I awoke at 6:45am last Friday and a text message was waiting for me from a good friend.  It said “EVERT’S DEAD! :o” followed by “Ebert!”  The delivery may not have been perfect but the shock was still tough to take.  The world’s most notable film critic, Roger Ebert, had passed away at the age of 70.

My first job was in a video store back in 1995 and that’s where my love of movies began.  Within a year, I was grading all the films I’d seen and keeping the details in a spreadsheet.  I’m still using that same spreadsheet today.

Back then, I didn’t have access to the internet.  The only film critic I read regularly was Des Partridge in The Courier Mail.  I’d also check out reviews in magazines like Who Weekly when I found the time.

While my access to the world was limited, I still knew the names Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.  They were regular guests on The Late Show With David Letterman and their quotes could be found on many film posters and in many trailers.

Since 1986, they were the two guys who headlined a successful television show in which they reviewed the latest movies each week (similar to what Margaret and David do today in Australia with At The Movies).  Their grading system was simple – a film either got the thumbs up or the thumbs down.  There was no in-between.

I never got to see their show (since it didn’t air here in Australia) but once the internet finally arrived in my household, I was able to read transcripts of their on-air reviews at a particular website.  I even kept clippings of my favourite Siskel & Ebert reviews in a scrapbook (I’m a nerd, I do realise that).

These guys were the pinnacle of film criticism.  While you could argue that other critics were better writers, these guys were the most influential.  They had a sizeable audience and hence could do huge things for a small film.  I remember reading their raves for Fargo back in 1996.  Ebert called it the best film of the year.  Siskel said the same of The Ice Storm in 1997.  It’s possible many would not have heard of these two remarkable films if not for the glowing praise of Siskel and Ebert.

Sadly, Gene Siskel died in 1999.  I remember reading a news story stating that he was taking a short break from the show to recover after surgery to remove a brain tumour.  He died a few weeks later at the age of 53.  It was sad news and at that year’s Academy Awards, host Whoopi Goldberg paid a nice tribute by raising her hand in the air and giving him the thumbs up.

The television show carried on with Ebert using guest critics each week.  I’ve watched a few clips on Youtube and I’m particularly fond of this one from late 1999 – see here.  It features Ebert staunchly defending Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia – a film I regard as one of the greatest of all time.

Ebert was never afraid to be forthright and honest.  This video is popular on Youtube and shows Ebert voicing/yelling his opinion to refute someone else in the audience at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.  There was also a humorous incident at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival when Ebert called The Brown Bunny the worst film to ever screen at Cannes.  Director Vincent Gallo responded by calling Ebert “a fat pig with the physique of a slave trader.”  Ebert’s retort – “one day I will be thin but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.”

Ebert battled thyroid cancer for a number of years and in 2006, nearly died during surgery.  He lost the ability to speak and would require a feeding tube to be able to eat and drink.  It didn’t slow him down though.  While he no longer appeared on his television show, Ebert kept churning out reviews for The Chicago Sun-Times, where he had been the film critic since 1967.  In fact, he became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism back in 1975.  All of these reviews were available online and his website had a permanent place in my Favourites folder.  If I ever wondered if a film was any good, the first review I’d read would be that of Roger Ebert.

In 2011, I attended the Toronto Film Festival for the first time.  On the Wednesday afternoon of the second week, I heard that Roger Ebert was doing a book signing for his recently released autobiography, Life Itself.  I cleared my calendar, got a taxi uptown and made sure I was there.  I would finally get the chance to see my “idol” in person.  I listened to his stories for about an hour (told through his wife, Chaz) and bought a copy of his book which he later autographed for me.  It was one of the highlights of my trip and the book will forever sit on the shelf in my living room.

Roger Ebert was very active on Twitter and amassed over 800,000 followers.  That’s not bad for someone who critiques film and only further highlights his influence and popularity.  Early last week, he announced he was scaling back the number of reviews while he was undergoing radiation treatment for cancer in his hip.  In his final blog, he finished by saying “Thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.”  Then came the sad news of his passing last Friday morning.  His final review was posted over the weekend – for Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder.

Twitter has been flooded with tributes and retrospectives.  President Obama said that “The movies won’t be the same without Roger”.  Albert Brooks noted that “the importance of Siskel/Ebert to independent filmmakers like myself cannot be overstated”.  Fellow critic Leonard Maltin said “he had indomitable spirit and was one of the gutsiest people I knew.”

While I never knew Roger Ebert personally, he has been a big influence in my life.  I’ve always been jealous of his reviews and they’ve made me strive to be a more insightful critic and a better writer.  His legacy will live on and his past reviews will always be there to read.  It’s just sad to think that we’ll never get to hear his thoughts on any future releases.  I’m particularly moved by this photo of Roger’s favourite chair at a theatrette in Chicago.

There was so much more to admire about Roger Ebert (such as the way he founded his own film festival) and I could write another 10,000 words but alas, time is pressing.  I need to keep following his footsteps and do the best I can to promote the movies I love.  RIP Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert signing autographs at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival.

Roger Ebert telling stories at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival.

My autographed copy of Roger Ebert's autobiography, Life Itself.

If you’re not familiar, Veronica Mars was a television series that started out back in 2004.  The show was headlined by Kristen Bell and ran for 3 years with a total of 64 episodes.

Given that it screened on a relatively small network (UPN), it was never going to be a ratings bonanza.  It pulled in roughly 2.5 million viewers in each of its 3 seasons.  To put that into perspective, a show like American Idol had roughly 10 times as many viewers during the same period.

Anyway, the plug was pulled in 2007 and that was that.  Fans could always watch repeats in syndication or buy the DVDs for their own collection.

Last week, Veronica Mars made a sudden reappearance on Kickstarter – a website that allows people to pitch ideas and try to attract funding from the general public.  There are obvious pros & cons but it’s a funding medium that’s growing in popularity.

Rob Thomas, the creator of the Veronica Mars, posted a request on Kickstarter for donations towards a movie version of the show.  He knew there was still a loyal fan base and he thought that if 80,000 people could donate $25 each, that’d give them $2 million to get it off the ground.  Permission would still be required from Warner Bros. (since they own the rights) but that kind of money could be very persuasive.

A few perks have also been offered through Kickstarter depending on the size of the donation.  If you donate $25, you’ll get a Veronica Mars t-shirt.  If you donate $50, you’ll get a copy of the DVD.  But wait, there’s more…

If you donate $500, Kirsten Bell will record an outgoing voicemail message for you.  If you donate $1,000, you get tickets to the premiere and after party in Los Angeles.  If you donate $2,500, you can be an extra in one of the scenes.  If you donate $6,500, you get to name a character in the movie.  The top shelf donation was $10,000 and that gets you a speaking role in the movie!

It’s already become one of the most successful Kickstarters of all time.  As of this afternoon, over 55,000 people have donated a combined total of $3.6 million – almost double the target.  It’s open for another 4 weeks and so there’s potential for a lot more money too.

It now seems assured that the film will be shot later this year and released in 2014.  All the funds have gone into an account created by Warner Bros. which can be used on the film.

This begs the inevitable question – is this the future of cinema?  Are we now living in a world where the public has the power to decide what films end up on the big screen?  Someone said it best on Twitter – I’d rather pay $40 to see a movie I want to see rather than $15 to see a movie I don’t want to see.

The studios must be loving the idea.  For starters, it reduces their capital outlay.  They’ve already got $3.6 million sitting in the bank earning interest (well perhaps not given current interest rates in United States).  Secondly, they get to keep any profit.  If Veronica Mars pulls in $100m in box-office revenue and DVD sales, that’ll all be going back to Warner Bros.

How many more Kickstarters will we see in the near future?  Will this be a quick fad that will die away once a big movie goes pear-shaped (i.e. never gets off the ground and people lose their cash)?  Or will the public embrace the concept and be prepared to donate $25 to help ensure another TV show turned movie gets off the ground?  I don’t have the answers but I’ll be watching this space.

Zach Braff was recently in Australia to promote the new Sam Raimi film, Oz: The Great & The Powerful, and I was lucky enough to spend a few minutes with him to talk about the film, Twitter and his plans for the future. You can listen to / download the full audio by clicking here.

Matt:  I’m speaking this morning with Mr Zach Braff.  How’s it going?

Zach:  Hello.  How are you?

Matt:  I’m very well.  I’ve got to start quickly by mentioning Scrubs – an incredibly successful television show that ran for 9 seasons and finished a few years ago.  When you’re involved in a big show like that and playing the same role again and again, do you worry about getting typecast?  Being able to forge a career beyond that in feature films?

Zach:  Of course it crosses your mind but it’s such a lightning-in-a-bottle, once-in-a-lifetime chance to have a show that goes 9 years so as an actor, you can’t really complain when that happens.  The onus is on you to rise above it and to show people that you can do other things.

Matt:  I’m more of a film person so I know you more as the director of Garden State which I thought was a great film and featured some terrific characters.  It’s been almost 10 years since that so are we likely to see you behind the camera of another feature film any time soon?

Zach:  Yeah.  It’s tricky.  There’s so much I want to do and when you’re trying to accomplish so much, it’s hard to focus on all of it at once but I can’t wait to get back in the director’s chair and I have a new film that I’m trying to direct this year that would be my second film.

Matt:  Sensational.  And I didn’t know this until I was doing my research but of all the awards you could possibly win – Emmys, Oscars, Tonys and so forth – a Grammy wasn’t the one that came to my mind but you did win a Grammy for Garden State.

Zach:  Yeah, for the Garden State soundtrack.  It is pretty bizarre.  It’s the award I never thought I’d have a chance of winning.

Matt:  Where do you keep it?  Do you keep it at home?

Zach:  It’s on my bookshelf and I have a lot of musician friends who like to walk by it and give it the “evil eye”.

Matt:  Now I think about Garden State and it had a small budget of about $2.5m and now we’ve got Oz The Great & Powerful that comes with a $200m budget.  Try to describe for us – what’s it like working on a movie of that magnitude?

Zach:  It’s like going from a row boat to a cruise ship!  I’ve never even visited a set this large and so for me, it was really cool to be involved with something this epic and with really cool people.  There’s the director, Sam Raimi and there’s James Franco who plays Oz.  The witches are played by Mila Kunis, Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz.  It’s a really great cast and the story is a prequel to The Wizard Of Oz.  It’s an origin story about how Oz become Oz.

Matt:  It is one of my favourite stories, the whole Wizard Of Oz story, which I read as a kid and I’ve seen movies made about it before.  What was it for you that made you really want to get involved with this film?

Zach:  Well, Sam Raimi said he wanted to meet me so that was a no brainer.  The movie is live action but I play a sort of animated character named Finley – a little flying monkey who is James’s sidekick.  He said he wanted someone who could kind of riff with James and make jokes and improvise along the Yellow Brick Road.  We got along famously and I got the gig.

Matt:  So how did you shoot the film if you’re playing this computer generated flying monkey?  Are you on set or in a studio?

Zach:  I’m mostly on the set.  The character is 36 inches tall and so there were a lot of different ways we could do it.  Sometimes I would crouch down on my butt and get into whatever position I could get into.  We also had a puppet that was eventual size of what the computer generated character would be so I’d operate that some times.  They would put these video cameras on 3 sides of my face and by cutting that together, the animators would animate off the gestures that I made in addition to taking my voice.

Matt:  You’ve already mentioned the great cast.  Did you get a chance to hang out a lot on set or was it mainly James since you interact with him so much in the film?

Zach:  I do scenes with all the pretty ladies but most of my scenes were with James as my storyline is kind of a “buddy quest” alongside him.

Matt:  The way they’ve brought this colourful world to live looks so beautiful.  How much of what we’re seeing is a set or is it just you guys in front of a green screen?

Zach:  There were actually a lot of sets.  We shot on these 6 sound stages and I think were 24 sets in total.  They were enormous!  The way to think about it is… whatever we were interacting on, what we’re standing on and the things that are around us – those are all real.  It’s beyond that which is computer generated. 

Matt:  Now I haven’t been lucky enough yet to see the film so I have to ask if you’ve had a chance to see the finished product yet?

Zach:  I haven’t either!  I’ve seen little clips in 3D which looks really, really powerful.  The production designer was the same guy from Avatar and so it has a photo-real, unbelievable quality but it’s in the land of Oz and it’s in 3D and it’s happening all around.  I’ve only seen a 15 minute chunk and it got me so excited.

Matt:  I can’t help but notice on Twitter that you’re closing in on the 1,000,000 followers mark.

Zach:  Yes!  I was thinking I might hit the 1,000,000 followers mark while in Australia but it looks like I’ll have to wait a few more days.

Matt:  Look, I get excited when I get mentioned in just one tweet but I’m guessing you get hundreds of mentions every day.  How easy is that to manage?  Do you get time to read any of the replies?

Zach:  My girlfriend is so tired of the damn phone she wishes that I’d throw it out the window.  It’s fun for me because I like being outspoken and making people laugh. 

Matt:  Do you think more about what you tweet knowing that 1,000,000 people are going to see it?

Zach:  I should think more!  If I looked out my window and saw 1,000,000 people and had to step up to a microphone in front of them, I’m sure I’d think a lot more about what I’d say.

Matt:  You’ve touched on a possible director’s gig but I should finish up by asking what’s in the works?  Where are we going to see you in next?

Zach:  I’m not sure yet.  I’m up for a couple of things at the moment and I love theatre so I’d really love to do a Broadway play.  Of course I want to direct another movie this year so I’m trying to figure it all out right now. 

Matt:  Thanks for speaking with us this morning.

Zach:  I appreciate it.  Thank-you.

Another Oscars has come and gone.  It’s funny how everyone looks forward to the ceremony and yet, at least based on the reactions on Twitter, people seem to love dishing out their negativity and cynicism towards the host and the winners.  Ah well.  All part of the fun of the Oscars I guess.

Oscars Competition

Congratulations to Shane Slater who won my 13th annual Pick The Oscars competition.  We had a record number of entries (just under 100) and Shane made history in becoming the first person to pick 6 out of 6 AND pick the exact average age of the best picture presenters.  For those keeping score at home, the best picture presenters were the surprising pairing of Michelle Obama (aged 49) and Jack Nicholson (aged 75).

Honourable mentions go to James Tinniswood and Prue Martin who also managed to score the perfect 6 out of 6.  They were slightly askew with the tie-breaker question however.

Those on 5 out of 6 included myself (yeah, I can enter my own contest), Yvette Atkins, Jake Araullo, Laurence Barber, Andreas Moutsatsos, Chris Turton, Nancy Claus, Allison Kucera and Will Dawson.  The most commonly missed category was that of best supporting actor (always a tough one).

Shane picks up a $100 Amazon voucher for the win and he also earns my utmost respect for his stellar predictions.

Oscar Betting & Tipping

Yeah, for the second straight year, I lost some money.  My tuning fork hasn’t been working too well in recent times and most of bets, which were placed early in the Oscar season, didn’t stand much of a chance.  I lost $500 on the Golden Globes and now blew another $350 on the Oscars for a dismal overall result.  It could have been a lot worse though.  I did manage a minor win (with my smallest bet) on Ang Lee which helped stop the bleeding.

For the record, here’s a complete summary of my depleting Oscar winnings…

1996 – profit of $750 – won on Susan Saranadon
1997 – profit of $300 (cumulative profit $1,050) – won on Frances McDormand
1998 – loss of $250 (cumulative profit $800)
1999 – loss of $250 (cumulative profit $550)
2000 – profit of $620 (cumulative profit $1,170) – won on Kevin Spacey and Michael Caine
2001 – loss of $190 (cumulative profit $980) – won on director Steven Soderbergh
2002 – profit of $480 (cumulative profit $1,460) – won on Halle Berry
2003 – profit of $275 (cumulative profit $1,735) – won on Catherine Zeta-Jones and Adrian Brody
2004 – profit of $150 (cumulative profit $1,875) – won on Sean Penn
2005 – profit of $214 (cumulative profit $2,089) – won on Hilary Swank
2006 – profit of $350 (cumulative profit $2,439) – won on Reese Witherspoon
2007 – profit of $1,463 (cumulative profit $3,912) – won on Eddie Murphy at Globes, Alan Arkin & West Bank Story at Oscars
2008 – profit of $268 (cumulative profit of $4,280) – won on Tilda Swinton and the Coen brothers
2009 – profit of $253 (cumulative profit of $4,533) – won on Mickey Rourke & Kate Winslet at Globes, Kate Winslet at Oscars
2010 – loss of $830 (cumulative profit of $3,703)
2011 – profit of $30 (cumulative profit of $3,733) – won on Social Network at Globes, Tom Hooper & King’s Speech at Oscars
2011 – loss of $640 (cumulative profit of $3,093) – won on Jean Dujardin at Oscars
2012 – loss of $850 (cumulative profit of $2,243) – won on Ang Lee at Oscars

I managed 18 out of 24 with my predictions which is pretty good by my standards.  I think it’s my best year since The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King won everything back in 2004.

Oscar Results

The winners in the major 6 categories were as follows:

Best Picture – Argo
Best Director – Ang Lee (Life Of Pi)
Best Actor – Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)
Best Actress – Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Best Supporting Actress – Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)

It’s not often you see 6 different films picking up these awards.  You have to go back to 2006 to find the last time it happened.  That was also the same year there was a split between best picture & best director.

Since Life Of Pi was my favourite of the awards season contenders, I’m very happy to see Ang Lee get the nod for best director.  His win was one of the few surprises of the night with Steven Spielberg starting as favourite.  Both Lee and Spielberg now have 2 Academy Awards for best director – a nice honour.

The supporting actor category was also going to be tough to pick but I didn’t think Christoph Waltz would be the one, despite being well backed.  Having won the award two years ago for another Quentin Tarantino film, I thought the Academy would honour someone else.  I was wrong.  It’s also a little puzzling given that in my eyes, Waltz’s performance is a leading one, not supporting.

Argo was not my favourite film of the year but I know it was much-loved by many people so I can’t rant too much about its victory.  As a consolation prize for missing a best director nomination, Ben Affleck gets to take home an Oscar anyway (along with pal George Clooney) as both were producers.

To cover a few of other notable categories…

Best Original Screenplay – Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino)
Best Adapted Screenplay – Chris Terrio (Argo)
Best Animated Feature – Brave
Best Foreign Language Film – Amour

We also had a very unlikely occurrence – a tie!  It hasn’t happened since 1994 and this time around, was in the sound mixing category.  The award was shared between Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty (its only win of the night).

New host Seth MacFarlane had a surprisingly large presence during the ceremony.  We often see the host start with a big opening number and then quietly slip into the background.  I’d describe his efforts as mediocre.  The opening was a little long but he had a few funny moments.  He also tried a few low-brow jokes (mocking those easy to mock) which were greeted with mixed responses from the audience.

Well that’s it for another year.  I guess 2013 will always be known as the year Argo won best picture and it’s director wasn’t even nominated.  It’s been a fun race full of surprises.  It’s just a shame there weren’t too many during the ceremony.  I look forward to doing it all again in 12 months time!