On this week’s edition of After Image, I chat with Metro Arts producer Veronica Straight-Lingo about The Wizard of Oz presented by Ebert Interruptus, April 8-10 at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado Boulder, and share some fond memories of Interruptus past. Continue reading
It started in 1975 when a friend of film critic Roger Ebert suggested watching a movie, one frame at a time. The esteemed Chicago Sun-Times arts journalist had been attending the Conference on World Affairs, held every spring at CU … Continue reading We’re Off to See the Wizard: Previewing the 2025 Ebert Interruptus
I guess you could say the low point arrived on March 27, 2022, with the broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards. No, the “slap heard ’round the world” wasn’t it—though that cast a pall over the proceedings, didn’t it?—but the … Continue reading Cinema 101
It didn’t take long for Judy Garland to get started. Born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, on June 10, 1922, Garland strode onto the vaudeville stage with her sisters in 1924, solidifying her future as an entertainer. In … Continue reading Judy Garland
It’s hard to overstate the significance of 1939 in American cinema. Even though the movies were nearly four decades old, a series of events and artistic developments conspired to bring Hollywood into maturity. Some of these advancements were technological: sound … Continue reading 1939: Hollywood’s Golden Year
Oz the Great and Powerful, like The Wizard of Oz, begins in Kansas at the turn of the century. Oscar (James Franco) is a stage magician in a traveling circus act. Using the stage name Oz, he puts on basic circus … Continue reading OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Michael J. Cinema 