Here are two video trailers, totally different from each other — one for a new movie about the peerless Tomi Ungerer, “Far Out Isn’t Far Enough,” the other for a dance inspired by Observed While Falling, a spellbinding memoir by the incomparable Malcolm Mc Neil. Many years ago Burt Britton kept a self-portrait by Ungerer […]
Death of a Mensch, Roger Ebert, R.I.P.
Rick Kogan has written a fine obituary, “A film critic with the soul of a poet,” with a beautiful lede: It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or […]
They Called Him ‘Mister Mooch’
An elegy on film for Carl Weissner … … by Signe Mähler and Cody Maher. EmailFacebookTwitterReddit
Who Is Heathcote Williams? Not for Sale, That’s Who
“He is one of a few of genius who did not sell out and who peaks in (relative) old age. That’s quite something nowadays.” — Gerard Bellaart +++ “Fame is the first disgrace because God knows who you are.” — Heathcote Williams, “The Local Stigmatic” +++ The videos comprise Parts 1 and 2 of a […]
Godfrey Reggio’s Vision of ‘Life Out of Balance’
A day in February, 1983. Godfrey Reggio is standing in front of the old Reichstag in Berlin. A tall, gaunt man with pale blue eyes and a graying beard that looks like stubble, he has just presented Koyaanisqatsi at the Berlin Film Festival. The notices have been gratifying. One critic called it “a masterpiece . […]
Paul Newman, R.I.P.
Paul Newman, who died at 83, once told me in an interview, “There’s a part of me that has always wanted to win an Oscar when I’m 83, so I could say, ‘So there!’” The interview took place in Boston, at the Meridien Hotel. Newman was 57 then and in top form, promoting “The Verdict.” […]
BUSTER KEATON REVISITED
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. “This book is merely a fan’s notes,” Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you’re […]
Books ‘n’ Stuff
My biography of the Hollywood director William Wyler, A Talent for Trouble, is available as an ebook at Amazon and an ebook on iTunes at the Apple store. Putnam published it in hardcover, and Da Capo Press published it in paperback. Several other books, include a collection of theater criticism, Second Nights (Vol.1) and (Vol. […]
My Checkered Career
I’ve been a staff writer covering arts and culture at the Los Angeles Times, a reporter and movie reviewer at The Daily News in New York, a reporter and columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, a senior editor/producer and the theater critic for MSNBC.com, and a fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. […]