Posts tagged William Nack
Life Itself “Tough and Joyous”
Jul 21st
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LIFE ITSELF is a documentary about the life and career of Roger Joseph Ebert, perhaps the most popular, famous, and successful film critic, who died April 4, 2013, at 70, and it is based on Ebert’s autobiography of the same name.
The film includes footage taken over the final four months of Ebert’s life, who died after a long battle with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands and which caused him to lose his lower jaw so that he could no longer eat, drink, or speak.
However, Ebert never lost his sense of humor, and in one scene toward the beginning of the film, Ebert is in the hospital, and he says to the director through his voice synthesizer, “Steve, I’ll do the jokes here.”
Steve is Steve James, famous for directing the 1994 HOOP DREAMS, a little film about basketball that Ebert championed when it came out, and Ebert’a support undoubtedly helped the film’s success.
The film then goes back into Ebert’s life to his boyhood in Urbana, Illinois, where he wrote, published, and delivered his own neighborhood newspaper; to his time at the University of Illinois, where he was editor of the school newspaper when President Kennedy was killed, and we see and hear about an editorial decision Ebert made because of that event; to how he got his job at the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES and shortly became the film critic; and to his teaming with his rival, Gene Siskel, on the television program that made them the two most contentious and famous film critics in the country.
We hear interviews with the producers of the various TV programs they did, and most fascinating are the outtakes from those programs, which give us even more insight in the relationship between the two critics.
Ebert was a hard drinker in his early days at the Chicago newspaper, and he paid a price in hangovers. But in August 1979 he had his last drink, saying that he couldn’t take it anymore, and when he finally admitted to the public that he was a recovering alcoholic, he hadn’t had a drink in 31 years.
He met his wife, Chaz, at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and she is featured in the film as well, along with appearances by famous directors.
LIFE ITSELF is tough to watch, but also very joyous.
Life Itself – Movie Trailer
Jul 6th
Acclaimed director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) and executive producers Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and Steven Zaillian (Moneyball) present LIFE ITSELF, a documentary film that recounts the inspiring and entertaining life of world-renowned film critic and social commentator Roger Ebert – a story that is by turns personal, funny, painful, and transcendent. Based on his bestselling memoir of the same name, LIFE ITSELF, explores the legacy of Roger Ebert’s life, from his Pulitzer Prize-winning film criticism at the Chicago Sun-Times to becoming one of the most influential cultural voices in America.
“Secretariat” Greatest Racehorse That Ever Lived
Oct 14th
“Greatest Racehorse That Ever Lived”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
SECRETARIAT is based on a real-life racehorse, a real-life person, and a real-life series of events, and even though everyone in the audience already knows the ending going in, the movie is still an uplifting and inspirational experience to see.
After all, it isn’t just little girls who love horses and who love good stories about horses, right?
The movie begins in 1969 in Denver, and we meet a housewife and her family. She is Penny Chenery, played by Diane Lane, and she receives a phone call that her mother has died.
The whole family drives to Virginia for the funeral, where we learn that Penny’s father has been ill for some time and the horse farm he owns has been losing money “hand over fist.”
Penny sends her family back home to Denver, and she stays behind to help out on the farm and try to make it solvent again.
She fires the horse trainer, because he has been cheating the farm, and she tracks down Lucien Laurin, a French Canadian who has been trying to retire and who is played wonderfully by John Malkovich.
Penny offers Lucien the job of being her horse trainer, but he turns her down, saying that he doesn’t even follow racing anymore.
However, when Penny tells him that the farm is about to acquire a newborn foal that was sired by Bold Ruler, a famous racehorse, Lucien says, “Call me when she drops her foal.”
Of course, you can guess the rest, which, as they say, is history, and in this case is actually true, although some minor details have been altered or omitted in order to make the movie tighter, more exciting, and even better.
The Triple Crown is Thoroughbred horseracing’s greatest achievement, which is unofficially awarded a horse that wins the three most prestigious races in one season, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes.
Before Secretariat did so in 1973, no horse had won the Triple Crown since Citation won it in 1948, 25 years earlier, and Secretariat still owns the best winning time in two of those races, a remarkable achievement for a horse whose sire had a reputation for speed, but not for stamina.
SECRETARIAT is a marvelous film about a horse that is still known as the greatest racehorse that ever lived.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
