The Great Movies II

Description

Continuing the pitch-perfect critiques begun in The Great Movies, Roger Ebert's The Great Movies II collects 100 additional essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to films with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm-or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing. Neither a snob nor a shill, Ebert manages in these essays to combine a truly populist appreciation for today's most important form of popular art with a scholar's erudition and depth of knowledge and a sure aesthetic sense. Once again wonderfully enhanced by stills selected by Mary Corliss, former film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, The Great Movies II is a treasure trove for film lovers of all persuasions, an unrivaled guide for viewers, and a book to return to again and again. Films featured in The Great Movies II 12 Angry Men The Adventures of Robin Hood Alien Amadeus Amarcord Annie Hall Au Hasard, Balthazar The Bank Dick Beat the Devil Being There The Big Heat The Birth of a Nation The Blue Kite Bob le Flambeur Breathless The Bridge on the River Kwai Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Buster Keaton Children of Paradise A Christmas Story The Color Purple The Conversation Cries and Whispers The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie Don't Look Now The Earrings of Madame de . . . The Fall of the House of Usher The Firemen's Ball Five Easy Pieces Goldfinger The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Goodfellas The Gospel According to Matthew The Grapes of Wrath Grave of the Fireflies Great Expectations House of Games The Hustler In Cold Blood Jaws Jules and Jim Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy Kind Hearts and Coronets King Kong The Last Laugh Laura Leaving Las Vegas Le Boucher The Leopard The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp The Manchurian Candidate The Man Who Laughs Mean Streets Mon Oncle Moonstruck The Music Room My Dinner with Andre My Neighbor Totoro Nights of Cabiria One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Orpheus Paris, Texas Patton Picnic at Hanging Rock Planes, Trains and Automobiles The Producers Raiders of the Lost Ark Raise the Red Lantern Ran Rashomon Rear Window Rififi The Right Stuff Romeo and Juliet The Rules of the Game Saturday Night Fever Say Anything Scarface The Searchers Shane Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Solaris Strangers on a Train Stroszek A Sunday in the Country Sunrise A Tale of Winter The Thin Man This Is Spinal Tap Tokyo Story Touchez Pas au Grisbi Touch of Evil The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Ugetsu Umberto D Unforgiven Victim Walkabout West Side Story Yankee Doodle Dandy

ROGER EBERT was born in Urbana, Illinois, and attended local schools and the University of Illinois, where he was editor of The Daily Illini. After graduate study in English at the universities of Illinois, Cape Town, and Chicago, he became a film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967 and won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975. The same year, he began a long association with Gene Siskel on the TV program Siskel and Ebert. After Siskel's death in 1999, the program continued with Richard Roeper as Ebert and Roeper, a show that is syndicated in more than two hundred markets. Ebert was a lecturer on film in the University of Chicago's Fine Arts Program, an adjunct professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Illinois, and received honorary doctorates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Film Institute, and the University of Colorado, where he conducted an annual shot-by-shot analysis of a film for thirty-five years at the Conference on World Affairs. In 1999 he started an Overlooked Film Festival at the University of Illinois, selecting films, genres, and formats he believed deserve more attention. He is the author of The Great Movies, the bestselling annual volume Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook, and Roger Ebert's Book of Film, in addition to a dozen other books. He died in 2013.

"Ebert's enthusiasm and . . . straightforward prose are ideal for examining films . . . You remember why he's the only film critic ever to win the Pulitzer Prize." -New York Post "[T]hese pieces reflect Ebert's long, thoughtful, informed familiarity with these films. His impeccable credentials as an accessible populist encourage thinking that his recommendations . . . may be taken to heart by mainstream moviegoers who avidly follow his newspaper and TV reviews." -Booklist "An appreciation of the greatest movies by the greatest movie enthusiast . . . I read this book with pleasure, enlightenment, and a desire to see many of the movies again, because I had missed what Roger saw." -Paul Theroux