Next Club Meeting:October 17, 2026,at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires in today's pop culture, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group of characters in order to save their world -- and ours. Starring Amanda Seyfried and Beyoncé Knowles.
Tori Matsuzaka (.hack//The Movie, live-action Kyō, Koi o Hajimemasu, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, Kamen Rider Decade) stars as Ken, the group leader of the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Gō Ayano (second-in-command Jō), Ayame Gōriki (explosive yoyo-wielding Jun), Tatsuomi Hamada (youngest member Jinpei), and Ryōhei Suzuki (main pilot Ryū) round out the cast.
The five serve as agents of the International Science Organization in Tokyo in the near future. Galactor, a mysterious group whose technology far surpasses that of humans, has declared war on the entire world and has already subjugated half of it. A mysterious crystal-like object called a "stone," is humanity's only hope. Those who are able to draw out the power of the "stones" are forced to train to become special agents in a five-person team called "Gatchaman."
Jonathan Winters (1925 - 2013) "The Father of Improvisational Comedy"
[Source: L.A. Times; by Deborah Vankin] The trailblazing comic improviser Jonathan Winters, who died Thursday at age 87, was a seminal influence on scores of comedians and the person Robin Williams credits as his mentor.
Winters' high energy, unpredictable and often surreal comic riffs included an array of characters, reenactments of movie scenes and pointed, quick-morphing sound effects that he often produced on the spot.
Take, for example, his 1964 appearance on "The Jack Paar Program." In order to illustrate Winters' genius for creating comedy out of thin air, Paar gave him a simple wooden stick. “Do something with the stick” Paar said, and in what’s now a classic bit, Winters morphed from wayward fisherman to tepid circus ringmaster with a whip, to highbrow flute player.
Johnny Carson was just as taken with Winters’ comic brilliance, said Andrew John Nicholls, head writer for “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” from 1988 to 1992.
“Jonathan thrilled Johnny down to his socks,” Nicholls said. “They became like two 8-year-olds together. Harmless anarchical craziness, the loopy connection of disjointed ideas, deliberate mental misfiring just to see what'd happen, where it'd go. Johnny loved that stuff, it just tickled him pink, and Jonathan was the all-time master.”
Dan Pasternack, vice president of development for IFC and a stand-up comedian himself, was one of Winters’ closest friends -- they spoke on the phone weekly. “Jonathan’s influence is absolutely singular,” Pasternack said. “There are so few original voices where you can say ‘it starts with this guy.’ As far as I’m concerned, anything in contemporary improvisational comedy starts with Jonathan Winters.”
He pointed out that Williams hardly ever accepts an award without crediting Winters’ influence on his fast-paced, free-form streams of consciousness. Winters, however, who always watched proudly from home on TV, humorously took issue with that, Pasternack said.
“He’d tell Robin after: ‘Don’t say mentor, say idol!’”
The cherubic-faced Winters, also an accomplished painter, appeared in several films, including now-classic performances in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “The Loved One,” and he was no stranger to TV -- his hour-long variety show for CBS, “The Jonathan Winters Show,” ran from 1967 to 1969 and “The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters” was in syndication from 1972 to 1974.
But he never achieved the kind of major, A-list Hollywood success that many of the comedians he influenced did. His legacy, however, is a cumulative one, living on in the plethora of comic voices he inspired.
Maria Bamford, who talks about her lifelong struggles with depression, anxiety and OCD in her comedy special, “Maria Bamford: the Special Special Special!” said she turned to Winters -- who also talked openly about his mental health struggles -- for personal advice recently.
“He didn’t know me at all, but he took time to talk to me on the phone, this was about a year ago,” Bamford said. “I was worried about going back to work and not stressing my brain and not feeling afraid and going back to performing live. And he said: ‘Well, you got a good shrink?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said: ‘Well then, you just keep going!’ I thought that was very simple, but it was a relief to me. I’m now touring again and working on new material and feeling pretty great.”
“I was honored to have talked to him” said Marc Maron, who interviewed Winters on his WTF podcast in 2011. “I'll miss him. There was no one like him and there won't be ever again. He took comedy where no man had gone before."
Added Andy Kindler, who’s also appeared on WTF and who was a series judge on the final season of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing:” “Jonathan Winters had a quote that I always loved and agree with wholeheartedly: ‘Most people don’t have a sense of humor. They think they do, but they don’t.’”
Jamie Masada, owner of The Laugh Factory in Hollywood, said he remembers a night in 1986 very fondly. “Jonathan came into the club with a bunch of comedians that night -- he didn’t go onstage, but he walked around and did impressions of Groucho Marx. Everybody was on the floor laughing. It was such a moment.”
“He’s the father of improvisational comedy,” Pasternack said. “Nobody did it before him.”
[Source: L.A. Times; by Patrick Kevin Day] Jonathan Winters had a talent ideal for the small screen. Though he did appear in several comedic classics, including "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming," it was the less constrained world of TV that allowed him to flit and morph between comic bits at lightning speed.
One of the first great venues on TV where the comic rose to prominence was on "The Jack Paar Program." This appearance from 1964 demonstrates Winters' ability to improvise at a moment's notice, in this case with the prop of a simple stick.
One of Winters' most popular comic personas was the slightly naughty, extremely frumpy old lady Maude Frickert. Winters frequently appeared as the character on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. (In fact, the character inspired Carson to develop his own old lady character known as Aunt Blabby.)
In this clip, Winters appeared with Dean Martin on "The Dean Martin Show," and demonstrated how his improv wit allowed him to continue to stay current even as the times went from stodgy to more swingin'.
He frequently appeared in character, especially around Carson. Winters even appeared in character as an unnamed bumpkin from Carson's past at the revered late night host's 1968 Friars' Club roast.
Of all the comedians Winters influenced with his rapid-fire riffs and spontaneous character creation, none owed as obvious a debt or became as famous as Robin Williams. The comedian, who ran with Winters' style and amped it up to a dizzying speed, revered Winters and on the fourth and final season of his breakout sitcom, "Mork and Mindy," Winters joined the cast as the alien child of Mork.
Yes, Winters was older than Williams, but that was explained away by the bizarre alien physiology of the Orkan people.
Unlike many comedians who broke out in the 1960s and faded into obscurity over time, Winters managed to remain respected and popular, even into the 1990s, when he starred in the sitcom, "Davis Rules," alongside Randy Quaid.
Although the sitcom only lasted two seasons and was criticized for being too safe of a family sitcom, it did allow Winters some space to demonstrate a little of his comic flair, even if it was between the more traditional sticom elements.
In the year 2159, two classes of people exist: the very wealthy, who live on a pristine man-made space station that is disguised as a massive floating city called Elysium, and the rest, who live on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. Starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. Directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9).
A new teaser trailer for Toei's Captain Harlock computer-graphics film was presented a few days ago. In January, Toei had debuted an English-narrated international teaser. In Leiji Matsumoto's original 1977-79 manga, the title character rebels against Earth's inept government and fights for humanity with his crew of 40 aboard the invincible space battleship Arcadia. The manga inspired a 1978-1979 television anime series, a few features, and the sequel Arcadia of My Youth: Endless Orbit SSX. Writer Harutoshi Fukui (Mobile Suit Gundam UC novels, live-action Bōkoku no Aegis) reconstructed the story to reflect the themes of modern society, and Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) is directing with the latest filmmaking technology in the style of a Hollywood production. This film has Toei Animation's highest production budget ever at the equivalent of over 30 million U.S. dollars. The film will open in Japan this fall.
Annette Funicello (1942 - 2013) "Beloved Disney Mouseketeer and Iconic Teen Star..."
[Source: OMG! Yahoo; by Jeremy Blacklow] Annette Funicello, a member of Disney's original "Mickey Mouse Club" from the 1950s, is dead at the age of 70 from complications of multiple sclerosis, a disease that she's battled since 1992. She died on Monday, April 8, peacefully at her home in Bakersfield, California.
Funicello was born on October 22, 1942, in Utica, New York; her family moved to Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley when she was just 4 years old. Walt Disney himself discovered her when, at the age of 13, she was dancing the lead in "Swan Lake" at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank. He invited her to audition for "The Mickey Mouse Club" and hired her on the spot.
After the show's debut on October 3, 1955, she quickly became the group's most popular member. The series ran for three years and continued in reruns through the 1990s. The show was later revived in the early '90s, featuring future stars including Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, and Ryan Gosling.
Funicello remained under contract with Disney and starred in TV shows like "Zorro" (1957) and "The Nine Lives of Elfego Baca" (1958). She also appeared in Disney movies such as "The Shaggy Dog" (1959), "Babes in Toyland" (1961), "The Misadventures of Merlin Jones" (1964), and "The Monkey's Uncle" (1965).
In the '60s, she transitioned from leading roles in Disney productions to starring in several Frankie Avalon teen flicks, including "Beach Party" (1963), "Muscle Beach Party" (1964), "Bikini Beach" (1964), "Beach Blanket Bingo" (1965), and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" (1965).
If you've ever wondered where Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato took their career-path cues from, look no further than Funicello, who also launched a singing career, recording a series of hit singles such as "Tall Paul," "First Name Initial," "How Will I Know My Love," and "Pineapple Princess." Her hit albums included "Hawaiiannette" (1960), "Italiannette" (1960), and "Dance Annette" (1961).
In 1987, she teamed up with Avalon again to co-produce Paramount's "Back to the Beach," in which they played the parents to a younger generation of rowdy teens. In 1989 and 1990, she and Avalon went on tour singing their famous songs from the '60s.
In 1987 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), later going public with her illness in 1992. She established the Annette Funicello Research Fund for Neurological Diseases, which became dedicated to funding research into the cause, treatment, and cure of MS and other neurological diseases and continues to be an active charity.
Despite her illness, in the 1990s Funicello launched the Annette Funicello Teddy Bear Company, which marketed a line of collectible stuffed bears on QVC. She also developed her own perfume line, Cello, by Annette. In 1992, on her 50th birthday, she was named a Disney Legend. As she became more debilitated by MS, though, she retreated from public appearances in the late 1990s and was cared for by her second husband, rancher Glen Holt, whom she married in 1986. She was previously married to Jack Gilardi from 1965 until their divorce in 1981. She had three children from her first marriage -- Gina, Jack Jr., and Jason -- and three young grandchildren.
Commenting on her passing, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, said, "Annette was and always will be a cherished member of the Disney family, synonymous with the word Mousketeer, and a true Disney Legend. She will forever hold a place in our hearts as one of Walt Disney’s brightest stars, delighting an entire generation of baby boomers with her jubilant personality and endless talent. Annette was well known for being as beautiful inside as she was on the outside, and she faced her physical challenges with dignity, bravery and grace. All of us at Disney join with family, friends, and fans around the world in celebrating her extraordinary life."
Funicello's daughter, Gina Gilardi, tells “Extra,” "She's on her toes dancing in heaven ... no more MS. My brothers and I were there, holding her sweet hands when she left us."
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Annette Funicello Research Fund at annetteconnection.com.
By Director Takashi Miike. Based on an immensely popular kids anime Rantaro the Ninja Boy, Ninja Kids is like a cross between Naruto and Harry Potter with a dash of Miike madness. Featuring an all star cast of veterans, Miike players, and a bus-load of incredible kids, the film is an odd gem of whacky absurd scenarios. The story centers on young Rantaro, played with quirky charm by Seishiro Kato, an aspiring ninja from a lower class ninja family who embarks during the opening credits to his first day of class as a first grade ninja. Training in ninja school includes such essential skills as ninja throwing, digging booby traps and ambushing your targets. As Rantaro navigates his way to the top of his class, he encounters a circus of colorful characters, each more absurd than the next. From a pair of ninjas who are masters at cutting people's hair to a villainous evil master whose head is so large he has trouble standing up. The story is less one coherent plot than a series of hijinks stitched together from episodes of the TV show but it works perfectly to showcase a school year of adventures.Miike definitely relies heavily on the source material, accentuating characters with facial prosthetics to enhance the live action cartoonish absurdity. The humor is definitely low grade, bathroom jokes mixed with extreme acts of hyper real violence that strangely enough feel appropriate for the genre. The heart of the film is in the right place, making kids confident in their abilities to succeed but Miike sometimes stumbles with the pacing of unraveling a large tapestry of elements. Still, there are some highly entertaining, well crafted scenes that have a great sense of atmosphere which keeps Ninja Kids from ever feeling dull. It's also great to see Miike have fun with a large budget that elevates the costume design, art direction, and the use of funny special effects, despite their cheesy quality, are well sustained throughout.Ninja Kids is an example of a Japanese mainstream product under the unique direction of one of the country's most peculiar cinematic export. If you enjoyed the Harry Potter movies but wanted to see something a bit more extreme and surreal, then this film will certainly deliver the goods. Takashi Miike, who continues to experiment in every genre imaginable, is in top form and seems re-invigorated with this film and his recent successes.
Concept Art from New Thor, Guardians, and Capt. America
With Phase II deep in development, Marvel Studios has released a ton of new media from the next slate of films. From Guardians of the Galaxy to Captain America: Winter Solider and Thor: The Dark World, they’re all represented in the onslaught bundled with the massive Marvel Phase I collector's set. To entice fans (as if they needed any more incentive) to take the plunge, Marvel has included an exclusive look at Phase II, and now several screen grabs have leaked online. Of course, these shots probably look a lot better in HD via the DVD set, but the gallery below will have to do for the rest of us.
Concept art from Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Photo from Marvel's Thor: The Dark World.
Concept art from Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Concept art from Marvel's Phase 2.
Concept art from Captain America: Winter Soldier.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Concept art from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Sayonara, sweet memories,
It's goodbye...
Sayonara, don't look back,
Don't ask why...
The time to come will come,
And you will go alone,
Keep to your heart, Sayonara.
And so my friend,
Now it must end,
Now you are grown,
I can't stay on,
Think of the memories we've know,
Carefully feeling your way,
You're getting stronger each day,
How can I find words to say...
I'll miss you.
In Memory of Roger Ebert Presenting Ebert's Review of "Grave of the Fireflies"
Roger Ebert has passed away, but he leaves behind a marvelous legacy to all those who love film by encouraging future filmmakers to explore the art of storytelling and enlightening us to see film in new and unexpected ways. Ebert had a passion for the movies that I greatly admired. I was particularly impressed with how he would analyze certain films, especially anime. Below, I have posted his review of "Grave of the Fireflies." This is one of the best reviews of any film I have ever read from Roger Ebert. And it is my pleasure to share his review with you...
- anim8trix
[By Roger Ebert, March 19, 2000] In the waning days of World War II, American bombers drop napalm canisters on Japanese cities, creating fire storms. These bombs, longer than a tin can but about as big around, fall to earth trailing cloth tails that flutter behind them; they are almost a beautiful sight. After they hit, there is a moment's silence, and then they detonate, spraying their surroundings with flames. In a Japanese residential neighborhood, made of flimsy wood and paper houses, there is no way to fight the fires.
"Grave of the Fireflies" (1988) is an animated film telling the story of two children from the port city of Kobe, made homeless by the bombs. Seita is a young teenager, and his sister Setsuko is about 5. Their father is serving in the Japanese navy, and their mother is a bomb victim; Seita kneels beside her body, covered with burns, in an emergency hospital. Their home, neighbors, schools are all gone. For a time an aunt takes them in, but she's cruel about the need to feed them, and eventually Seita finds a hillside cave where they can live. He does what he can to find food, and to answer Setsuko's questions about their parents. The first shot of the film shows Seita dead in a subway station, and so we can guess Setsuko's fate; we are accompanied through flashbacks by the boy's spirit.
"Grave of the Fireflies" is an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation. Since the earliest days, most animated films have been "cartoons" for children and families. Recent animated features such as "The Lion King," "Princess Mononoke" and "The Iron Giant" have touched on more serious themes, and the "Toy Story" movies and classics like "Bambi" have had moments that moved some audience members to tears. But these films exist within safe confines; they inspire tears, but not grief. "Grave of the Fireflies" is a powerful dramatic film that happens to be animated, and I know what the critic Ernest Rister means when he compares it to "Schindler's List" and says, "It is the most profoundly human animated film I've ever seen."
It tells a simple story of survival. The boy and his sister must find a place to stay, and food to eat. In wartime their relatives are not kind or generous, and after their aunt sells their mother's kimonos for rice, she keeps a lot of the rice for herself. Eventually, Seita realizes it is time to leave. He has some money and can buy food--but soon there is no food to buy. His sister grows weaker. Their story is told not as melodrama, but simply, directly, in the neorealist tradition. And there is time for silence in it. One of the film's greatest gifts is its patience; shots are held so we can think about them, characters are glimpsed in private moments, atmosphere and nature are given time to establish themselves.
Japanese poets use "pillow words" that are halfway between pauses and punctuation, and the great director Yasujiro Ozu uses "pillow shots"--a detail from nature, say, to separate two scenes. "Grave of the Fireflies" uses them, too. Its visuals create a kind of poetry. There are moments of quick action, as when the bombs rain down and terrified people fill the streets, but this film doesn't exploit action; it meditates on its consequences.
The film was directed by Isao Takahata, who is associated with the famous Ghibli Studio, source of the greatest Japanese animation. His colleague there is Hayao Miyazaki ("Princess Mononoke," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "My Neighbor Totoro"). His films are not usually this serious, but "Grave of the Fireflies" is in a category by itself. It's based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Nosaka Akiyuki--who was a boy at the time of the firebombs, whose sister did die of hunger and whose life has been shadowed by guilt.
The book is well-known in Japan, and might easily have inspired a live-action film. It isn't the typical material of animation. But for "Grave of the Fireflies," I think animation was the right choice. Live action would have been burdened by the weight of special effects, violence and action. Animation allows Takahata to concentrate on the essence of the story, and the lack of visual realism in his animated characters allows our imagination more play; freed from the literal fact of real actors, we can more easily merge the characters with our own associations.
Hollywood animation has been pursuing the ideal of "realistic animation" for decades, even though that's an oxymoron. People who are drawn do not look like people who are photographed. They're more stylized, more obviously symbolic, and (as Disney discovered in painstaking experiments) their movements can be exaggerated to communicate mood through body language. "Grave of the Fireflies" doesn't attempt even the realism of "The Lion King" or "Princess Mononoke," but paradoxically it is the most realistic animated film I've ever seen--in feeling.
The locations and backgrounds are drawn in a style owing something to the 18th century Japanese artist Hiroshige and his modern disciple Herge (the creator of Tin Tin). There is great beauty in them--not cartoon beauty, but evocative landscape drawing, put through the filter of animated style. The characters are typical of much modern Japanese animation, with their enormous eyes, childlike bodies and features of great plasticity (mouths are tiny when closed, but enormous when opened in a child's cry--we even see Setsuko's tonsils). This film proves, if it needs proving, that animation produces emotional effects not by reproducing reality, but by heightening and simplifying it, so that many of the sequences are about ideas, not experiences.
There are individual moments of great beauty. One involves a night when the children catch fireflies and use them to illuminate their cave. The next day, Seita finds his little sister carefully burying the dead insects--as she imagines her mother was buried. There is another sequence in which the girl prepares "dinner" for her brother by using mud to make "rice balls" and other imaginary delicacies. And note the timing and the use of silence in a sequence where they find a dead body on the beach, and then more bombers appear far away in the sky.
Rister singles out another shot: "There's a moment where the boy Seita traps an air bubble with a wash rag, submerges it, and then releases it into his sister Setsuko's delighted face--and that's when I knew I was watching something special."
There are ancient Japanese cultural currents flowing beneath the surface of "Grave of the Fireflies," and they're explained by critic Dennis H. Fukushima Jr., who finds the story's origins in the tradition of double-suicide plays. It is not that Seita and Setsuko commit suicide overtly, but that life wears away their will to live. He also draws a parallel between their sheltering cave and hillside tombs.
Fukushima cites an interview with the author, Akiyuki: "Having been the sole survivor, he felt guilty for the death of his sister. While scrounging for food, he had often fed himself first, and his sister second. Her undeniable cause of death was hunger, and it was a sad fact that would haunt Nosaka for years. It prompted him to write about the experience, in hopes of purging the demons tormenting him."
Because it is animated and from Japan, "Grave of the Fireflies" has been little seen. When anime fans say how good the film is, nobody takes them seriously. Now that it's available on DVD with a choice of subtitles or English dubbing, maybe it will find the attention it deserves. Yes, it's a cartoon, and the kids have eyes like saucers, but it belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made.
Watch the entire movie, "Grave of the Fireflies," below:
Roger Ebert (1942 - 2013) "A film critic with the soul of a poet..."
[Source: Chicago Tribune; by Rick Kogan]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 thumbs-down judgments. But in his words and in his life he displayed the soul of a poet whose passions and interests extended far beyond the darkened theaters where he spent so much of his professional life.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than 45 years and for more than three decades the co-host of one of the most powerful programs in television history (initially with the late Gene Siskel, the movie critic for the Chicago Tribune, and, following Siskel’s death in 1999, with his Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper), Ebert died Thursday, according to a family friend.
He was 70 years old.
Even still, he kept writing and remained as active as he could be. He was planning to host the 15th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival later this month in his hometown of Champaign-Urbana.
Prolific almost to the point of disbelief -- the Weekend section of the Sun-Times often featured as many as nine on some days -- Ebert was arguably the most powerful movie critic in the history of that art form. He was also the author of 15 books, a contributor to various magazines, author of the liveliest of blogs and an inspiring teacher and lecturer at the University of Chicago.
Roger Joseph Ebert was born in downstate Urbana on June 18, 1942, the only child of Walter, an electrician, and Annabel, a bookkeeper.
His passion for journalism sparked early. He published his own neighborhood paper while in grammar school and in high school was co-editor of the school paper, published a science fiction fanzine and wrote for The News-Gazette in Champaign. His desire to attend Harvard University was thwarted by his parents' inability to afford that Ivy League institution, he attended the nearby University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he majored in journalism and was editor of the campus paper, The Daily Illini.
He began selling freelance stories and book reviews to the Chicago Daily News and Chicago Sun-Times during this time and after coming to Chicago to pursue a PhD. D. in English at the University of Chicago. In 1966, he was hired as a writer for the Sun-Times’ Midwest magazine. Six months later he became movie critic.
His reviews, from the start and ever since, were at once artful and accessible. In 1975 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism, the first such criticism prize to be awarded for film criticism by the Pulitzers.
These were raucous newspapering days (and nights) and Ebert was part of the crowd that often congregated at such bygone saloons as Riccardo’s and O’Rourke’s on North Avenue. It was there that Ebert would entertain the crowd of colleagues and admirers with his sharp wit, boyish playfulness and charming erudition.
Competition between rival newspapers reporters and critics was savage in those days as Siskel, then the Tribune’s movie critic, later recalled, “We intensely disliked each other. We perceived each other as a threat to our well-being.”
But in 1975, Eliot Wald, a producer at the local PBS station, WTTW-Ch. 11, had the idea of pairing Siskel and Ebert on a television show about movies and persuaded them both to give it a shot. Thea Flaum was the executive producer of what was then called “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You.”
The early shows now appear as crude and unpolished as some of the shows on cable access. But at the time it was refreshing. Here were two men who, in physical appearance and personality, were unlike anything else on the tube.
These were not the typically neatly coiffed and sun-brushed talking heads. And they were not prim and polite; they argued.
Their enthusiasm for and knowledge of movies was palpable, and by providing clips from current releases they were giving viewers a consumer-friendly, witty, intelligent and entertaining package.
Still, few could have predicted either the eventual success of the show or the natural fit of the two personalities; they were uncannily well-matched and early on showed the ability to turn debate into an art.
The show became more popular with each season, taking a new name, “Sneak Previews,” and gaining a national audience when it was syndicated on PBS in 1978 and where it would become for a time the most highly rated show in PBS history. In 1982, the pair signed with Tribune Entertainment and renamed the program “At the Movies.” In 1986 they were lured into the fold of Buena Vista Television, a division of the Walt Disney Co., and changed the show’s name to “Siskel & Ebert at the Movies.”
By this time the TV show had made Siskel and Ebert rich and famous. It had also made them the most powerful critics in the world, according to many polls and industry experts, and American pop cultural icons, sometimes referred to as “Sisbert.” They spawned imitators and were firmly embedded in the American celebrity fabric due to frequent appearances on the “Tonight” show, “Late Night With David Letterman” and “Oprah.”
In 1999 Siskel died after a quiet battle against complications that arose after a growth was removed from his brain 10 months earlier. He was only 53-years-old.
“I remember after we first started out,” Ebert recalled at the time, “and we were on a talk show and this old actor Buddy Rogers said to us, `The trouble with you guys is that you have a sibling rivalry.' We did. He was like a brother, and I loved him that way.”
"Hermione just stole all our shit!" This is the End 6 . 12 . 13
The comedy This Is The End follows six friends trapped in a house after a series of strange and catastrophic events devastate Los Angeles. As the world unravels outside, dwindling supplies and cabin fever threaten to tear apart the friendships inside. Eventually, they are forced to leave the house, facing their fate and the true meaning of friendship and redemption.
Director: Seth Rogen/Evan Goldberg Studio: Columbia Pictures Starring:James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Michael Cera, Emma Watson
[Source: Syfy.com] Leave it to the clever girls of Japan to bring the coolest parts of Dragon Ball to the real world. There's a new trend to hit eastern shores that any fan of the seemingless endless cartoon Dragon Ball can appreciate. There's a move from the show called the Kamehameha which you may not recognize by name, but it's basically the hadouken move that Ryu and Ken do in Street Fighter. You just heard them saying hadouken in your head, didn't you? Did you then say it out loud? Good. You're ready then. Basically these girls have gotten together and snapped photos in a way that makes it seem like they have super saiyan abilities. It's simultaneously funny and awesome at the same time. Check out our gallery below and then hunt around for more.
