Festival Passes on Sale Tomorrow for Ebertfest 2014

Ebertfest 2013

In case you wondered if there would still be an Ebertfest without Roger Ebert, the answer is a resounding yes. In fact, festival passes go on sale tomorrow, November 1, for everything to be shown at the Virginia Theatre in Champaign during the 16th annual Ebertfest from April 23 to 27, 2014. There will also be panel discussions and talks with people involved in the films, and those special events will take place at on-campus locations at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

U of I's College of Media is the official sponsor for Ebertfest, and anyone interested in helping out as a volunteer or offering a donation is asked to contact Mary Susan Britt, associate director of the festival, at 217-244-0552 or marsue@illinois.edu.

Given the fact that Roger Ebert passed away last April and is so very much much missed, tickets for this event, something that meant a great deal to him, will probably sell extremely quickly. The Ebertfest organizers will offer a total of one thousand passes for sale, with individual tickets not available until April 1.

Roger Ebert was born and raised in Urbana, and he graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Illinois. He was a sportswriter for the Champaign News-Gazette while still in high school, and he served as the editor of both his high school and college newspapers.His film criticism for the Chicago Sun-Times put him at the top of the nation's list of movie critics, and his partnership with Gene Siskel from the Chicago Tribune made TV stars and household names of both men.

Ebert was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for his work. He was awarded that prize in 1975.

Ebertfest began in 1999 as Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival, with films ranging from Tron to Shiloh and Battleship Potemkin that first year. The "overlooked" part was dropped from the name beginning in 2008, and Roger Ebert's Film Festival is now most often referred to as simply Ebertfest.

The selections for the 2014 festival will not be announced till March. Last year, you would've found films like Days of Heaven, The Ballad of Narayama, and Julia, with star Tilda Swinton offering an "Ebertfest Dance-Along."

Roger Ebert's "Life Itself" Will Be a Movie

Roger Ebert announced on Twitter yesterday that "Life Itself," his memoir published last year by Grand Central Publishing, is being made into a movie. Entertainment Weekly picked up the scoop, providing a few details: It will be a documentary with Steve James, the director of "Hoop Dreams," at the helm, screenwriter Steve Zaillian, best known for "Moneyball" and "Schindler's List," on the team, and Martin Scorsese acting as executive producer.

And Matt Singer of IndieWire got a reaction from Ebert himself that you can read at the linked page.

Ebert's life will certainly provide plenty of material. He was born and raised in Urbana, where he worked on the school newspaper at Urbana High School and won a state championship in radio speaking at the IHSA speech competition in 1958. He began covering sports for the Champaign News-Gazette while still a high school student, and kept that up even as he went to college at U of I and became editor at the Daily Illini.

After a fellowship abroad and graduate work at both U of I and the University of Chicago, Ebert did some reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times, where he was given the film critic assignment in 1967. He did a few screenplays on the side, working with director Russ Meyer on such classics as "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens."

But when he teamed with Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel on a show called "Sneak Previews" in 1975, his career as half of "Two Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down" really took off. That show was originally done just for WTTW, the public broadcasting station in Chicago, but by 1978, PBS had picked it up and syndicated it nationwide, making Siskel and Ebert household names.

At that point, Ebert was also dealing with alcoholism; he quit drinking completely in 1979.

The show underwent name changes and production company switches, but it remained a fixture until Siskel died in 1999. After that, Ebert hosted various iterations of the show with various other people, until he had health woes of his own, finally losing the ability to speak, drink or eat after complications from treatments for thyroid cancer. He continued to participate in a show with Richard Roeper, his last co-host, until December, 2011, when "Ebert Presents: At the Movies," closed up shop.

Even without a physical voice, he's remained a steady voice for the Sun-Times, with reviews in print and a very popular online presence.

And Ebertfest, the film festival he began for overlooked movies, continues annually (as a hot ticket) at the historic Virginia Theatre in Champaign-Urbana. Ebertfest 2013 is set for April 17-21, 2013. Films will be announced in March, but festival passes are usually sold out in January or February.

All of which gives any film about Roger Ebert a lot to work with. The book "Life Itself" received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and continues to be a steady seller. From all reports, filming is expected to begin before the end of the year, with a release date still to be determined. Maybe in time for Ebertfest 2014?

Buster Keaton's "The General" Is a Don't-Miss Classic at the Normal Theater

Because I grew up in the 60s, I mostly knew Buster Keaton as a strange old man in different politically incorrect garb lusting after girls in bikinis (see image below -- that's Buster as Chief Rotten Eagle in "Pajama Party," and he was also in "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini") or running around the hills of Rome in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," the last movie he made before he died. He was also memorable as one of the "waxworks," washed up silent film stars playing cards at Norma Desmond's mausoleum of a mansion in "Sunset Boulevard."

But when I hit film classes in the 70s, I found out that the real Buster Keaton, the young Buster Keaton, filmmaker, comedian, acrobat, writer, leading man Buster Keaton, was a totally different kettle of fish. Roger Ebert used the phrase "graceful perfection" to describe Keaton's silent films of the 20s, and I think that just about sums up the appeal of Keaton himself.

He has such grace and presence, especially in "The General," the silent feature film on screen last night and again tonight at the Normal Theater, that his physicality, that smooth, death-defying agility, informs every frame. It's there every time he slides on and off the train, as he fools around with a sword that won't cooperate or tries to figure out how a top hat stuck in a tree can pop on and off his head, as he balances on the cow-catcher on the front of the train, tosses a wooden railroad tie at another huge plank stuck on the track, hits the exact right spot on the end, and flips both of them out of harm's way, all while trying to avoid being shot by an errant cannon...Perfection.

But Keaton's Little Guy Who Could, all stoic, straightforward determination to get back his train and win the girl in "The General," is more than just physical prowess or acrobatic stunts. Yes, he did all those stunts himself. Yes, he created the gags and ran the train and fit everything into an airtight plot that never stops moving. Yes, the sight gags and special effects (there's a whole train that falls into a river, after all) that he concocted are amazing. But he's also acting here, creating a character, showing exactly how Johnnie Gray, the Confederate train engineer who won't give up, can be ingenious, heroic, bashful, clumsy, engaging, sweet, funny and kind of a hottie, all at the same time.

And remember, "The General" is a silent film, so everything we get, we have to read from Keaton's face, which was so notably devoid of expression that he was dubbed "The Great Stone Face." But there is a lot more going on on that stone face that you might think. Just keep your eyes on Buster as Johnnie, a little nervous as he polishes his shoe on the back of his other pantleg before knocking on his girl's front door, unsure of the gentlemanly thing to do when he sneaks in a window and has to wake her up to rescue her, and then there's a scene I absolutely love, when they are trying to get away on the train, and he tries to get her to help out. He motions to her to put some wood in the boiler, and she chooses a narrow stick -- way too small and a waste of time -- to throw in there, after which he looks aggrieved and mocks her by handing her a really teeny-tiny sliver, even sillier than the one she just picked. But she doesn't get it, happily taking the sliver and adding it to the boiler. Now he's really disbelieving that she can be so stupid, and he sort of strangles her for half a second before changing his mind and kissing her instead. It's adorable, in a weirdly unsentimental and surprising way, that he recognizes that the girl of his dreams is a dim bulb and pretty much no help in their desperate escape from the Yankees, but he still loves her, anyway.

"The General" shows up on all kind of All-Time Best Movie lists, silent or otherwise, but it isn't the only Keaton classic out there. I hope the fact that the Normal Theater thought it worthy of their big screen means that maybe they'll look to "Steamboat Bill, Jr." and "The Navigator" and "Sherlock Jr." and "The Camerman" in the future. Plucky little Buster Keaton, an auteur before the idea existed, deserves no less.

And if you're in a Buster Keaton mood, Roger Ebert's thoughts on "The General" and Keaton's oeuvre in general are also worthy of your time.