Tag: Roger Ebert

Charles Bukowski on Becoming a Barfly

“The movie is called Barfly, and it’s about me, because that’s what I was, a barfly,” Bukowski explained. “You ran errands for sadists and let the bartender beat you up, because you were the bar clown. You filled people’s days with your presence, and maybe you’d get a few free drinks now and then. ”

We were hunched down with our elbows on the padded edge of the bar, talking quietly like conspirators. Linda, Bukowski’s child bride, was taking down mental notes of everything.

“The way I became a barfly,” he said, “was, I didn’t like what I saw in the nine to five. I didn’t want to become an ordinary working person, paying off the mortgage, looking at TV, terrified. The bar was a hiding place, to get out of the mainstream. ”

“Did you decide to become a barfly, or did you just look up one day and see a barfly in the mirror?” I asked him.

“I can’t answer,” he said. “It was kind of a subconscious decision. Meanwhile, I was a writer on the side, selling short stories to dirty magazines. I gave up the writing after a while and concentrated on the drinking. I refused to accept the living death of acquiescence.”

Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion, 1989 Edition: Full-Length Reviews of 875 Films on Cassette

Roger Ebert – American Beauty review

“American Beauty” is a comedy because we laugh at the absurdity of the hero’s problems. And a tragedy because we can identify with his failure–not the specific details, but the general outline.

The movie is about a man who fears growing older, losing the hope of true love and not being respected by those who know him best. If you never experience those feelings, take out a classified ad. People want to take lessons from you.

Roger Ebert
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-beauty-1999

Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion

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Q ** 1/2
R, 92 m., 1982
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A few days after Q was screened at the Cannes Film Festival (under its original title, The Winged Serpent), the following conversation took place between Samuel Z. Arkoff, the film’s producer, and Rex Reed, the critic:

Reed: Sam! I just saw The Winged Serpent! What a surprise! All that dreck – and right in the middle of it, a great Method performance by Michael Moriarty!
Arkoff: The dreck was my idea.

I believe him. Arkoff has been producing films for thirty years now, and even if he was honored with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, his heart still lies with shots of a giant flying lizard attacking a woman in a bikini on top of a Manhattan skyscraper. He’s just that kinda guy.

Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion, 1989 Edition: Full-Length Reviews of 875 Films on Cassette
Amazon

This is a great collection. Movies Roger Ebert loved and ones he hated. From the VHS era.

Milk Money – review by Roger Ebert


In 1994, Roger Egbert reviewed the comedy “Milk Money”, a film about a prostitute who befriends 3 boys. He hated it so much, that he didn’t give it a conventional negative review. Instead, he phrased his review as a fictional conversation between two studio executives discussing the movie. from movies

B: So the hooker is in the tree house, Dad thinks she’s a math tutor, and meanwhile the gangster is cruising the streets of the suburb with another hooker, looking for her. Dad is fighting against the encroachment of the wetlands and finally chains himself to his automobile so the bulldozers can’t come in. And we throw in some of those cute conversations where one person means one thing and another person means something else. You know, so that all of the people in the town know she’s a hooker except for Dad, who takes her out to eat and scandalizes your standard table of gossiping local biddies.

A: This is nice, this is original.

Roger Ebert, Milk Money review