and his body had already been dramatically altered by cancer of the thyroid, salivary glands and chin, which was first diagnosed in 2002. It left him unable to speak or eat. But he kept writing about films on his blog and social media, reaching a big and appreciative audience.

We're going to listen back to an interview with Ebert, as well as an interview with Ebert and Siskel. And we'll hear excerpts of onstage interviews Ebert conducted with Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola about two of Ebert's favorite films, "Raging Bull" and "Apocalypse Now." Our critic-at-large John Powers says that Ebert will be remembered for his enthusiasm, his openness, his generosity to filmmakers and to his fellow critics, and for his canny knack of taking his work into new media.

We're going to start with a piece John recorded about Ebert in September 2011, after the publication of Ebert's memoir "Life Itself."

JOHN POWERS, BYLINE: You can divide famous people into two broad categories: those who find fame a burden and those who take it like a tonic. Roger Ebert is one of the latter. That rarest of creatures, a film critic who everyone knows, he really enjoys being Roger Ebert.

This pleasure comes through in his new memoir, "Life Itself." Perhaps goaded into existence by the cancer that has assailed him in recent years, it tells the life story of the man with the most famous thumb in America, pausing along the way to offer the author's views on everything from the glories of black-and-white cinematography to the existence of God to the comedy of being fat.

The book is chatty, upbeat and structurally loose - which is to say that it sounds exactly like Roger Ebert. He was born 69 years ago in Urbana, Illinois, and enjoyed a classic middle-American childhood, idyllic but tinged with darkness.

He had an electrician father, Walter, whom he obviously adored; and a mother, Annabel, who treated him kindly but also scared him with her anger, especially once she became an alcoholic, a drinking problem that Ebert himself would share and eventually conquer.

A lifelong liberal, Ebert had dreamed of being a feisty newspaper columnist like Mike Royko. But his life took a very different turn in 1967 when, much to his surprise, he was named film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times. He was all of 25 years old, and he seized the job like a brass ring.

His career took off quickly - he'd won the Pulitzer Prize by age 33 - and he began accumulating a vast storehouse of anecdotes. He gives career advice to the young Oprah Winfrey, hangs out with the old Robert Mitchum, and scripts the movie "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" for skinflick meister Russ Meyer, whose own account of their collaboration makes you suspect that Ebert is giving us the PG version.

Still, he would have remained a minor local celebrity had it not been for the 1975 creation of the movie review show "Sneak Previews," with fellow Chicago critic Gene Siskel, a competitive man of burning ambition, whom Ebert portrays with surprising generosity.

The show wasn't Ebert's idea, but it changed him and our culture, not always for the best. The trademark feature of "Sneak Previews" was that moment when Ebert and Siskel gave movies thumbs up or thumbs down, a hugely influential shtick that reduced film criticism to a simple-minded consumer guide in which ideas barely matter.

Yet while I know scads of critics who dislike that show, I'm not sure I know any who dislike or blame Ebert. They think that's just Roger. And Roger has never been one of those critics you read for his analysis. He's a critic you read for his openness and enthusiasm. Because of that enthusiasm, you might almost say that he's the original fanboy: breezy, personal, ready to share.

This may help explain why, after cancer forced him from his TV show, he reinvented himself as a hugely successful blogger, weighing in on everything from movies to politics to what he sees as the ruination of his newspaper by idiots. It's probably the best writing he's ever done.

And it's all the more impressive because life dealt him a hard blow with a disease that keeps him from eating, drinking or talking, three things he obviously loved. But rather than sinking into a funk or hiding away, he's gone on with his life, and one of the many admirable features of his new book is its sunniness. It's wholly free from the complaining and self-pity so popular in memoirs these days.

That's just what you'd hope for from a guy who was raised, and thrived, in the very heart of the American century. Ebert is anything but provincial. "Life Itself" begins with a reference to Ingmar Bergman's film "Persona," and ends by quoting Tintin's dog, Milou.

But reading this book, I was struck by how deeply he's inscribed with our national character; the decency and good humor and happy acceptance of other cultures, the recognition that the world has murky depths he'd just as soon not dwell on, above all, the eagerness to engage with life. You see, unlike a lot of film critics, Roger Ebert knows that there's more to living than just sitting in the dark.

GROSS: That was our critic-at-large John Powers, recorded in 2011, after the publication of Roger Ebert's memoir "Life Itself." I had the pleasure of interviewing Ebert several times. Here's an excerpt of the interview we recorded in 1984, when he and Gene Siskel were co-hosting their syndicated movie review program "At the Movies."

Viewers may have thought of Ebert and Siskel as a team because they appeared together on their weekly show, but they were also rival film critics for rival Chicago newspapers. Ebert told me they regarded each other more as competitors than partners.

EBERT: He works for the Tribune. I work for the Sun Times. One day a week, we do the show. The other six days of the week, we are, indeed, competitors. So Siskel and I have been both covering the movies in Chicago for 16 years together, and I started two years before him. So it goes back a long way. In fact, when I was asked originally if I would like to do a show with Gene Siskel, my answer was: Why Gene Siskel?

GROSS: Well, did you ever ask yourself what did you do to deserve such as a fate as having to work so closely with your biggest rival?

EBERT: There could be worse fates. Gene Siskel is intelligent. He's well-informed. He's a good film critic, and I respect him. And when we are doing our discussions on the air, we do them ad-lib, unrehearsed, spontaneous and first draft, for the most part, unless some terrible mistake takes place.

And I'm glad to be able to have him sitting across the aisle from me, because I get a lot of feedback, and we can talk well together. I think I would feel bad if I had to do the show with somebody who didn't seem to be listening to what I said and wasn't responding to me, but was just simply waiting for me to shut up so that he could start.

GROSS: Before you became a professional, before you started writing for newspapers or anything, did you have a desire to make movies or to write about them as a critic?

EBERT: No. Like a lot of people who started to read in the late '50s, I wanted to be a novelist. I mean, the heroes when I was going to school may have been film directors like Antonioni and Fellini, but they were also novelists like Philip Roth. Katherine Anne Porter just had a new book out at that time.

I started reading in high school, and, I mean, I read - I started reading, I think, at the age of six, you know. But in high school, I came across the works of Thomas Wolfe at just the right age. I think I was 13-and-a-half. And this image of this tortured, romantic figure writing novels while standing up and writing on the top of the refrigerator and walking through the dawn saying I wrote 10,000 words tonight, that was me. You know, I went for that.

And Kerouac, "On the Road," books like that. And when I was 15-and-a-half, I started writing sports for the News Gazette in Champaign-Urbana. A sports columnist in Philadelphia, a man named Bill Lyon, also worked on the News Gazette at the same time. I covered Urbana. He covered Champaign. He was into Thomas Wolfe, too.

And we would work all night on our stories. We're covering some high school football game, but the lead would have to be perfect. Every word would have to be filled with a passion. You know, Thomas Wolfe covers the Urbana Tigers and the Champaign Maroons. And during the game every year when Champaign played Urbana, you know, it was like Dante was covering it, especially if you lost.

GROSS: Speaking with film critic Roger Ebert. Did your parents try to influence your movie-going habits?

EBERT: I think I had a real good relationship with my parents about the movies. I went to a lot of movies. And then there comes the time in everybody's life when you just go to the movies that you feel like going to. That first time your parents drop you off at the multiplex so you can see "Oh Heavenly Dog" starring Benji, and you sneak in to see "Saturday Night Fever" instead, that's one of the initiation processes into adulthood.

GROSS: Were there movies that you started to define yourself by, you know, like this movie really says something about who I am?

EBERT: That happened to me as I was in the last years of high school and the first years of college. There were art theaters in Champaign-Urbana, and also the university had a film society. And I started going to the angry young men films like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" in which, frankly, you know, as a high school kid in Urbana, I had very little in common with this borstal boy played by Tom Courtenay, but to me, you know, that movie was my story. It's the "Bonnie and Clyde" line, you know, where Clyde says: You know what you did? You told my story.

I went to see "La Dolce Vita" by Fellini, and that movie has been a touchstone for me, because when I saw it in 1960, there was this 30-year-old journalist in Rome leading this unbelievably glamorous life with all these celebrities and staying up all night and going to orgies and having all of his philosophical friends around him and his wives and his mistresses and miracles and stories to cover.

When I saw it again - and I've seen it every 10 years - in 1970, it was somebody about my age, only he was leading a more interesting life than I was, I thought. And when I saw it again in 1980, it was somebody 10 years younger than I was, and he had a lot of problems that I had outgrown.

So Marcello, the character in the movie, stays the same, and I can kind of measure, you know, my thoughts about the character as time goes by.

GROSS: You've interviewed a lot of stars in the years that you've been writing about movies. Do they ever make ridiculous demands of you about what they will or won't do, what they won't talk about? And if that happens, how do you handle it?

EBERT: In general, no, they don't. In the book, there's an interview with Jerry Lewis at the Cannes Film Festival. He got out a tape recorder. He tape-recorded it, apparently out of paranoia. What I am astounded by is the number of occasions where totally unexpected and startling things happen that the star does nothing at all to conceal.

Another interview in this book is with Tony Curtis, also at the Cannes Film Festival. I went to interview him, and during the course of the interview, he looked out the window of his hotel room, saw a woman on the sidewalk that he found attractive and started screaming at her to come up to his room. He was shouting his name and his room number in full view and hearing of about 500 people on the terrace of the Carlton Hotel. He was really out of control that day. And when I left, I had a very strange encounter to record.

Movie stars have been interviewed so often, that sometimes you find some very revealing things happening because the interviewer is almost not visible to them.

GROSS: What do you mean?

EBERT: That there's always been an interviewer there. I mean, Robert Mitchum has been a movie actor for 40 years. If I'm sitting in the back seat of his car, is he going to be thinking oh, my God, the press is here? No, the press has always been there. You know, 20 years ago it was Rex Reed. Forty years ago, it was Louella Parsons. You know, in a way, the press has always been in Robert Mitchum's back seat, and so if you can adopt the fly-on-the-wall approach of just kind of quietly sitting there and observing everything that's going on, you are going to see somebody who is not especially monitoring his behavior.

GROSS: Roger Ebert, recorded in 1984. Coming up, we continue our remembrance of Ebert with a 1996 interview with Ebert and Gene Siskel. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert, who died yesterday at the age of 70. Ebert first became famous for hosting a weekly TV series in which he and rival film critic Gene Siskel reviewed new films. They remained TV partners until Siskel's death in 1999 of brain cancer.

I spoke with Ebert and Siskel in 1996, onstage in their hometown of Chicago, at a benefit for public radio station WBEZ in Chicago. Our interview included clips from their favorite films. I asked Ebert to introduce the film he chose.

EBERT: I had originally picked a different scene. I picked the scene with Orson Welles being discovered by the cat in the doorway in "The Third Man." And then my esteemed colleague here pointed out that that scene doesn't have any dialogue in it, and so it probably wouldn't play very well on the radio.

EBERT: We could have a kind of a United Nations translation: OK, now Orson Welles is smiling at Joseph Cotten, you know. So I granted Gene his point. It was a pretty good point.

EBERT: And I thought a little harder, and I thought of my favorite passage of dialogue in the movies, and it's from "Citizen Kane," but I don't want to tell you what it is. It's from "Citizen Kane." It's Mr. Bernstein, who is a person who has been - who began with Charles Foster Kane. He was there before, as he says earlier in this same scene: I was there before the beginning, and now I'm here after the end. And this is the speech that I like so much.

GROSS: OK, let's watch it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "CITIZEN KANE")

EVERETT SLOANE: (as Mr. Bernstein) Who's a busy man? Me? I'm chairman of the board. I've got nothing but time. What do you want to know?

WILLIAM ALLAND: (as Jerry Thompson) Well, Mr. Bernstein, we thought maybe if we could find out what he meant by that last words, as he was dying.

SLOANE: (as Bernstein) That Rosebud, huh? Maybe some girl? There were a lot of them back in the early days.

ALLAND: (as Thompson) It's hardly likely, Mr. Bernstein, that Mr. Kane could have met some girl casually, and then 50 years later on this death bed, remember.

SLOANE: (as Bernstein) Well, you're pretty young, Mr. Thompson. A fellow would remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in. And on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress, she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all. But I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

EBERT: Yeah.

GROSS: Now tell us more about what thrills you about the dialogue in that.

EBERT: Well, I saw the movie for the first time in 1958, and there hasn't been a month go by since then...

EBERT: ...that I haven't thought about that dialogue, because in one little speech in a popular Hollywood film written by Herman Mankiewicz, you have the mystery of memory and of longing and of the fact that we are all, to some degree, alone and trying to reach out to somebody else.

And then you have time. You're a young man, Mr. Thompson, he says. And the more I think about that, if you - the more you think about that speech, the more it's about the human condition. It's about the whole thing.

GROSS: I'd like to go through some firsts, like do a little, like, film biography of each of you. So let's move through these quickly. The first film you actually remember seeing in a movie theater.

SISKEL: Well, it would probably a Disney picture. And the one that stands out for me for the emotional impact was "Dumbo," specifically the sequence where Mrs. Jumbo is chained up. It's a beautiful sequence. The laughter is misplaced.

SISKEL: It's a laughter on the title, but it's one of the most beautiful, powerful sequences in the movies, and that is of course when Mrs. Jumbo is - we're talking about separation between child and mother.

And the - she sings. She later will sing with her trunk woven in through the bars, one of the most beautiful lullabies, "Baby Mine." And clearly, every child fears - and the Disney animated features always play on it - parental loss. And that was a very powerful thing for me growing up.

GROSS: Roger, your first film you remember seeing in a movie theater.

EBERT: My father took me to see the Marx Brothers in "A Day at the Races." He loved the Marx Brothers. He had seen the Marx Brothers on stage in Champaign-Urbana when he was a young man in vaudeville.

GROSS: Was it funny to you?

EBERT: No, to me, the scene that I liked the very best - I was really scared when Groucho got on the horse. I was afraid he would fall off and get hurt. But the scene I remember the best is Harpo looking at me while he played the harp. He was looking straight out of the screen. He nodded at the camera. And I thought he saw me. And he was saying, look, I'm playing the harp. And I didn't know what a harp was. I'd never seen one before. And I was entranced.

GROSS: The movie that most scared you as a child, that you...

SISKEL: I think I answered that question. Particularly, I will say when Timothy J. - when Dumbo's up there, and, you know, can he fly or not? Now, here, you're talking about a childhood fantasy. I mean, obviously it's a fantasy for everyone, flying, but unassisted - but he could die. He could be - certainly, he could be humiliated. And, again, this is a thing that a child would relate to.

EBERT: Gene was thinking: Some day, I want to work with a guy like Dumbo.

GROSS: Roger, the...

SISKEL: Too obvious.

GROSS: The film that first really scared you.

SISKEL: Charitable mood. Twentieth anniversary, what the hell. You know, let it go.

EBERT: When I was 10, I saw "The Thing," the Howard Hawks picture. It scared me cold. I was terrified during the movie and for days afterwards. But...

GROSS: Because of the way they burn The Thing and set it on fire?

EBERT: Oh, the whole - the way he melted, and you could see that he was still alive.

GROSS: What do you do with the vegetable? You cook it?

EBERT: The moment when they form hands in a circle in the ice, and then you get the overhead shot, and you see that there's a ship underneath the ice. Everything in that movie terrified me. You know, among modern pictures, the first "Halloween" was a very scary picture.

SISKEL: Very.

EBERT: Gene saw it at the Village Theater when he was living two blocks away, and he took a cab home.

SISKEL: I took a cab - absolutely true, absolutely true. (unintelligible), and I was living at 1400 North State, and I - it's a little more than two blocks, but about four. And I will tell you I took a taxi home. And when I got in - and we've all done this after scary movies, I hope - I went to the shower and pulled the curtain back.

SISKEL: Absolutely true.

EBERT: And believe me, there was nobody in the shower.

SISKEL: I was about 30 at the time. That sounds normal, doesn't it?

EBERT: Knowing the kind of housekeeper you were, it was probably a frightening sight in that shower, anyway.

SISKEL: That was scary. That was scary.

GROSS: The first movie you reviewed.

EBERT: "The Last Wave." It was a French film.

GROSS: I thought it was an Australian film. Oh, this is a different one.

EBERT: No, no, that's a different "Last Wave."

And I remember "The Last Wave." That the Aborigines. No, this was 1967, and my review was: Ah, yes, here it is, the French New Wave rolling ashore once again. You see, my first review, and I was already blase.

SISKEL: My first review was of Walt Disney's "Rascal"...

GROSS: Boy, a real Disney thing here.

SISKEL: ...starring Billy Mumy. He was the child actor in "Lost in Space." It was about a pet raccoon. And I really had to deal with the issue very quickly of hating that picture and being bold enough to say, off the gun, you know, you're sort of knocking mom and apple pie. And I went right at it.

GROSS: Was that hard the first time you gave a negative review...

SISKEL: That was in late August - I think it was August 29th, 1969.

GROSS: Now, your first review was a negative review. Roger, was it hard the first time you wrote a negative review?

GROSS: You didn't think: I'm hurting people's career, people worked really hard on this movie, they're probably decent human beings? This represents...

SISKEL: I had that test come up.

GROSS: ...this is a heartfelt effort, even though the product isn't very good?

EBERT: You have to realize you're not writing for the filmmakers. You're writing for the potential film audience. And I would much rather hurt somebody's feelings who made the picture than send somebody to see a movie and spend two hours of their life seeing a movie that I don't think is worth seeing.

GROSS: Roger Ebert with Gene Siskel in 1996. Ebert died yesterday. Our remembrance continues in the second half of the show. I'm Terry Gross. This is FRESH AIR, and this is NPR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today we're remembering film critic Roger Ebert. He died yesterday at the age of 70, just a few days after blogging that a painful fracture that had made it difficult to walk was diagnosed as cancer.

We're going to listen back to an excerpt of the interview Ebert conducted with one of his favorite film directors, Francis Ford Coppola, about one of his famous favorite films, "Apocalypse Now." The interview was recorded at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, after the screening of the re-edited and restored version of this classic film, which is set during the Vietnam War.

Let's start with a clip. Marlon Brando, who plays the renegade Colonel Kurtz, is recalling an atrocity at a village. After American soldiers inoculated the village children with a polio vaccine, the Viet Cong arrived and hacked off the children's arms.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")

MARLON BRANDO: (as Colonel Kurtz) There they were in a pile - a pile of little arms. And I remember, I, I, I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond - a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love, but they had the strength, the strength, to do that.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

EBERT: At the time we saw it here, and I saw it in the old Palais, and I think it was my greatest film-going experience at Cannes because I had spine-tingling, I mean literally, I mean not figuratively but real tingles. At the time we were so filled with stories about the production. All the lore about Brando, for example. Now, seeing it again, after 22 years, all that's forgotten, it's all water under the bridge. Brando's performance seems to so strong to me and so - just in the right note and just handled right by you. And all the gossip about, you know, how much he weighed or, you know, every time Brando does anything there are a million stories from the set, had all just faded away leaving this pure and great performance. How did you feel seeing it again? Because you had to work with Brando and deal with them and so forth.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: Well, you know, he's an extraordinary man. And beyond as - the roles of films that we know, just what he talks about and the way his mind thinks, it's true. I could tell you so many stories. I don't want to overstay my welcome, but the truth of the matter is Marlon is like a kid and he's very lazy and he doesn't like to work, and he also gets embarrassed and he gets stage fright. So when he arrived, you know, he was very big and I immediate - you know, in film you always have problems and part of your job as a director is to see how you can make the problem be an advantage. So I immediately suggested, well, Marlon, why don't you play it as this is big fat guy and have one arm around a beautiful girl and another with a mango that you're eating and show him as a man who has surrendered to the jungle and to the lusts of life. But Marlon is very shy about his weight. He says, no, no, no, I can't do that. I don't want to be like fat and stuff. I said OK.

Well, I - I couldn't have him be as it was written, a kind of a Green Beret colonel in uniform because, you know, where would he have gotten the uniform that could fit him, you know? So the idea I had - in movies, you know, very often you're looking at the actor from the waist up. And in a movie if you're broad, if you have big shoulders, you know, even like Roger, if you're broad, that in your mind, you assume him to be a big man, a giant - not necessarily heavy. So I thought if I shot him from - in that attitude and then when I showed him full, had a double who was like six foot six, it would make Kurtz be like a giant man rather than like me, you know? So that was the philosophy I took as a solution. The second issue was that Marlon, I wanted it to be like the character Kurtz in the book, and Marlon immediately said that would never work.

You know, so finally I started getting, you know, well, why wouldn't it work and, you know, blah, blah, blah. One day, the fifth day, I come in and I'm astonished. There he is and he's cut off all his hair, which is the image of Kurtz from the book. And I said Marlon, what happened? I said you're going to do it like Kurtz. He says, yeah, I think doing it like Kurtz is the best way. I said but you told me that wouldn't work. You said you read the book and it would never work. He says, well, I didn't read the book. I said but you told me you did. He said, well, I lied.

So, so that's like what it is to work with Marlon. But - but his instincts are so great that - and many of our talks led to opinions and ideas and he evolved what he needed in order to do that performance, and he should be commended...

EBERT: It's just right because when you get to this legendary character in "The Heart of Darkness," you really don't want to just have him standing there like a person who exists as in the same dimension as the other people in the film. He has to emerge out of some other kind of idea, I think.

COPPOLA: Well, he also knew - Marlon even said to me - that I, he says you've painted yourself into a corner, haven't you? And what he meant was that as I made the film going up the river, I was making it more surreal, you know, with the colored smoke and the style it had. And by making it more surreal, a normal "Guns of Navarone" ending wouldn't have worked anymore, so I had painted myself into a corner and I didn't know how to get out. And he knew that I had done that and I think in a, you know, he likes to kid around and stuff or he's a big practical joker, but I think that early process of trying to find the ending was his working really at it.

GROSS: Roger Ebert interviewing Francis Ford Coppola at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001. We'll hear an excerpt of Ebert interviewing Martin Scorsese after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert, who died yesterday. One of Ebert's top 10 films was "Raging Bull," directed by Martin Scorsese. In 1997, Ebert interviewed Scorsese about that film at the Wexner Center for the Arts on the campus of Ohio State University.

EBERT: "Raging Bull" came out in '80 and it is a great film. It is a film that will live as long as films are seen.

And I think that...

MARTIN SCORSESE: Thank you. Thank you.

EBERT: What I feel so strongly in talking to people about movies, frequently people will - they know I'm a movie critic - they will discuss the subject matter as if that is what the film is about. Oh, it's a film about boxing.

SCORSESE: Yeah, I know. Right.

EBERT: Or, oh, it's a film about gangsters.

SCORSESE: Right. Right.

EBERT: Or whatever. You know, like when they hear what "Breaking the Waves" is about. Oh, I don't know if I want to see it. A film is not about its subject. It's about how its about its subject.

SCORSESE: Right. In fact, when...

EBERT: A subject is neutral. People don't understand that. When people say, whenever anybody makes a statement, I don't like to go to movies about and then fill in the blank...

SCORSESE: Yeah. Yeah.

EBERT: ...my response is, anyone who makes that statement is an idiot.

SCORSESE: No, its true.

It's true. It's true.

EBERT: I don't want to go to bad films about cowboys.

SCORSESE: Yeah.

EBERT: I don't want to go to bad films about boxers.

SCORSESE: I know.

EBERT: I would like to see a good film about a boxer might be a more intelligent statement.

SCORSESE: Yeah. I mean when Bob gave me the book originally, it's back in 1974, I never had saw - I never saw a fight scene, I never saw a fight. My father was a big fight fan. But I never, I didn't know anything about boxing and I wasn't interested in films about boxing, you know. But it took those years to - for me to go my own way, to come back to understanding really what it was about.

EBERT: It wasn't - it was about a boxer but it wasn't about boxing.

SCORSESE: Right.

EBERT: It was about the boxer.

SCORSESE: It was about a man. Yeah.

EBERT: Could you set this up just a little bit by talking about two things? Number one, what people don't always - they observe viscerally but not necessarily intellectually - how much technique went into the boxing sequences, in terms of slow motion and lenses and movement of camera.

SCORSESE: Well, what happened with the boxing sequences, once I saw De Niro perform the nine fights - they had - Jake LaMotta and Jimmy Nickerson worked out blocking for nine fight scenes. And he showed them to me in Gleason's Gym on 14th Street, and I sat there, I was stunned. In fact, he came over to me. He says, are you watching? Because I'm killing myself. I said, yeah, I am.

And I realized, I said, oh boy, I said - because he didn't know. He thought it - he thought I was like, you know, hanging around not watching. I'm watching, I'm watching, I realized you can't shoot this. You can't shoot this from my angle. I said we have to be in there with him and its got to be "The Wild Bunch." It's got to be - every punch has to be worked out in such a way, well, let's say not every punch, but you have to do it like music. You have to do it like I did some of the musical sequences in "New York, New York," where three bars of music was one shot, literally. Not four cameras and then you cut it together in the editing room. That's selecting, not directing. It's a different thing, you know?

But directing is, you know, these four punches, one, two, three, four, camera tracks from left to right, swings around, over the shoulder of the guy who is getting hit, and we see a close-up of LaMotta hitting him. And it's got to be a arc, shoom, like this, and as fast as the punches.

And the most important thing was that the camera never, as much as possible, never goes outside the ring - that you're always in the ring with him. Your sensibility is taken on by - his vision becomes your sensibility. In other words, what he perceives in the ring, sometimes I open the ring up. We had a ring that I built special where I made it longer and sometimes wider and it was like, it was like being - imagine being punched in the head, what you hear and what you perceive. You don't know where you are.

EBERT: And on the soundtrack you used breaking glass...

SCORSESE: Breaking glass...

EBERT: And animal noises.

SCORSESE: Animal noises and that sort of thing. Frank Warner did that. He wouldn't tell us after a while what he was using. He said, I'm not going to tell anybody, you know. Whatever it is, it's great - that sort of thing.

But it did take, we had planned five and a half weeks of shooting for it, it did take 10 weeks. And it was very specific. And De Niro would have on the side of the camera a very big punching bag, one of those cylinder ones, it looks like a cylinder, and he - when we were ready to yell, when we were ready to go for a roll, we'd have the slate ready, you know, and start rolling and you'd hear off camera, punching the bag, punching the bag, and then he'd jump into frame sweating, you know, and then the slate.

EBERT: Mm-hmm.

SCORSESE: So he came in already heated, bang, ready to go. It wasn't like, you know, we're wasting any footage. But the physical stamina it took him to sustain 10 weeks of that was amazing and - because he believed in the shots I wanted to get. But what you see here is the final, the final battle in a way, and the punishment he takes, especially the montage, when he gets beaten up by Sugar Ray, is based in a way - the drawings I made were based on the shower scene from "Psycho."

And I shot it in that way, there were 39 shots, and it took 10 days just to shoot those shots, because there were applications and all kinds of makeup problems, and just to get the angle right it was like 10 days. And there's even a shot in there Sam Fuller told me about - he said put the camera in the lens - put the lens in somebody's hand and just swing this way - you'll see it. We even put the camera on the boxing glove and the glove is in the foreground; it comes flying at him this way. It's all in there for maybe like five frames, six frames, you know.

EBERT: Let's look.

SCORSESE: OK.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "RAGING BULL")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (as Ring Announcer) He has LaMotta on (unintelligible) he's holding on. Well, certainly that was one of the most damaging evidences of punching that you have seen in recent years.

ROBERT DE NIRO: (as Jake LaMotta) Come on. Come on. Come on.

(as Jake LaMotta) Come on. Come on. Come on. What are you staring for? Coming on.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (as Ring Announcer) Robinson, apparently tired, punched with a fare-thee-well and rocked Jake LaMotta right (unintelligible)...

NIRO: (as Jake LaMotta) Come on. Come on, Ray. Come on. Come on, Ray.

GROSS: We heard Roger Ebert interviewing Martin Scorsese in 1997 at the Wexner Center for the Arts.

Coming up, we have more of my interview with Ebert and Gene Siskel. Here's a clip from the first TV series they hosted together, a local Chicago program called "Opening Soon At A Theater Near You." And here's an excerpt of their review of Scorsese's 1976 film "Taxi Driver." It starts with Siskel speaking.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "OPENING SOON AT A THEATER NEAR YOU")

SISKEL: I've got a love-hate affair with the whole picture. I love a couple of the performances and the lurid photography of New York at night and that throbbing background music is pretty good too. But I hated the last third of the movie. The violence is so strong I ended up looking away from the film in more ways than one. Not only didn't I see some of the bloodletting. I began not to see the sense of the picture either. Roger?

EBERT: Well, Gene, that's where you and I disagree because it seems to me that what Scorsese is doing is looking not so much at the violence in the city as in the violence that's bottled up inside this person. And it's the kind of violence that we've seen in America in assassins and snipers and so forth. I think it's a very good character portrait - at the end, in particular, where he uses slow motion in order to make the violence really seem particular and drawn out and obsessive.

I think it's a very good movie and I think that like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" the violence at the end is necessary in order to provide a conclusion to all of this pressure that's been building up all during the film.

SISKEL: I think that sounds good in theory, Roger, but when you end up looking away from the screen because a guy's getting fingers on his hands shot off, somebody else catches a bullet in the neck, and there's blood scattered all over the wall like some kind of modernistic painting, I think that the director is making his film, in a sense, bottom-heavy and blowing the sense that's preceded the picture out of the way. And also, I don't think it is necessary that film end in a big piece of violence. I think that the relationship between the taxi driver and that girl could've been explored in a positive sense that would've been very exciting.

EBERT: Well, I didn't look away from the screen and I think that really what you're asking is that Scorsese had made a different movie than the one he made. In any event, not all the films in Chicago right now are violent, and there's one...

GROSS: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel from one of their very early TV shows together. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Ebert and Siskel in 1996 onstage in Chicago. I asked them if they ever changed their minds about a film after seeing it a second time. Ebert speaks first.

EBERT: Basically, we see the movie once and we write the review before the movie opens. And the review is the response to having seen the film once. Some movies, even good movies, should only be seen once, or at least at long intervals, because they're not - for example, "Jaws." Great movie. You see it once, you know when the shark is going to jump, right?

It plays differently when you know when the shark is going to jump. You know, as anybody knows who had to sit through an audience with a helpful-type person behind them, well, the shark is about to bite. You know, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Save my money. And oftentimes, when you go back - here's the thing that happens to me. I will see a bad movie or what I think is a bad movie. And now I've been a film critic long enough. When I reviewed "Bonnie and Clyde" - "Bonnie and Clyde" is now older than "Casablanca" was when I reviewed "Bonnie and Clyde."

So I've been a movie critic since 1967. I will go back now and see a movie that wasn't very good then and isn't very good now but has become more interesting in the intervening 20 or 25 years simply because of the time that has passed. It is now a time capsule. It has intrinsically interesting information in it that I couldn't see at the time because when I saw it, it was now.

GROSS: Right.

EBERT: Some of the early motorcycle pictures like "Hell's Angels on Wheels," for example, worth seeing now because it encapsulates an attitude of the late '60s. I read an article today that really brought that back. Jane Fonda. Now there's - Spy magazine, they had great moments in Oscar history. Jane Fonda was being interviewed by a room full of journalists in her home the year that she - in 1969 she was nominated for an Academy Award.

And she pulled out a joint and said, You mind if I turn on? And all of the journalists said, Oh no, go right ahead. And then she was puffing her marijuana cigarette, and her dad came home, and she ran around the room waving her arms.

This made it into a Rex Reed interview. And I thought, you know, I can remember - the same year I was interviewing Robert Mitchum, and he was smoking marijuana at the - '69. Now, if it happened now, it would be astonishing, but the late '60s were a particular season in our lives, and so movies can get better even though they aren't any better, simply because they evoke associations that we didn't see the first time around.

GROSS: We'll hear more of my interview with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert. He died yesterday at the age of 70. Let's get back to the interview I recorded in 1996 with Ebert and his former rival critic and TV co-host, the late Gene Siskel.

GROSS: You both have done profiles of actors in addition to reviewing movies. You write feature stories. My experience is that sometimes actors are very temperamental and that if you're not asking them questions that will help them promote their film, if you go what publicists like to call off-topic, that they'll sometimes get very temperamental and even walk out.

EBERT: It didn't use to be that way. I mean the key word in your observation is publicist. When I started, you kind of hung out with the stars. I mean Gene and I remember a day when John Wayne came to town...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

EBERT: ...to see his friend Step'n Fetchit, who was dying in University of Chicago Hospital. And he called up the movie critics and said: Come on over here to the Conrad Hilton and we'll drink some tequila and talk.

And we, the four movie critics at that time, turned up, you know, with our tongues hanging out, delighted to just sit around and talk with the Duke for a while. Well, these days, of course, with spin control, you'd have somebody feeding him his soundbites, you know.

And I've done many interviews in the past where you really got to spend time with a person in an unstructured environment, maybe in an environment where they didn't always look their best. As, for example, the day I spent with Lee Marvin when he was dead drunk. And yet it was a very good story. He liked it. He talked to me again many times later in his career. He thought it was a good story about that day.

These days the publicists only want to present the soundbite opportunity, and the sad thing is, the lessons they've learned in promoting movies are now being used in promoting politicians and we are getting the same spin control on politicians that we get on movie stars.

GROSS: Did you have any publicists from Lee Marvin's movie call you up and say please don't mention that he was drunk, please don't quote certain things that he's saying?

EBERT: Please don't mention that the dog came out of his bedroom with a pair of panties in its mouth and his girlfriend said, Whose are those panties? And Lee Marvin said, Michelle, those are your panties. And she said, Those are not my panties. And Marvin said, Bad dog.

GROSS: Did anyone ask you not to quote that?

EBERT: That's right in the story, it's in there.

GROSS: Any repercussions?

The publicist was there the whole time. He was going out to get more beer.

Well, I bet you've learned interesting things about what it means to be a celebrity in America, through the own recognition you've achieved as film critics.

EBERT: A long time ago I interviewed Michael Caine. He came to America to make a movie called "Hurry Sundown" with Otto Preminger, after having become a success in "Alfie" and "The Ipcress File." And I said, What does it feel like to be a movie star? And he said, You can't go into a dirty bookstore anymore.

He said, I tried it. He says, In England we don't have the kind of pornography you have over here, but I'd heard about the stores in Times Square. And so I looked in through the window of one of them; I was curious. You remember, Michael Caine at this time was in his 20s, young man, first trip to America.

GROSS: Yeah.

EBERT: I looked in through the window with my trained actor's eye - I wish I could do his Cockney accent. With my trained actor's eye, I quickly realized that there is no eye contact in a porno store. Everybody looks as tunnel vision, nobody looks at anybody else, and I realized - he says, and this is a way - an actor would notice this.

And I congratulated myself. I said, Michael, you can walk right in there because nobody will look at you. So I walked right in. But he said, Unfortunately there was a gent on an elevated stool with a microphone whose job it was to say, OK, gents, this isn't the library, make your purchases. And he got on his microphone and said, Look who we have on the rubber wear section - Michael Caine.

And to a degree, that's, when he told me that I was not on television. I didn't realize that's what happens. You can't flip the bird to anybody in traffic. You always have to be nice to people on the elevator, because they know who you are and they're going to tell everyone - everyone - if you were not nice. And whatever you do, it's going to get back to you or...

SISKEL: Enlarged.

Enlarged. Yeah.

GROSS: Now, has that affected the way you interview movie stars, because you've experienced, to some extent...

EBERT: Well, I'll tell you what has affected me more, and I've thought about that, because the first big star I interviewed was John Wayne and I was completely intimidated.

EBERT: It was during the filming of the "The Green Berets" and there was an overhead shot that was being set up so nobody out of uniform could be visible on this airfield. So they told him on a walkie-talkie that the interviewer was there, and he came walking in full battle fatigues with a helmet and a rifle and a side arm and a radio and a canteen and grenades and a backpack and boots and knives and, you know, bayonets, walking toward me for about a quarter of a mile.

And I couldn't move. I had to wait in the shade. He got up to me, he stuck out a hand and he said, John Wayne. And I said, I know.

And later, as I began to interview people of comparable stature, who were younger, such as Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, I realized a funny thing. For all of us, movie stars are the people who were stars when we were growing up. If they're your age or younger, they're just people.

GROSS: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel recorded onstage in Chicago in 1996. Ebert died yesterday at the age of 70. Like so many of his admirers, I'm grateful for his love of films and for the way he spread the word about them, trying to make sure that even obscure films, if they were good, had a life.

We'll close with the theme of one of his favorite films, "The Third Man." He actually used this as the theme of his final TV series, "Ebert Presents At the Movies."

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "THE THIRD MAN" THEME)

GROSS: You can download podcasts of our show on our website, freshair.npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

More Fresh Air

Fresh air weekend: a former nun's 'cloistered' life; a foster parent's heartache, an american reporter offers a first-hand account of japan's toughest crime bosses.

by Dave Davies

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• Roger Ebert

Highest Rated: 98% Life Itself (2014)

Lowest Rated: 76% Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

Birthday: Jun 18, 1942

Birthplace: Urbana, Illinois, USA

America's most influential and widely recognized film critic, Roger Ebert transported the movie review from the back of the newspaper into the living room, making film criticism a component of modern social intercourse for the masses. Hailing from central Illinois, he parlayed a love for film and journalism into a career as a staff critic at The Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s, a position he would maintain throughout his illustrious career. Adding to his growing reputation was a screenplay for the Russ Meyer exploitation classic "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970), a Pulitzer Prize in 1975, and a little movie review show on local Chicago television alongside competing film critic Gene Siskel of The Chicago Tribune. That program would soon morph into the nationally syndicated "Siskel & Ebert" (1986-1999) on which Ebert and his apparent arch-nemesis influenced cinematic tastes as they bickered and bantered, ultimately giving movies their iconic votes of "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." Although devastated by Siskel's death from a brain tumor in 1999, Ebert soldiered on with new review partners on further iterations of the show until a debilitating battle with cancer that began in 2002 eventually led to the reviewer's departure from television. Though physically impaired, Ebert continued his criticism in the paper and online with renewed vigor, proving that while the disease had robbed him of his voice, his incisive wit and intelligence remained intact. He continued his ongoing fight with cancer until his death at age 70 in April of 2013.

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• 'The Hurt Locker' and America's Fading Memory of the Iraq War

In 2009, director Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" -- an Iraq War action thriller following the deployment of a U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal unit under an increasingly erratic new team leader -- hit theaters to critical fanfare. Legendary film critic Roger Ebert called it "the second-best film of the decade" (behind "Synecdoche, New York"), while New York Times critic A.O. Scott dubbed it "the best non-documentary American feature made yet about the war in Iraq." Academy Awards voters agreed: The film would go on to win Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, among other awards.

The only problem was that veterans of the Iraq War hated it. Despite the fact that screenwriter Mark Boal had embedded for two weeks with EOD units in Iraq in 2004, the consensus among veterans was that "The Hurt Locker" distorted the war and the stories of U.S. service members who fought it, in favor of making a dramatic action movie. They called the plot " nonsensical " and the way its soldiers operate " absurd ." One real-life EOD soldier who deployed to Iraq declared the portrayal of his occupation " grossly exaggerated and not appropriate ."

That a film beloved by the broader American culture might feel so removed from the reality of the war it sought to chronicle might feel vexing. But 15 years after "The Hurt Locker's" release, its reception is very much an apt analogy for how Americans remember the Iraq War. Or more to the point: that they don't really remember the war at all.

Part of the disconnect is a matter of demographics: There just aren't that many veterans in relation to the greater population, one largely untouched by America's ongoing conflicts. Less than one-half of 1% of Americans currently serve in the military, a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2003 , when the Iraq War began. Over the course of that war, only 1.5 million would deploy to Iraq.

These numbers highlight the gulf between those who actually experienced the war and those who will only know it from the perception of popular media -- and as time goes on, that gulf only grows. Indeed, a 2023 survey conducted on the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War found that roughly only 21% of Americans feel the war changed their lives, while the vast majority feel the Iraq War is largely invisible and out of mind.

Not all depictions of the Iraq War fall into the same trap as "The Hurt Locker"; in fact, television stayed faithful to the realities of the war from its earliest days. In July 2005, producer Steven Bochco ( "NYPD Blue," "Hill Street Blues") developed "Over There," a series about the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division on its first tour in Iraq. It was the first scripted television series to dramatize a contemporary ongoing conflict that involved U.S. troops. Although critics universally slammed it for being apolitical, the language and violence depicted on screen pulled no punches about the reality of the war. It was not the true-life personal story needed to connect with audiences, but it broke the ground for more.

Three years later, HBO and the minds who brought us "The Wire" released the miniseries "Generation Kill." Based on Rolling Stone writer Evan Wright's book of the same name, it followed Wright's own experience with the U.S. Marine Corps during the Invasion of Iraq in 2003. The highly lauded and often-quoted series was well-received by critics and Marines for its realistic depictions -- not just of the war, but of life as a Marine in wartime.

In 2017, another book by an embedded journalist was turned into a limited series, this time ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz's 2007 book "The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family." NatGeo shortened the title to "The Long Road Home," but the story of the 1st Cavalry Division during the April 2004 Siege of Sadr City remained intact. It made compelling television while telling a very real story about real people at war.

In contrast to its small-screen successes, Iraq War movies have proven more plentiful over time, but their faithfulness to source material oscillates widely. Films such as 2009's "Taking Chance" (based on a blog written by Marine Corps officer Michael Strobl) and 2017's "Thank You For Your Service" (based on journalist David Finkel's book of the same name) are good, because their characters are good and the hardships they face are relatable.

There are also, of course, the wild depictions that only exist to sell popcorn. The 2010 film "Green Zone" is based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's nonfiction book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," which details life in the Coalition Provisional Authority after the invasion of Iraq. The movie's plot just happened to be entirely fictional, and the war it depicted was unrealistic. By the time "Green Zone" began production, the identity of Curveball, the informant who supplied WMD intelligence to the U.S. and its allies, was already well-known . For a film trying to make a statement about weapons of mass destruction, the lie on which the war was sold, such a heavy lift would have been better served with the real story.

Historical and military accuracy doesn't automatically make a good movie, as critics, audiences and even veterans will admit. The 2017 film "Sand Castle" was written by Iraq veteran Chris Roessner and based on his experiences, but it received mixed reviews at best. That same year, Army veteran Kevin Powers' book "The Yellow Birds" was turned into a film The New York Times described as " humdrum ."

For veterans, the effort made in a faithful retelling is an acknowledgment of their service and sacrifices, an effort that goes beyond a verbal "thank you for your service." It's important because movies and TV shows will, eventually, become this country's enduring cultural memory of its most important events.

At the end of the day, people connect with what they know from their own experiences. The most successful and true-to-life stories about the war in Iraq come from personal stories, related by individuals or small units. These kinds of stories either come from veterans themselves, journalists who embedded with troops or from thoughtful producers who carefully adapt those stories for the screen. Audiences may not relate to the life of U.S. troops at war, but they can relate to more universal themes such as friendship, love and family (either at work or at home).

"The Hurt Locker" became (and endures as) a target of veterans' ire, because it's arguably the most popular and memorable movie set in the Iraq War, and it isn't a bad action movie -- so long as the audience doesn't know everything the characters are doing is wrong. There is no "Platoon" for the Iraq War veteran experience, and Quentin Tarantino has yet to write an alt-history of the war where America finds WMDs and successfully installs democracy, but there are stories worthy of a faithful retelling.

Perhaps most importantly, there is no Gettysburg Address to remind American veterans that the world will never forget what they did in Iraq. Instead, they have movies such as "The Hurt Locker," a shiny trophy the world will little note, nor long remember. For veterans of the conflict, the film and its mainstream success is a constant reminder that most Americans didn't fully understand the reality of their war, if they ever knew it at all.

Film and television are art forms that shine a light on our collective memory. Since audiences have no personal connections to Iraq or its veterans, they're left with a hole filled by Hollywood's most popular popcorn movies -- and "The Hurt Locker" leaves only a distorted, exaggerated image of the war and those who fought it.

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Roger ebert in review: a 'fresh air' survey.

Fresh Air remembers the film critic and bon vivant Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, with a roundup of interviews from our archive -- one with Ebert alone, one with him and his late partner Gene Siskel, and two in which Ebert interviews iconic directors. Plus, critic-at-large John Powers discusses Ebert's 2011 memoir Life Itself.

• Gene Siskel
• Terry Gross

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April 5, 2013

Guests: Roger Ebert - Roger Ebert & Gene Siskel - Roger Ebert & Martin Scorsese - Roger Ebert & Francis Ford Coppola

TERRY GROSS, HOST:This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today, we remember film critic Roger Ebert.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SNEAK PREVIEWS")

GROSS: That's how Roger Ebert and his rival Chicago film critic the late Gene Siskel used to introduce each other on their PBS program "Sneak Previews," the show that made them famous in the late '70s. Ebert died yesterday at the age of 70, just a few days after blogging that a painful fracture that had made it difficult to walk was diagnosed as cancer.

We're going to listen back to an interview with Ebert, as well as an interview with Ebert and Siskel. And we'll hear excerpts of onstage interviews Ebert conducted with Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola about two of Ebert's favorite films, "Raging Bull" and "Apocalypse Now." Our critic-at-large John Powers says that Ebert will be remembered for his enthusiasm, his openness, his generosity to filmmakers and to his fellow critics, and for his canny knack of taking his work into new media.

We're going to start with a piece John recorded about Ebert in September 2011, after the publication of Ebert's memoir "Life Itself."

This pleasure comes through in his new memoir, "Life Itself." Perhaps goaded into existence by the cancer that has assailed him in recent years, it tells the life story of the man with the most famous thumb in America, pausing along the way to offer the author's views on everything from the glories of black-and-white cinematography to the existence of God to the comedy of being fat.

His career took off quickly - he'd won the Pulitzer Prize by age 33 - and he began accumulating a vast storehouse of anecdotes. He gives career advice to the young Oprah Winfrey, hangs out with the old Robert Mitchum, and scripts the movie "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" for skinflick meister Russ Meyer, whose own account of their collaboration makes you suspect that Ebert is giving us the PG version.

Still, he would have remained a minor local celebrity had it not been for the 1975 creation of the movie review show "Sneak Previews," with fellow Chicago critic Gene Siskel, a competitive man of burning ambition, whom Ebert portrays with surprising generosity.

The show wasn't Ebert's idea, but it changed him and our culture, not always for the best. The trademark feature of "Sneak Previews" was that moment when Ebert and Siskel gave movies thumbs up or thumbs down, a hugely influential shtick that reduced film criticism to a simple-minded consumer guide in which ideas barely matter.

Yet while I know scads of critics who dislike that show, I'm not sure I know any who dislike or blame Ebert. They think that's just Roger. And Roger has never been one of those critics you read for his analysis. He's a critic you read for his openness and enthusiasm. Because of that enthusiasm, you might almost say that he's the original fanboy: breezy, personal, ready to share.

This may help explain why, after cancer forced him from his TV show, he reinvented himself as a hugely successful blogger, weighing in on everything from movies to politics to what he sees as the ruination of his newspaper by idiots. It's probably the best writing he's ever done.

And it's all the more impressive because life dealt him a hard blow with a disease that keeps him from eating, drinking or talking, three things he obviously loved. But rather than sinking into a funk or hiding away, he's gone on with his life, and one of the many admirable features of his new book is its sunniness. It's wholly free from the complaining and self-pity so popular in memoirs these days.

That's just what you'd hope for from a guy who was raised, and thrived, in the very heart of the American century. Ebert is anything but provincial. "Life Itself" begins with a reference to Ingmar Bergman's film "Persona," and ends by quoting Tintin's dog, Milou.

But reading this book, I was struck by how deeply he's inscribed with our national character; the decency and good humor and happy acceptance of other cultures, the recognition that the world has murky depths he'd just as soon not dwell on, above all, the eagerness to engage with life. You see, unlike a lot of film critics, Roger Ebert knows that there's more to living than just sitting in the dark.

GROSS: That was our critic-at-large John Powers, recorded in 2011, after the publication of Roger Ebert's memoir "Life Itself." I had the pleasure of interviewing Ebert several times. Here's an excerpt of the interview we recorded in 1984, when he and Gene Siskel were co-hosting their syndicated movie review program "At the Movies."

EBERT: There could be worse fates. Gene Siskel is intelligent. He's well-informed. He's a good film critic, and I respect him. And when we are doing our discussions on the air, we do them ad-lib, unrehearsed, spontaneous and first draft, for the most part, unless some terrible mistake takes place.

And I'm glad to be able to have him sitting across the aisle from me, because I get a lot of feedback, and we can talk well together. I think I would feel bad if I had to do the show with somebody who didn't seem to be listening to what I said and wasn't responding to me, but was just simply waiting for me to shut up so that he could start.

EBERT: No. Like a lot of people who started to read in the late '50s, I wanted to be a novelist. I mean, the heroes when I was going to school may have been film directors like Antonioni and Fellini, but they were also novelists like Philip Roth. Katherine Anne Porter just had a new book out at that time.

And Kerouac, "On the Road," books like that. And when I was 15-and-a-half, I started writing sports for the News Gazette in Champaign-Urbana. A sports columnist in Philadelphia, a man named Bill Lyon, also worked on the News Gazette at the same time. I covered Urbana. He covered Champaign. He was into Thomas Wolfe, too.

And we would work all night on our stories. We're covering some high school football game, but the lead would have to be perfect. Every word would have to be filled with a passion. You know, Thomas Wolfe covers the Urbana Tigers and the Champaign Maroons. And during the game every year when Champaign played Urbana, you know, it was like Dante was covering it, especially if you lost.

EBERT: I think I had a real good relationship with my parents about the movies. I went to a lot of movies. And then there comes the time in everybody's life when you just go to the movies that you feel like going to. That first time your parents drop you off at the multiplex so you can see "Oh Heavenly Dog" starring Benji, and you sneak in to see "Saturday Night Fever" instead, that's one of the initiation processes into adulthood.

EBERT: That happened to me as I was in the last years of high school and the first years of college. There were art theaters in Champaign-Urbana, and also the university had a film society. And I started going to the angry young men films like "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" in which, frankly, you know, as a high school kid in Urbana, I had very little in common with this borstal boy played by Tom Courtenay, but to me, you know, that movie was my story. It's the "Bonnie and Clyde" line, you know, where Clyde says: You know what you did? You told my story.

I went to see "La Dolce Vita" by Fellini, and that movie has been a touchstone for me, because when I saw it in 1960, there was this 30-year-old journalist in Rome leading this unbelievably glamorous life with all these celebrities and staying up all night and going to orgies and having all of his philosophical friends around him and his wives and his mistresses and miracles and stories to cover.

When I saw it again - and I've seen it every 10 years - in 1970, it was somebody about my age, only he was leading a more interesting life than I was, I thought. And when I saw it again in 1980, it was somebody 10 years younger than I was, and he had a lot of problems that I had outgrown.

GROSS: You've interviewed a lot of stars in the years that you've been writing about movies. Do they ever make ridiculous demands of you about what they will or won't do, what they won't talk about? And if that happens, how do you handle it?

EBERT: In general, no, they don't. In the book, there's an interview with Jerry Lewis at the Cannes Film Festival. He got out a tape recorder. He tape-recorded it, apparently out of paranoia. What I am astounded by is the number of occasions where totally unexpected and startling things happen that the star does nothing at all to conceal.

EBERT: That there's always been an interviewer there. I mean, Robert Mitchum has been a movie actor for 40 years. If I'm sitting in the back seat of his car, is he going to be thinking oh, my God, the press is here? No, the press has always been there. You know, 20 years ago it was Rex Reed. Forty years ago, it was Louella Parsons. You know, in a way, the press has always been in Robert Mitchum's back seat, and so if you can adopt the fly-on-the-wall approach of just kind of quietly sitting there and observing everything that's going on, you are going to see somebody who is not especially monitoring his behavior.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert, who died yesterday at the age of 70. Ebert first became famous for hosting a weekly TV series in which he and rival film critic Gene Siskel reviewed new films. They remained TV partners until Siskel's death in 1999 of brain cancer.

EBERT: I had originally picked a different scene. I picked the scene with Orson Welles being discovered by the cat in the doorway in "The Third Man." And then my esteemed colleague here pointed out that that scene doesn't have any dialogue in it, and so it probably wouldn't play very well on the radio.

EBERT: And I thought a little harder, and I thought of my favorite passage of dialogue in the movies, and it's from "Citizen Kane," but I don't want to tell you what it is. It's from "Citizen Kane." It's Mr. Bernstein, who is a person who has been - who began with Charles Foster Kane. He was there before, as he says earlier in this same scene: I was there before the beginning, and now I'm here after the end. And this is the speech that I like so much.

GROSS: OK, let's watch it.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "CITIZEN KANE")

EVERETT SLOANE: (as Mr. Bernstein) Who's a busy man? Me? I'm chairman of the board. I've got nothing but time. What do you want to know?

ALLAND: (as Thompson) It's hardly likely, Mr. Bernstein, that Mr. Kane could have met some girl casually, and then 50 years later on this death bed, remember.

SLOANE: (as Bernstein) Well, you're pretty young, Mr. Thompson. A fellow would remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in. And on it, there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress, she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all. But I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl.

EBERT: Well, I saw the movie for the first time in 1958, and there hasn't been a month go by since then...

EBERT: ...that I haven't thought about that dialogue, because in one little speech in a popular Hollywood film written by Herman Mankiewicz, you have the mystery of memory and of longing and of the fact that we are all, to some degree, alone and trying to reach out to somebody else.

And then you have time. You're a young man, Mr. Thompson, he says. And the more I think about that, if you - the more you think about that speech, the more it's about the human condition. It's about the whole thing.

GROSS: I'd like to go through some firsts, like do a little, like, film biography of each of you. So let's move through these quickly. The first film you actually remember seeing in a movie theater.

SISKEL: Well, it would probably a Disney picture. And the one that stands out for me for the emotional impact was "Dumbo," specifically the sequence where Mrs. Jumbo is chained up. It's a beautiful sequence. The laughter is misplaced.

SISKEL: It's a laughter on the title, but it's one of the most beautiful, powerful sequences in the movies, and that is of course when Mrs. Jumbo is - we're talking about separation between child and mother.

And the - she sings. She later will sing with her trunk woven in through the bars, one of the most beautiful lullabies, "Baby Mine." And clearly, every child fears - and the Disney animated features always play on it - parental loss. And that was a very powerful thing for me growing up.

EBERT: My father took me to see the Marx Brothers in "A Day at the Races." He loved the Marx Brothers. He had seen the Marx Brothers on stage in Champaign-Urbana when he was a young man in vaudeville.

EBERT: No, to me, the scene that I liked the very best - I was really scared when Groucho got on the horse. I was afraid he would fall off and get hurt. But the scene I remember the best is Harpo looking at me while he played the harp. He was looking straight out of the screen. He nodded at the camera. And I thought he saw me. And he was saying, look, I'm playing the harp. And I didn't know what a harp was. I'd never seen one before. And I was entranced.

SISKEL: I think I answered that question. Particularly, I will say when Timothy J. - when Dumbo's up there, and, you know, can he fly or not? Now, here, you're talking about a childhood fantasy. I mean, obviously it's a fantasy for everyone, flying, but unassisted - but he could die. He could be - certainly, he could be humiliated. And, again, this is a thing that a child would relate to.

EBERT: When I was 10, I saw "The Thing," the Howard Hawks picture. It scared me cold. I was terrified during the movie and for days afterwards. But...

EBERT: The moment when they form hands in a circle in the ice, and then you get the overhead shot, and you see that there's a ship underneath the ice. Everything in that movie terrified me. You know, among modern pictures, the first "Halloween" was a very scary picture.

SISKEL: I took a cab - absolutely true, absolutely true. (unintelligible), and I was living at 1400 North State, and I - it's a little more than two blocks, but about four. And I will tell you I took a taxi home. And when I got in - and we've all done this after scary movies, I hope - I went to the shower and pulled the curtain back.

SISKEL: I was about 30 at the time. That sounds normal, doesn't it?

EBERT: "The Last Wave." It was a French film.

EBERT: No, no, that's a different "Last Wave."

And I remember "The Last Wave." That the Aborigines. No, this was 1967, and my review was: Ah, yes, here it is, the French New Wave rolling ashore once again. You see, my first review, and I was already blase.

SISKEL: My first review was of Walt Disney's "Rascal"...

SISKEL: ...starring Billy Mumy. He was the child actor in "Lost in Space." It was about a pet raccoon. And I really had to deal with the issue very quickly of hating that picture and being bold enough to say, off the gun, you know, you're sort of knocking mom and apple pie. And I went right at it.

GROSS: You didn't think: I'm hurting people's career, people worked really hard on this movie, they're probably decent human beings? This represents...

GROSS: ...this is a heartfelt effort, even though the product isn't very good?

EBERT: You have to realize you're not writing for the filmmakers. You're writing for the potential film audience. And I would much rather hurt somebody's feelings who made the picture than send somebody to see a movie and spend two hours of their life seeing a movie that I don't think is worth seeing.

GROSS: Roger Ebert with Gene Siskel in 1996. Ebert died yesterday. Our remembrance continues in the second half of the show. I'm Terry Gross. This is FRESH AIR, and this is NPR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today we're remembering film critic Roger Ebert. He died yesterday at the age of 70, just a few days after blogging that a painful fracture that had made it difficult to walk was diagnosed as cancer.

We're going to listen back to an excerpt of the interview Ebert conducted with one of his favorite film directors, Francis Ford Coppola, about one of his famous favorite films, "Apocalypse Now." The interview was recorded at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001, after the screening of the re-edited and restored version of this classic film, which is set during the Vietnam War.

Let's start with a clip. Marlon Brando, who plays the renegade Colonel Kurtz, is recalling an atrocity at a village. After American soldiers inoculated the village children with a polio vaccine, the Viet Cong arrived and hacked off the children's arms.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")

MARLON BRANDO: (as Colonel Kurtz) There they were in a pile - a pile of little arms. And I remember, I, I, I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized, like I was shot, like I was shot with a diamond - a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God, the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres, these men who fought with their hearts, who have families, who have children, who are filled with love, but they had the strength, the strength, to do that.

EBERT: At the time we saw it here, and I saw it in the old Palais, and I think it was my greatest film-going experience at Cannes because I had spine-tingling, I mean literally, I mean not figuratively but real tingles. At the time we were so filled with stories about the production. All the lore about Brando, for example. Now, seeing it again, after 22 years, all that's forgotten, it's all water under the bridge. Brando's performance seems to so strong to me and so - just in the right note and just handled right by you. And all the gossip about, you know, how much he weighed or, you know, every time Brando does anything there are a million stories from the set, had all just faded away leaving this pure and great performance. How did you feel seeing it again? Because you had to work with Brando and deal with them and so forth.

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA: Well, you know, he's an extraordinary man. And beyond as - the roles of films that we know, just what he talks about and the way his mind thinks, it's true. I could tell you so many stories. I don't want to overstay my welcome, but the truth of the matter is Marlon is like a kid and he's very lazy and he doesn't like to work, and he also gets embarrassed and he gets stage fright. So when he arrived, you know, he was very big and I immediate - you know, in film you always have problems and part of your job as a director is to see how you can make the problem be an advantage. So I immediately suggested, well, Marlon, why don't you play it as this is big fat guy and have one arm around a beautiful girl and another with a mango that you're eating and show him as a man who has surrendered to the jungle and to the lusts of life. But Marlon is very shy about his weight. He says, no, no, no, I can't do that. I don't want to be like fat and stuff. I said OK.

Well, I - I couldn't have him be as it was written, a kind of a Green Beret colonel in uniform because, you know, where would he have gotten the uniform that could fit him, you know? So the idea I had - in movies, you know, very often you're looking at the actor from the waist up. And in a movie if you're broad, if you have big shoulders, you know, even like Roger, if you're broad, that in your mind, you assume him to be a big man, a giant - not necessarily heavy. So I thought if I shot him from - in that attitude and then when I showed him full, had a double who was like six foot six, it would make Kurtz be like a giant man rather than like me, you know? So that was the philosophy I took as a solution. The second issue was that Marlon, I wanted it to be like the character Kurtz in the book, and Marlon immediately said that would never work.

You know, so finally I started getting, you know, well, why wouldn't it work and, you know, blah, blah, blah. One day, the fifth day, I come in and I'm astonished. There he is and he's cut off all his hair, which is the image of Kurtz from the book. And I said Marlon, what happened? I said you're going to do it like Kurtz. He says, yeah, I think doing it like Kurtz is the best way. I said but you told me that wouldn't work. You said you read the book and it would never work. He says, well, I didn't read the book. I said but you told me you did. He said, well, I lied.

So, so that's like what it is to work with Marlon. But - but his instincts are so great that - and many of our talks led to opinions and ideas and he evolved what he needed in order to do that performance, and he should be commended...

EBERT: It's just right because when you get to this legendary character in "The Heart of Darkness," you really don't want to just have him standing there like a person who exists as in the same dimension as the other people in the film. He has to emerge out of some other kind of idea, I think.

COPPOLA: Well, he also knew - Marlon even said to me - that I, he says you've painted yourself into a corner, haven't you? And what he meant was that as I made the film going up the river, I was making it more surreal, you know, with the colored smoke and the style it had. And by making it more surreal, a normal "Guns of Navarone" ending wouldn't have worked anymore, so I had painted myself into a corner and I didn't know how to get out. And he knew that I had done that and I think in a, you know, he likes to kid around and stuff or he's a big practical joker, but I think that early process of trying to find the ending was his working really at it.

GROSS: Roger Ebert interviewing Francis Ford Coppola at the Cannes Film Festival in 2001. We'll hear an excerpt of Ebert interviewing Martin Scorsese after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert, who died yesterday. One of Ebert's top 10 films was "Raging Bull," directed by Martin Scorsese. In 1997, Ebert interviewed Scorsese about that film at the Wexner Center for the Arts on the campus of Ohio State University.

EBERT: "Raging Bull" came out in '80 and it is a great film. It is a film that will live as long as films are seen.

EBERT: What I feel so strongly in talking to people about movies, frequently people will - they know I'm a movie critic - they will discuss the subject matter as if that is what the film is about. Oh, it's a film about boxing.

EBERT: Or, oh, it's a film about gangsters.

EBERT: Or whatever. You know, like when they hear what "Breaking the Waves" is about. Oh, I don't know if I want to see it. A film is not about its subject. It's about how its about its subject.

EBERT: A subject is neutral. People don't understand that. When people say, whenever anybody makes a statement, I don't like to go to movies about and then fill in the blank...

It's true. It's true.

EBERT: I don't want to go to bad films about cowboys.

EBERT: I don't want to go to bad films about boxers.

SCORSESE: Yeah. I mean when Bob gave me the book originally, it's back in 1974, I never had saw - I never saw a fight scene, I never saw a fight. My father was a big fight fan. But I never, I didn't know anything about boxing and I wasn't interested in films about boxing, you know. But it took those years to - for me to go my own way, to come back to understanding really what it was about.

EBERT: It wasn't - it was about a boxer but it wasn't about boxing.

EBERT: Could you set this up just a little bit by talking about two things? Number one, what people don't always - they observe viscerally but not necessarily intellectually - how much technique went into the boxing sequences, in terms of slow motion and lenses and movement of camera.

SCORSESE: Well, what happened with the boxing sequences, once I saw De Niro perform the nine fights - they had - Jake LaMotta and Jimmy Nickerson worked out blocking for nine fight scenes. And he showed them to me in Gleason's Gym on 14th Street, and I sat there, I was stunned. In fact, he came over to me. He says, are you watching? Because I'm killing myself. I said, yeah, I am.

And I realized, I said, oh boy, I said - because he didn't know. He thought it - he thought I was like, you know, hanging around not watching. I'm watching, I'm watching, I realized you can't shoot this. You can't shoot this from my angle. I said we have to be in there with him and its got to be "The Wild Bunch." It's got to be - every punch has to be worked out in such a way, well, let's say not every punch, but you have to do it like music. You have to do it like I did some of the musical sequences in "New York, New York," where three bars of music was one shot, literally. Not four cameras and then you cut it together in the editing room. That's selecting, not directing. It's a different thing, you know?

But directing is, you know, these four punches, one, two, three, four, camera tracks from left to right, swings around, over the shoulder of the guy who is getting hit, and we see a close-up of LaMotta hitting him. And it's got to be a arc, shoom, like this, and as fast as the punches.

And the most important thing was that the camera never, as much as possible, never goes outside the ring - that you're always in the ring with him. Your sensibility is taken on by - his vision becomes your sensibility. In other words, what he perceives in the ring, sometimes I open the ring up. We had a ring that I built special where I made it longer and sometimes wider and it was like, it was like being - imagine being punched in the head, what you hear and what you perceive. You don't know where you are.

SCORSESE: Animal noises and that sort of thing. Frank Warner did that. He wouldn't tell us after a while what he was using. He said, I'm not going to tell anybody, you know. Whatever it is, it's great - that sort of thing.

But it did take, we had planned five and a half weeks of shooting for it, it did take 10 weeks. And it was very specific. And De Niro would have on the side of the camera a very big punching bag, one of those cylinder ones, it looks like a cylinder, and he - when we were ready to yell, when we were ready to go for a roll, we'd have the slate ready, you know, and start rolling and you'd hear off camera, punching the bag, punching the bag, and then he'd jump into frame sweating, you know, and then the slate.

SCORSESE: So he came in already heated, bang, ready to go. It wasn't like, you know, we're wasting any footage. But the physical stamina it took him to sustain 10 weeks of that was amazing and - because he believed in the shots I wanted to get. But what you see here is the final, the final battle in a way, and the punishment he takes, especially the montage, when he gets beaten up by Sugar Ray, is based in a way - the drawings I made were based on the shower scene from "Psycho."

And I shot it in that way, there were 39 shots, and it took 10 days just to shoot those shots, because there were applications and all kinds of makeup problems, and just to get the angle right it was like 10 days. And there's even a shot in there Sam Fuller told me about - he said put the camera in the lens - put the lens in somebody's hand and just swing this way - you'll see it. We even put the camera on the boxing glove and the glove is in the foreground; it comes flying at him this way. It's all in there for maybe like five frames, six frames, you know.

EBERT: Let's look.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "RAGING BULL")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (as Ring Announcer) He has LaMotta on (unintelligible) he's holding on. Well, certainly that was one of the most damaging evidences of punching that you have seen in recent years.

Coming up, we have more of my interview with Ebert and Gene Siskel. Here's a clip from the first TV series they hosted together, a local Chicago program called "Opening Soon At A Theater Near You." And here's an excerpt of their review of Scorsese's 1976 film "Taxi Driver." It starts with Siskel speaking.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "OPENING SOON AT A THEATER NEAR YOU")

SISKEL: I've got a love-hate affair with the whole picture. I love a couple of the performances and the lurid photography of New York at night and that throbbing background music is pretty good too. But I hated the last third of the movie. The violence is so strong I ended up looking away from the film in more ways than one. Not only didn't I see some of the bloodletting. I began not to see the sense of the picture either. Roger?

EBERT: Well, Gene, that's where you and I disagree because it seems to me that what Scorsese is doing is looking not so much at the violence in the city as in the violence that's bottled up inside this person. And it's the kind of violence that we've seen in America in assassins and snipers and so forth. I think it's a very good character portrait - at the end, in particular, where he uses slow motion in order to make the violence really seem particular and drawn out and obsessive.

I think it's a very good movie and I think that like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" the violence at the end is necessary in order to provide a conclusion to all of this pressure that's been building up all during the film.

SISKEL: I think that sounds good in theory, Roger, but when you end up looking away from the screen because a guy's getting fingers on his hands shot off, somebody else catches a bullet in the neck, and there's blood scattered all over the wall like some kind of modernistic painting, I think that the director is making his film, in a sense, bottom-heavy and blowing the sense that's preceded the picture out of the way. And also, I don't think it is necessary that film end in a big piece of violence. I think that the relationship between the taxi driver and that girl could've been explored in a positive sense that would've been very exciting.

EBERT: Well, I didn't look away from the screen and I think that really what you're asking is that Scorsese had made a different movie than the one he made. In any event, not all the films in Chicago right now are violent, and there's one...

GROSS: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel from one of their very early TV shows together. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Ebert and Siskel in 1996 onstage in Chicago. I asked them if they ever changed their minds about a film after seeing it a second time. Ebert speaks first.

EBERT: Basically, we see the movie once and we write the review before the movie opens. And the review is the response to having seen the film once. Some movies, even good movies, should only be seen once, or at least at long intervals, because they're not - for example, "Jaws." Great movie. You see it once, you know when the shark is going to jump, right?

Thank you. Thank you very much. Save my money. And oftentimes, when you go back - here's the thing that happens to me. I will see a bad movie or what I think is a bad movie. And now I've been a film critic long enough. When I reviewed "Bonnie and Clyde" - "Bonnie and Clyde" is now older than "Casablanca" was when I reviewed "Bonnie and Clyde."

So I've been a movie critic since 1967. I will go back now and see a movie that wasn't very good then and isn't very good now but has become more interesting in the intervening 20 or 25 years simply because of the time that has passed. It is now a time capsule. It has intrinsically interesting information in it that I couldn't see at the time because when I saw it, it was now.

EBERT: Some of the early motorcycle pictures like "Hell's Angels on Wheels," for example, worth seeing now because it encapsulates an attitude of the late '60s. I read an article today that really brought that back. Jane Fonda. Now there's - Spy magazine, they had great moments in Oscar history. Jane Fonda was being interviewed by a room full of journalists in her home the year that she - in 1969 she was nominated for an Academy Award.

This made it into a Rex Reed interview. And I thought, you know, I can remember - the same year I was interviewing Robert Mitchum, and he was smoking marijuana at the - '69. Now, if it happened now, it would be astonishing, but the late '60s were a particular season in our lives, and so movies can get better even though they aren't any better, simply because they evoke associations that we didn't see the first time around.

GROSS: We'll hear more of my interview with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel after we take a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering film critic Roger Ebert. He died yesterday at the age of 70. Let's get back to the interview I recorded in 1996 with Ebert and his former rival critic and TV co-host, the late Gene Siskel.

GROSS: You both have done profiles of actors in addition to reviewing movies. You write feature stories. My experience is that sometimes actors are very temperamental and that if you're not asking them questions that will help them promote their film, if you go what publicists like to call off-topic, that they'll sometimes get very temperamental and even walk out.

EBERT: It didn't use to be that way. I mean the key word in your observation is publicist. When I started, you kind of hung out with the stars. I mean Gene and I remember a day when John Wayne came to town...

EBERT: ...to see his friend Step'n Fetchit, who was dying in University of Chicago Hospital. And he called up the movie critics and said: Come on over here to the Conrad Hilton and we'll drink some tequila and talk.

And we, the four movie critics at that time, turned up, you know, with our tongues hanging out, delighted to just sit around and talk with the Duke for a while. Well, these days, of course, with spin control, you'd have somebody feeding him his soundbites, you know.

And I've done many interviews in the past where you really got to spend time with a person in an unstructured environment, maybe in an environment where they didn't always look their best. As, for example, the day I spent with Lee Marvin when he was dead drunk. And yet it was a very good story. He liked it. He talked to me again many times later in his career. He thought it was a good story about that day.

These days the publicists only want to present the soundbite opportunity, and the sad thing is, the lessons they've learned in promoting movies are now being used in promoting politicians and we are getting the same spin control on politicians that we get on movie stars.

GROSS: Did you have any publicists from Lee Marvin's movie call you up and say please don't mention that he was drunk, please don't quote certain things that he's saying?

EBERT: Please don't mention that the dog came out of his bedroom with a pair of panties in its mouth and his girlfriend said, Whose are those panties? And Lee Marvin said, Michelle, those are your panties. And she said, Those are not my panties. And Marvin said, Bad dog.

EBERT: That's right in the story, it's in there.

Well, I bet you've learned interesting things about what it means to be a celebrity in America, through the own recognition you've achieved as film critics.

EBERT: A long time ago I interviewed Michael Caine. He came to America to make a movie called "Hurry Sundown" with Otto Preminger, after having become a success in "Alfie" and "The Ipcress File." And I said, What does it feel like to be a movie star? And he said, You can't go into a dirty bookstore anymore.

He said, I tried it. He says, In England we don't have the kind of pornography you have over here, but I'd heard about the stores in Times Square. And so I looked in through the window of one of them; I was curious. You remember, Michael Caine at this time was in his 20s, young man, first trip to America.

EBERT: I looked in through the window with my trained actor's eye - I wish I could do his Cockney accent. With my trained actor's eye, I quickly realized that there is no eye contact in a porno store. Everybody looks as tunnel vision, nobody looks at anybody else, and I realized - he says, and this is a way - an actor would notice this.

And I congratulated myself. I said, Michael, you can walk right in there because nobody will look at you. So I walked right in. But he said, Unfortunately there was a gent on an elevated stool with a microphone whose job it was to say, OK, gents, this isn't the library, make your purchases. And he got on his microphone and said, Look who we have on the rubber wear section - Michael Caine.

And to a degree, that's, when he told me that I was not on television. I didn't realize that's what happens. You can't flip the bird to anybody in traffic. You always have to be nice to people on the elevator, because they know who you are and they're going to tell everyone - everyone - if you were not nice. And whatever you do, it's going to get back to you or...

GROSS: Now, has that affected the way you interview movie stars, because you've experienced, to some extent...

EBERT: Well, I'll tell you what has affected me more, and I've thought about that, because the first big star I interviewed was John Wayne and I was completely intimidated.

EBERT: It was during the filming of the "The Green Berets" and there was an overhead shot that was being set up so nobody out of uniform could be visible on this airfield. So they told him on a walkie-talkie that the interviewer was there, and he came walking in full battle fatigues with a helmet and a rifle and a side arm and a radio and a canteen and grenades and a backpack and boots and knives and, you know, bayonets, walking toward me for about a quarter of a mile.

And I couldn't move. I had to wait in the shade. He got up to me, he stuck out a hand and he said, John Wayne. And I said, I know.

And later, as I began to interview people of comparable stature, who were younger, such as Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep, I realized a funny thing. For all of us, movie stars are the people who were stars when we were growing up. If they're your age or younger, they're just people.

GROSS: Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel recorded onstage in Chicago in 1996. Ebert died yesterday at the age of 70. Like so many of his admirers, I'm grateful for his love of films and for the way he spread the word about them, trying to make sure that even obscure films, if they were good, had a life.

We'll close with the theme of one of his favorite films, "The Third Man." He actually used this as the theme of his final TV series, "Ebert Presents At the Movies."

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "THE THIRD MAN" THEME)

GROSS: You can download podcasts of our show on our website, freshair.npr.org.

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.

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Inadequacy peeks from behind the uncomfortable smiles and passive aggressive remarks that two adult men exchange in the presence of the 13-year-old boy under their care. Both of these visibly distressed would-be role models is desperate for some validation. The father, Jim ( Colin Burgess ), has driven his adolescent son Branson (played by boyish-looking adult actor Brian Fiddyment ) to a home nestled inside a forest where Dave ( Anthony Oberbeck ), the kid’s overly involved stepdad, is waiting for them. Suzie ( Clare O'Kane ), the woman that connects the male trio, is set to arrive later in the weekend.

That’s the simple but effective setup of the consistently laugh-out-loud and unexpectedly poignant microbudget deadpan comedy “Dad & Step-Dad,” from filmmaker Tynan DeLong . The feature expands on a series of short films starring these characters, played by the same actors, that DeLong created over the last few years. The concept is reminiscent of the childish feuding between the protagonists in Adam McKay ’s “ Step Brothers ” but filtered through the down-to-earth, far less in-your-face sensitivities of mumblecore filmmaking.

Amid the tranquility of nature—expressed in idyllic cutaway shots of the surrounding flora and fauna—the two guys fight over every petty opportunity to assert their superiority in the eyes of Branson, who doesn’t much care about their juvenile, but mostly restrained competitiveness. Neither David nor Jim embody the hypermasculine bro-type to get physically violent, but rather a defeated pair of dudes approaching middle age and on the verge of snapping. Under a veneer of politeness, they argue about the grill’s temperature or whose approach to playing guitar is best suited to accompany Branson’s freestyle rapping.  

The humor derives from the self-seriousness of the line delivery, always without a hint of irony, and the uneasy silence that follows some of the most outrageous sentences uttered. A conversation on masturbation, a subject where Dave and Jim’s beliefs differ radically, turns into an interrogation of both Branson’s unusual desires and the most appropriate technique for self-pleasure. As preposterously awkward as the presentation of these parental dilemmas is, the underlying commonality is that they each exemplify how the men are projecting their own sense of failure onto the boy. It’s about them and not Branson.

The not-so-inconspicuous subtext of Dave’s optimistic outlook on life and Jim’s guilt over his initially hostile demeanor push DeLong’s debut over the fence of mere parody and into the realm of storytelling with characters exhibiting recognizable inner troubles. That is to say that “Dad & Step-Dad” is the rare movie that reveals itself more intellectually and emotionally rich than it purports to be on the surface, as opposed to the other way around, which happens quite frequently. The DIY manufacturing of “Dad & Step-Dad,” where the cast wears other crew hats, never calls negative attention to itself because the story has been conceived to exist not in spite of but within a set of specific limitations: a location that’s inherently visually dynamic and a group of actors with rapport built over a long time working together that allows them to construct compelling interactions from thin air.

There’s a wounded earnestness to Oberbeck’s performance that elevates it just a little higher than those of his counterparts. It also helps that the turmoil that afflicts his character—his relationship with the level-headed Suzie is on shaky ground—lends itself to more solemn acting. The dramatic register of Burgess feels just a tad closer to sketch comedy, which creates a dissonance necessary for the humor to work. Both Oberbeck and Burgess serve as co-writers and co-editors of the film, and while DeLong isn’t interested in filling us in on what came before or after this getaway, the evenly matched back and forth between the two convinces that there are lived-in layers to this bond. We are just witnessing the turning point in their frenemy arc. That Fiddyment plays Branson, also with utter sincerity, is a choice that feels not only practical, but thematically relevant as it points out that an immature personality can live inside a grown-up body—think man-child. We don’t simply become wise and leave behind our unflattering impulses when we grow older.

As with plenty of memorable comedies, what makes “Dad & Step-Dad” a special treat is that beneath its well-mannered raunchiness and stoic silliness there’s an undercurrent of something truthful about the human condition. It’s when rivalry morphs into a sincere bromance that DeLong, Burgess, Oberbeck allow the movie to grapple with men’s vulnerability without pulling the rug from under us. “What’s it all about, man?” Jim asks Dave after a shared moment of genuine connection. There’s no answer, but what DeLong tacitly gets at is that parents are simply kids that grew up and who don’t automatically gain an infallible manual on how to navigate the unforgiving waters of everyday existence.

That doesn’t change at the end of “Dad & Step-Dad,” but now these two average father figures don’t have to go through it alone. Wherever their unconventional family goes from here, looking after Branson is a great reason for them to hang out and fend off the darkness inside one stupidly inconsequential, yet amusing act one one-upmanship at a time. 

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