When he died on Tuesday at age 65 of pneumonia, everyone had their image of Val Kilmer at hand to personally mourn. There was the wonderfully showy Juilliard valedictorian, youngest actor ever accepted into the prestigious school, the young Brando who made his method bonafides known with theatrical, physical turns in “Tombstone,” “The Doors,” and “Wonderland”. There was the steely isolated professional who shunned Hollywood’s pleasantries and erased his natural charisma in films like “Heat” and “Spartan”, men who saw through the machinery while becoming one with it. But there’s a reason that so many people were quick to talk about the comedic wunderkind who first appeared in “Top Secret!” and “Real Genius,” and who moved through the world like the forgotten Marx Brother. That’s who he was under everything, a man bemused not by the surreal nature of his life but life in general. He could give performances so stunning you wonder how one body and mind contained them, even more so that he dealt them with the somnambulant reflex of a 3AM blackjack game. He seemed a little more than human, trapped in the body of a star.

In the documentary “Val,” released in 2021 when the writing about Kilmer’s health post-tracheotomy for throat cancer was on the wall, Kilmer shows off home movies his parents took of him in school plays. He was addicted to getting laughs and good at it. He does a move, a quick point to punctuate a line, the kind of very present moment of breaking through whatever an actor’s training might be, that lets the audience know he’s aware of them, but more importantly, that he’s got them. The million dollar smile fades, hiding the signature teeth (no one who hears him champ down on them to intimidate Tom Cruise in a locker room in “Top Gun” ever forgets the dimensions of Val Kilmer’s teeth), and a face of mock seriousness falls like a set of blinds, and he points. “Do I have your attention?” he asks silently. Val Kilmer got a reputation for being difficult, cagey, sarcastic, possibly insane, but he was never boring. Your attention is his. He got us. The point is still there in “Real Genius” as he once again found himself a kid on a stage amusing himself and an audience. It’s there in “MacGruber,” in which he plays a villain defined by those same 180-degree shifts in mood and intent, a comedic powerhouse. The kid never left him. Not every actor kept him so close during such a storied career with a quick, painful visit to the top of the world.

Part of the reason it’s daunting to write about Val Kilmer is that he was one of the first actors whose presence off screen became a part of his life and career, like his idol Marlon Brando. He was constantly writing an essay on his own work and the business and art of film running perpetually alongside his performances. He was his own harshest critic and indeed Hollywood’s harshest critic, aware that talents were being squandered on product, which of course meant everyone’s talents were being squandered. The dream of a kid who grew up remaking movies with his two beloved brothers on the family’s 8mm camera became a vulgar absurdity and he learned to hate it as he became a movie star instead of an actor. Part of it was his brother Wesley, the director of those little backyard movies, died at age 15. He needed to be his own director and writer now. He began when he got to New York. At Juilliard he started writing plays and starring in them, his intellect going so fast he seemed to lap himself. He wasn’t satisfied playing third leads (even to the likes of Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon). He needed a challenge. When he was cast in “Top Secret!” he learned to play the guitar in order to play rock star and spy Nick Rivers (he even released an album in character!) only to be told it was funnier if he didn’t really play, like Elvis would in his movies. He recalls the story in “Val” as the first of many betrayals that waited for him in Hollywood. His talent and determination were not to be rewarded. It was up to him to make the work satisfying anyway. Suitably he is magnetic in “Top Secret!” a dopey open-mouthed smile/sneer hiding whip crack intellect, a dancer’s coordination during long takes of choreography, and unrepeatably verbose dialogue. It was just a comedy, but no one was going to tell Val Kilmer that he was just anything.

“Real Genius” found him playing one of the most memorable waggish slackers of the 80s snobs v. slobs canon, a brainiac who accidentally builds a laser for the CIA between keggers and pool parties. He turns the mean-spirited Neal Israel/Pat Proft one liners and fashions a living cartoon with three dimensions; Bugs Bunny for the Reagan years. Kilmer was one of the only Hollywood stars of the era who could play smart, because even though he hadn’t studied rocket science, his mind did run as fast as any equation could ask of it. He doesn’t have to fake quick wits. It made being press-ganged into the cast of “Top Gun” something of a chore. He knew Iceman wasn’t much of a character, so he wrote him an elaborate backstory to occupy his mind, and he became an inextricable part of the film’s texture. Kilmer would never again get near a plane without being called “Iceman” by the pilot. He’d play sidekicks again in “The Real McCoy,” “Tombstone,” “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” allowing him to spread his wings with less attention fixed on him by the director dealing with the leads, though it wasn’t a straight line from strength to strength for this mercurial talent.

Kilmer had the looks and the charm, so he was initially molded into a leading man. “Willow,” George Lucas and Ron Howard’s fan fiction “Lord of the Rings,” turned him into a shaggy haired and goofy Aragorn fighting dragons and romancing future wife Joanne Whalley. He’d seen Whalley acting at the Royal Court Theatre in London while he was overseas making “Top Secret!” and had never gotten her out of his head. Neither “Willow” nor their marriage was destined for longevity, though they had two children Mercedes and Jack, who narrates “Val” in his father’s voice, and co-starred with him in Gia Coppola’s “Palo Alto”. Playing typical leading men didn’t interest him as 80s Hollywood became 90s Hollywood. He’s sturdy and enjoyable in Michael Apted’s “Thunderheart,” allowing a degree of self-loathing and a respect for the project’s aims (to draw attention to the apartheid conditions forced on Native American Reservations) kept him in check. The film prompted this from Roger Ebert: “if there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Kilmer should get it.” By the time he was cast as the third Batman after Adam West and Michael Keaton, there wasn’t much he could do to amuse himself in the part. “My role was to show up and stand where I was told to…” he later said. He modeled Bruce Wayne after soap opera stars, but no one appreciated or noticed the gesture. He can’t help but be charming but he also looks lost and bored in the uncomfortable cowl and stiff costume. It did inspire a wonderfully self-deprecating moment in the show “Life’s Too Short” where, playing himself, he shows up at a restaurant in the costume and demands people guess who he is. “Think!” He screams at a diners who keep guessing he’s Christian Bale.

In the midst of his agreeing to big action movies for a paycheck he was given gifts from the universe, as when Oliver Stone announced a film about The Doors and Kilmer, already the spitting image of Jim Morrison, sent in hours of audition material (the strategy hadn’t panned out for “Full Metal Jacket” but it worked here). Kilmer drove everyone around him to distraction with a year’s worth of preparation for the part and then living as Morrison during the production. He rarely changed pants and learned to speak, move, think, and consume like Morrison as Stone filled the screen with projections of the rocker’s LSD-fueled spiritual journey. “The Doors” erupts from his performance, as pretentious as it is frequently spellbinding, and with anything but work of Kilmer’s caliber at the center it would be unbearable. The thing about giving yourself over to a performance like this is that it can be tough to come back to earth after months of isolation from yourself (just ask Johnny Depp). Hollywood couldn’t help Kilmer find a suitable follow-up. Playing Batman was not the psychological dare he was hoping for. His few-minute turn as Elvis in “True Romance” hints at what he was capable of doing when allowed to get back into character in something that really excited his past self, still buzzing with excitement at Juilliard’s playwriting workshops. For those few minutes, “True Romance” is a sweet and psychotic love letter to the movies, the essence of the story boiled down to a great little two-hander and Kilmer’s face is never fully in frame.

Doc Holliday came next, probably his most famous performance, if not his best. The production was a few miles down the road from any given director or production executive and so, with so much overhead blowing away and so many moving parts, the boys were able to play and have fun. Kilmer was covered in silent film make up to emphasize his tubercular condition and laid himself on a bed of ice for his big death scene. He relishes in his pinched dandy voice and drunkard’s boastfulness, showing off the nothing he’s made his own kingdom as he perishes before our eyes. His bizarro antique turns of phrase and pallid complexion make him the most memorable thing in a movie that features just about every actor in America (Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Charlton Heston, Powers Boothe, Michael Rooker, Terry O’Quinn, Thomas Haden Church, Billy Zane, Stephen Lang, Bill Paxton, and that’s just a few of them). Evidently nobody told Val Kilmer it was an ensemble piece, because he made it a star vehicle. Initially he was allergic to talking about it—he even stonewalled its biggest fan, Bob Dylan, at a dinner he threw specifically to grill him about it—but Kilmer would be the toast of conventions and anniversary screenings later in life. Indeed, when his leading man days were behind him he took a much nicer view of the world of superstardom he’d so shunned in his heyday. He tried his best to allow his fellow artists to access his attitude of humility and fun. One of his most famous social media posts is a story he told the day Lou Reed died of tickling the stonefaced rockstar. “I regretted it for the longest while as he spoke to me few times after that dinner. But I’m glad now. He needed it.” That was Kilmer’s job later in life.

Of course, the success of “Tombstone” was not the kind he wanted for himself at the time. He turned down “Batman & Robin,” but more thankless big budget action movies lay in wait for him. It was these enormous canvases, where he had nowhere to hide, that uncovered his limitations. His work in Stephen Hopkins’ “The Ghost and the Darkness” and Philip Noyce’s “The Saint” found him trying on accents and disguises that don’t work, though they’re worth watching for the goofy fun he’s having. Understanding that the movies won’t benefit from a traditional approach, he just throws tics and decisions at the wall and sees what sticks. The films were ubiquitous in the days of basic cable and video rental shops. More too-dour work followed, only leavened by the actor’s inner levity. “Red Planet” is a silly potboiler set on Mars with quips I, nevertheless, haven’t forgotten in 25 years. “This is it. That moment they told us about in high school where one day that algebra would save our lives.”

He bucked tradition when he could, like when he appeared in Michael Mann’s “Heat,” perhaps the greatest American heist film. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino took top billing, and so, finally putting his Juilliard days to rest, he learned to love playing the third lead. He had a blast making the movie, gelling with two of his idols like they were kids at summer camp and working with a director who respected the mystique of actors while pushing them to do things outside their comfort zone. De Niro is a cypher even by his standards in “Heat,” Pacino is a human tornado, and Kilmer is his most stoic and unreadable. He truly just exists as Chris Shiherlis. There’s no other performance exactly like it in his body of work, nothing quite as intensely natural and human. In one shot he lets himself into his palatial ranch home, stretches like a cat to kiss his wife Ashley Judd, all beautiful and plush. Within seconds they’re arguing and he’s demanding she leave him if she’s so unhappy, leaping over furniture to punctuate his tirade. He’s scary in that moment. His ferocity will re-emerge during the celebrated bank job in the middle of the movie; no thinking, just instinct. It’s his best work on film. He later giddily confessed he “loved every minute of it.”

A few traditional leads followed, like his most soulful take on the voice of Moses (and God) in “The Prince of Egypt,” and as a slightly too-chipper manic pixie blind man in “At First Sight” (a mediocre film with off the charts sexual chemistry). The 2000s saw the end of his leading man days but the start of the most interesting part of his career. He retreated once more into his method seriousness to play a meth addict snitch in “The Salton Sea” and pornstar John Holmes in the over-caffeinated “Wonderland,” perfectly portraying a lost soul on the edge. In “Spartan” he seems to understand that making a serial-number free action thriller with a war-on-terror drunk David Mamet wasn’t anyone’s idea of a dream assignment but he has palpable fun in the inscrutable film. If you can track down the dvd his commentary is a thing of loony wonder. Uncas Blythe: “While enacting a simultaneous one-man parody of a Hollywood “roast” (he refers affectionately to the director as Daveed Mamé) AND at the same time performing in the character of “Val Kilmer,” a stereotypically wounded and monstrously self-involved celebrity, Kilmer the actor manages to add profound insight and gravitas to what is, admittedly, a ludicrous (2) and confusing B-picture. And, it bears saying, he negotiates this complex performative nexus completely extemporaneously.”

Important supporting parts in “The Missing,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” and “Deja Vu” for his “Top Gun” director Tony Scott found him in fine form and good spirits. In Ron Howard’s underrated western he shows up for a minute with a marvelously patronizing attitude as a cavalry scout. In the two neo-noirs his devil may care attitude around death, terror and depravity is warm; you love spending time with him as the heroes head down the rabbit hole. He’s the calm voice of reason, which was a perfect counterpoint to the rumor mill about his difficult behavior. Admittedly an awful lot of that can likely be traced to the disastrous making of “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” which should have been a dream come true. Here he was working with his hero Marlon Brando in Australia on a hifalutin gothic horror adaptation. Instead, they wound up working with a miserable John Frankenheimer as Brando showed up to set with some of his trademark “good ideas” like wearing splotchy white face paint, playing piano duets with the smallest man in the world, and (I wish to god they’d use this one), hiding a vestigial dolphin’s fin under a fez. Brando’s daughter had just committed suicide, and the grief had pushed him into an unreachable place. Kilmer recorded the mess for his massive home video archive and the bits of it that have surfaced show an embittered cast and crew at loggerheads in the hot sun. By the picture’s end, Kilmer’s character is feeding ketamine to man-animal hybrids at an underground rave as he does his Brando impression into a loudspeaker. This is really and truly how it ends. Anyone would have had a hard time taking the film industry seriously after that. He acted out to survive and it all ended up on film as punishment.

Kilmer stopped taking himself quite so seriously in the aftermath of his busy, taxing 90s, which allowed him to do incredible unforgettable work in Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “MacGruber,” “The Fourth Dimension,” in which he plays himself as a Florida wellness guru, and Francis Ford Coppola’s “Twixt,” or “B’Twixt Now and Sunrise.” In Coppola’s film he exorcised his feelings about working with Brando by playing a man stranded in an unhappy and unfamiliar setting who converses with the ghost of his idol, Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin). Kilmer turned down a part in Coppola’s “The Outsiders” back in the early 80s, so their union was a long time coming. He even finds time to do his Brando impression once more for the “Apocalypse Now” director. It seems like a lark, between the 3D photography, the Dan Deacon score, the drunken down time, the Tom Waits narration, the vampire biker named Flamingo, but by the end it becomes a heartbreaking autobiographical statement with Kilmer enacting his director’s grief at the death of his son Gian-Carlo. This performance of artistic exhaustion closes back in on itself and and director merge in their shared loss, one for his son, one for his brother.

It seemed like Kilmer was settling into a nice rhythm, doing comedies, which he’d always longed to do but so rarely got offered in his glory days, taking cameos (trying on the Jim Morrison swagger one last time as a chainsaw wielding rockstar in Terrence Malick’s “Song to Song”) playing himself and pursuing his passion project (a one man show about Mark Twain and his relationship to Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy; the Kilmers were all members of the church growing up) but then the bad news started dripping in. Just why was it he was dubbed in Tomas Alfredson’s disastrous “The Snowman?” Could just be post-production trouble, right, the film was lousy with them… But why couldn’t he seem to get words out in the dreary horror film “The Super?” A pattern was emerging, and then an answer after two years of denials from the actor and his team. Throat cancer. His religion prohibited medical intervention but eventually he gave in and sought treatment. Four years of treatments and living with a feeding tube all but robbed him of speech but he continued living, enjoying time with his family, meeting fans who’d been raised with his performances, whose first laughs and crushes were on the dreamboat in “Top Secret!” Then he received a call from his past. Tom Cruise wanted to know if he would like to come back and be Iceman again? Producer Don Simpson died in 1996, and director Tony Scott had died in 2012. They captured Kilmer’s performance, one of his most touching, just in time.

I was born in 1989 which means by the time I was old enough to start forming favorite among our VHS tapes Val Kilmer was in a fair amount of what we had, to say nothing of his constant appearance on TV. I watched my “Thunderheart” and “Heat,” favorites of my mom and dad, more times than I can count. He was an actor I followed with great interest because he was there at the foundation of my obsession with movies. It’s hard not to chase that light in those sleepy beautiful eyes. I followed him like an idol and like a friend through the early 2000s discomfort, the DTV downturn in the late oughts, and the joyous reinvention that followed. When I sat down to watch “Top Gun: Maverick” in 2022 I had nearly 30 years of fandom under my belt and this fragile man walked in, fearlessly showcasing the long battle with cancer, speaking through a small hole that pushed his airways open long enough for sound to escape. It was one last nod to the audience. He was down, but he was still in it for these precious moments, and he still had our attention. The mischievous glint in his eye still shone brightly as he hugged his beloved co-star and said goodbye to him, and to us. The actor who conquered the world and the boy who once stood on stage discovering the high that comes from the sound of an audience’s laughter. They both said farewell, but they left a body of work unique in Hollywood. The work on camera, and the man outside the role, watching it all happen, smiling because he knew that he had us.

Medical dramas were a TV staple in previous decades, but it feels like they’ve taken a backseat in a procedural world overrun with firefighters and police officers. However, in the last year, the tables have turned, with NBC’s “St. Denis Medical” and HBO’s “The Pitt” becoming more popular each week they air. Hospital-set dramas can feel a bit formulaic at times, especially when they go on for decades and twist between focusing on medical cases and romances until both threads feel like they’re going to burst. Thankfully, this isn’t the case for Netflix’s first English-language medical drama, which is a shining star of 2025 television. 

“Pulse” is set in a Miami Level 1 Trauma Center where third-year Resident, Dr. Danielle “Danny” Simms (Willa Fitzgerald), finds herself unexpectedly thrust into an unwanted promotion after Chief Resident, Dr. Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell) has been suspended. With a worsening hurricane looming over their heads, the hospital is forced into lockdown, and Xander is brought back to help the team, who are suffering under limited space and increasingly distressed patients. 

Facing each other for the first time after a blow-out confrontation that the show takes its time to process in flashbacks, the two are forced to confront their volatile feelings for each other. As the shocking details of their complicated relationship begin to spill out onto the hospital floor, both Danny and Xander buckle under the pressure. The rest of the ER is forced to process the fallout of this relationship and Danny’s newfound leadership position, while also working under the pressure of life-or-death stakes. At the center of this is a decision of who will become the permanent new Chief Resident in the hospital’s new cycle, which forces the staff to take sides in the civil war that has unfolded in their workplace. 

The series balances on the fine line between showcasing the actual medical cases these doctors work on and their interconnected personal lives. Danny’s deep empathy for her patients makes her a remarkable doctor in training, but her self-sabotaging nature complicates her rise to power. She knows deep down that she was destined to be a doctor, but she also seems terrified of her own potential. This self doubt is a major part of why her relationship not only with Xander, but her sister Harper (Jessy Yates) and best friend Sam Elijah (Jessie T. Usher) has become so strained. 

Fitzgerald and Woodell’s chemistry cracks and ripples throughout the screen each time they share it. The tension between Danny and Xander is what makes “Pulse” the success that it is, with the two revealing each other’s secrets to the audience in bursts of jealousy and pain. Each personal relationship Danny and Xavier have with their co-workers begins to fracture under the weight of the secrets they’re hiding, threatening to destroy the bond that the hospital has created. While Danny and Xander take center stage, their friends are also faltering under the weight of this everc-hanging storm. 

There’s Sophie Chan (Chelsea Muirhead), a frazzled surgical intern whose selfish mentor Tom Cole (Jack Bannon) forces her to try and make a name for herself; Camila Perez (Daniela Nieves), a medical student whose growing bond with Sophie lights up the screen; and Sam, whose position as Danny’s best friend becomes shaky as they both battle it out to become chief resident. Each episode further upends the lives of these characters, and the masks they wear to protect themselves begin to peel back at a speed that none of them seem prepared for. Save for flashback’s, the first five episodes take place in the ER, forcing the audience to meld into the relentless setting these characters inhabit. 

“Pulse” is incredibly addictive, which will have audiences who enjoy consuming television at a rapid pace thankful for Netflix’s binge-model. However, there’s an intensity that the show is missing because of the release model it’s embalmed in. With show’s like “The Pitt” finding their success with HBO’s weekly release model, I can’t help but wish this series was given the same longevity that comes with the classic release model which television was founded on. While the episodes fly by, a show like this would pack more of a punch if its audience was able to sit with the material they just watched. 

Despite the burden the binge-model proposes, Netflix has crafted one of the best procedural dramas of the decade. “Pulse” escapes the vacuum of content which is constantly placed above quality television, clearly made by individuals who understand what makes medical dramas so enthralling. The pressure of life-or-death stakes, paired with the unbeatable chemistry of each and every cast member, makes this series feel like lightning in a bottle. These characters don’t feel like caricatures of medical professionals: they feel like real people whose personal relationships often force their jobs to take a backseat, even though their careers and the lives of their patients depend on their unwavering focus.

All episodes were screened for review.

Adi Shankar is the person that video game publishers call when they are interested in adapting their beloved franchises to animated television. After revitalizing “Castlevania” for Konami and blending all the Ubisoft franchises into the neon-drenched retro remix “Captain Laserhawk,” Shankar and company have hit the jackpot with Capcom’s “Devil May Cry,” now on Netflix. The hack-and-slash video game series about Dante, a white-haired demon hunter with a Hot Topic attitude, is the perfect candidate for Shankar’s demented, graphically violent worlds. His take is a gleefully violent, high-octane action adaptation with a punk edge.

Dante (Johnny Yong Bosch; funny casting given he voices Dante’s nephew Nero in the games) is a vigilante demon hunter for hire. As a child, he experienced the tragedy of seeing his mother and brother Virgil being burned alive, leaving him orphaned. His only possession is an amulet that his mother gave him, which he wears as a necklace. He soon discovers that this artifact becomes the target of two opposing forces: One, a homicidal anthropomorphic Lewis Carroll-styled White Rabbit (Hoon Lee), who already possesses one, the other a secret demon-hunting government agency named Darkcom, authorized by Vice President Baines (the late Kevin Conroy, in his final role) and led by Mary (Scout Taylor-Compton), a ruthless, self-willed agent obsessed with demon hunting since she was a kid. At first, Dante and Mary play cat and mouse regarding his amulet, but they have to set aside their differences and take down White Rabbit and his powerful demon associates. As he’s reluctantly thrust into this plot, Dante embarks on a journey of self-discovery, uncovering the truth behind his own dark past.

“Devil May Cry” effectively translates the game’s kinetic pacing with a short story that takes place over 48 hours or less for its eight-episode first season. It’s a frenzied, adrenaline rush as swift as the swords Dante wields in both pacing and style, best to digest in one easy binge. The animation from Studio Mir (“My Adventures with Superman,” “X-Men 97”) is nothing short of excellent. As in their other work, they excel at realizing epic action sequences. The artists of “DmC” are at the height of their skill as they translate the blistering high-speed energy of the hack-and-slash gameplay into each graphically gory action scene. Every other action scene is outfitted with inspired needle drops from 2000-era bands like Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, and Evanescence, who provide an original tune for the end credits song.

Shankar productions commonly include character interactions that are awkward and juvenile, such as a teenager who has recently learned how to swear, which disrupts the story’s mature storytelling. Furthermore, Taylor-Compton is frustratingly one-note, often lapped by experienced co-stars like Lee and Bosch. Her delivery is monotonous; it’s a role that should have been filled by someone with experience in animation, considering so much of the story is focused on her character.

Much like “Captain Laserhawk,” showrunner Adi Shankar and his writing team—mostly Alex Larsen (“Bodied”), who penned each episode—utilize ‘80s action thriller tropes while blending in a welcoming thread of social commentary. Whereas it felt jumbled and misplaced in “Laserhawk,” Shankar and Larsen realize it more maturely here. Among all the demon-hunting frenzy, the story reveals a piercing discussion of immigration rights through the guise of American elitism. 

Game fans may be frustrated that their hero Dante isn’t the main character of “Devil May Cry.” The writers are more concerned with dissecting the complexities of White Rabbit and Mary, drawing inspiration from the “Devil May Cry 3” manga to create a layered portrait that is much larger than Dante’s. Be patient. Everything pays off in the sixth episode, a chapter guided by silent visual storytelling that incorporates various animation styles and some aptly fitting needle drops. It is one of the year’s best TV episodes to date, a bold move that proves why these studios hire Shankar for their adaptations. Let’s hope they continue to do so.

Whole season screened for review. Now on Netflix.

Apple TV+’s new series “Your Friends and Neighbors” opens with the image of its protagonist, Andrew Cooper (Jon Hamm), laid out in a pool of blood. It’s not his own, though: it belongs to the body of an unknown man, whose corpse Cooper walked in on when he was attempting to steal from his house. The Cooper that the series opens on is significantly different from the version we subsequently get to know in flashbacks, detailing what led up to this moment. After striving to get to the top, he resides in a picturesque neighborhood while maintaining a career as a New York hedge fund manager. However, his life comes crashing down after he sleeps with a younger employee.

This moment doesn’t even scratch the surface of how badly Cooper’s life has been going. Months prior to his firing, he walked in on his wife Mel (Amanda Peet) cheating on him with his best friend, Nick Brandes (Mark Tallman), a cataclysmic event that upended their already failing marriage. Single, unemployed, and desperate to still maintain the life that his wealth has gotten him, Cooper is left with no choice. He quickly turns to petty crime and realizes that there’s no one better to steal from than the wealthy residents of Westmont Village that he is surrounded by each day. 

As the value of the objects Cooper steals increases, so does the weight that his crimes carry. Buried within each house that he steals from are dormant secrets and affairs that turn out to be more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Backed by the grating cries and hushed whispers of these wealthy inhabitants, they let these mysteries fester until they become gaping wounds that take on a life of their own. Cooper justifies his thieving by admitting that most of his friends won’t miss these belongings and attempts to place himself outside of the black hole of despair that threatens to swallow him up.

“It’s not like I’d never noticed, but I guess now I was seeing it differently,” Cooper relays to the audience one night as he’s planning a heist. Because he has lost his job and his wife—along with their two children, who seem to want nothing to do with him—Cooper has become an outsider in the community in which he once thrived. This otherness propels him into a new world marked by self-doubt and precarity. However, when he teams up with housekeeper Elena Benavides (Aimee Carrero), it becomes clear that he still exists within the confines of the upper class. Even though his assets may dry up in six months, he cannot compare to the lives of the people he may get hurt in the midst of his pursuits. 

Although the series isn’t brave enough to thoroughly explore this thread, it’s impossible to watch “Your Friends and Neighbors” and not think of the disparity of wealth between Cooper and the people whose lives he begins to encroach upon. It becomes a point of contention more than once, and although it takes the show more than a few episodes to get there, he finally seems to be reckoning with the mistakes he’s made in his life. Hamm portrays Cooper with the cockiness that made him the on-screen icon he is today, but at the series’ halfway point this cockiness slowly gets chipped away, morphing into a shame that is fascinating to watch Hamm convey. 

While the series initially captures its audience’s attention with the prospect of watching a rich man stealing from his neighbors, the secrets that continue to unravel are what will truly reel viewers in. The people Cooper surrounds himself with are so far removed from reality that it makes watching them crumble under the weight of their own mistakes thrilling to watch. However, watching them become caught off guard by their own emotions—which they only reveal in bursts of anger or fleeting moments of introspection—shapes this series into a tragic, albeit shallow, examination of a class that is at war with itself. 

When “Your Friends and Neighbors” introduces us to its cast of wealthy individuals, it’s easy to become filled with jealousy. The sun gleams off of the windows of grand houses and expensive cars,  and the lives of each of these people seem so much easier than that of your average American. But the existence of wealth in their lives gives ample time for boredom to strike, leading to bad decisions that chip away at the quaint lives they’ve built for themselves. As the walls these characters have put up begin to crumble, the jealousy one may have formed quickly dissipates. By the time the final few episodes roll around, it gets easier to be grateful that you aren’t one of these characters, no matter how rich they are. 

Seven episodes were screened for review. 

There is nothing quite like the films of trailblazing filmmaker Euzhan Palcy, whose commitment to cinema as a tool for empathy, understanding, and social change is unparalleled. Her films explore themes of race, gender, economics, and the continual, and damaging, effects of colonialism with an incisive gaze and tender grace. Upon receiving her Honorary Academy Award in 2002, Viola Davis noted that Palcy’s work, “broke ground for Black women directors and inspired storytellers of all kinds across the globe.” Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Palcy studied French Literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, as well as earning degrees in Art and Archeology and film at the École nationale supérieure Louis-Lumière.

Her debut film, “Sugar Cane Alley (Rue Cases Nègres),” adapted from the novel of the same name by Martinican author Joseph Zobel, screened at the Venice Film Festival, where star Darling Légitimus won the Best Actress Award and Palcy received the Silver Lion for Best First Film. For her work on the film, the director became the first Black director to win the Cesar Award for Best First Film. In 1989, she became the first Black female filmmaker to have a film produced by a major Hollywood studio when MGM, then headed by Alan Ladd Jr., financed and distributed  “A Dry White Season,” adapted by Palcy and Colin Welland from the novel by Andre Brink. Inspired by her commitment to using cinema for social change, Marlon Brando emerged from a nearly decade-long retirement to star alongside Donald Sutherland and Susan Sarandon in the anti-apartheid drama, earning his final Oscar nomination. The film also starred Black South African actors Zakes Mokae, Winston Ntshona, John Kani, and Thoko Ntshinga in prominent roles, which led to the film being briefly banned in the country.  

Drained from the experience, Palcy’s next project was the comedic musical fairytale “Siméon.” Set in the Caribbean and Paris and featuring Zouk music from the French Caribbean band Kassav, the film stars Jean-Claude Duverger as the titular Siméon, a beloved music teacher whose ghost begins to follows the adventures of his former student Isidore (Jacob Desvarieux, the late leader and co-founder of Kassav) and Isidore’s 10-year-old daughter Orélie (Lucinda Messager). Palcy cites that working on the fable helped “heal” her from the trauma of her previous film. She later directed the three-part documentary, Aimé Césaire, A Voice For History” about the Martinican poet, playwright, and philosopher, “Ruby Bridges” for the The Wonderful World of Disney, and the Showtime drama “The Killing Yard,” about the 1971 Attica prison riot, which stars Alan Alda and Morris Chestnut. 

For this month’s Female Filmmakers in Focus, Palcy spoke to RogerEbert.com about wanting to affect change through filmmaking from a very young age, the importance of truth when dealing with presenting history on film, and creating a body of work that will resonate with the next generation. 

In your Oscar speech you talked about how with your camera, you don’t shoot; you heal. At what point did you realize filmmaking could be a tool for social change?

Very, very early on. When I say that, I know that it might sound pretentious, but that’s the truth. I always tell the truth about things, and encourage people to tell the truth, because this is your truth. At a very young age, I started to write short stories. I started, first of all, to write poems. I was a young girl and had inspiration. I love singing. I love poetry. I kept all my little books, you know, my parents saved them very carefully, gave them to me when I left to go to France, and said, “Keep them safe. You never know.” When I read my poetry that I was writing when I was ten, eleven, twelve, I say, “Oh, my God, they are so bad.” [laughs]

But anyway, I was in love with movies and every Sunday I used to go to the theater. One day I saw a movie, it was an American film. I don’t remember the name. It was about somebody Black being accused of raping a white girl, but he was innocent, and it was actually committed by a white guy who knew the family well. Then there was a chase to find the poor innocent man. I was so hurt by that film, and I kept asking why we never see Black people on screen, and when you see one, you know, look what they are showing us? It just exploded in my head, that movie, I’ll never forget it. I forgot the title, but the images stay with me. I was telling my mother about this movie and I was asking her why we don’t see black people on the screen and that it’s always white people.

And it was because those movies were from America, some came from France, but mostly they were coming from America. My mother said it was because we’re not making those movies. Then she gave me a book to read: “La Rue Cases-Nègres,” or “Sugar Cane Alley.” When I read that book I really dug into that story. It created a kind of volcanic revolution in my head and my heart, an eruption, because for the first time of my young life, I had in my hand a book written by somebody from my country, Martinique. It was [author Joseph Zobel’s] own story about his grandmother in the 1930s, but all characters in that book were people I knew. I knew people like them because they were around me in my daily life. It also meant that the situation never stopped, that bad situation never stopped. My friends were children, but their parents worked in the sugar cane plantations, so those characters in the book were very familiar to me. 

After I read the book, I started to dream. I was very naive, thinking nobody had ever come across that book before because the story is so fantastic, so moving, so great. I was lucky to have that story, because I already knew at that time that I wanted to make films, but I didn’t know how. All I knew was that I wanted to do that. I wanted to do those pictures. I knew that book by heart, and I started to see the images and see the scenes and I was dreaming of those people. In my dream, I was with them, so I was making that movie in my dreams. 

When I was a teenager, I knew that I had to study and I wanted to make films. It was absolutely for me a must. It was something just as necessary as the oxygen that I was breathing and I was leaving home just for that, nothing else. My father told me that I needed to go to France, but that it would be something new for us. We don’t know what will happen to you. He said I may fail and will never be able to do it, so he advised me to go to Sorbonne and to study literature, you know, something very serious, because at this time making films was not considered a real job. There was nobody around us in our country being a filmmaker. There was no film industry, except for distribution, and the many, many theaters that showed all kinds of movies coming from the United States and France. So he was very prudent, but he said, “I’ll help you. I’ll work harder to push you to do it.” He knew because I was writing music and poetry and everything at that young age, that it was not just a caprice. He knew it was something deep inside me. So he promised he’d do everything he can to have enough money to help me. And he did, my poor father. Later, he came to at least three of my movie sets. 

So, I went to France. I studied and I got my degrees. I went to the most famous film school in Paris and, respecting my promise. I went to the Sorbonne, and I graduated in French literature and in theater and in art education. I had a lot of degrees, I got my training. He was able to see that he didn’t trust me for nothing and work so hard and send money to pay for everything that I needed, my needs in Paris as a student, that his money was not wasted. 

Do you think studying all those other subjects on top of your love of film helped enrich the way that you approach storytelling? Having a background in literature and archeology and art and all these other ways of looking at humanity, do you think that you fueled that into your filmmaking?

I think so, because everything that I was writing, even when I was in high school, was about the struggle for a better life, or also great love stories, But, always, when you will have something like that around you, the social situation, our condition, the condition of Black folks, I couldn’t talk about the condition of white people because I didn’t know them. I would see them only on television and in the theaters, but that’s it. I knew that I couldn’t stand the fact that we were so miserable, and so I had to do something about it. 

Also, the song I wrote, just to give you an idea very quickly, when I was there were two female singers that I just loved so much, and I knew almost their entire repertoire. It was Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday. Even if I could hardly understand when I was younger, the full meaning of the words, I could feel what was behind the words, and the sadness, and everything you know? I knew that that beautiful woman, she was not happy, she was thinking about how she would like to see change. That’s why seeing the people in my country, in these sugar cane fields, seeing these people have miserable lives affected me. They are very poor, and I was very lucky to be middle class, so I shared everything I had with them, everything. 

And so, my movies, you know, my muse, My desire was to help very early on. At a very young age, I realized what a powerful weapon movies could be for social change. I was very aware that they could be negative or positive.

In “A Dry White Season” you specifically made sure to cast Black South African actors in those pivotal roles instead of Black American actors, so there’s an added layer of lived in authenticity to those performances. Could you talk a little bit about the casting of that film?

Ever since I started to think and to create deep inside me, I had this belief that when you deal with history, you must not, you cannot change the history. As a filmmaker you need to tell a story, so sometimes you have to add things, but you need to know how to tell it without betraying the truth. I was very aware that as a filmmaker, you have responsibility for what you put on the screen. You cannot distort history. So that’s the reason why I had to go to South Africa undercover. I had to find out the truth about some of the scenes, like the torture scene. That’s the kind of woman I am. I want to go to the nitty gritty of things. I need to, because when I talk about it, I take responsibility for it. It’s the truth. There it is. I can show you that. That’s why I went to Soweto undercover and interviewed men, women, teenagers, kids, all Black, who were selected by the very famous doctor and activist Dr. Nthato Motlana. We met in Paris. He said, “they are going to kill you.” And I said, “No, no, they won’t kill me. Don’t worry. God is protecting me.” That’s what I said to him. Then he organized everything for me because he understood that nothing would stop me. 

So to go back to your question precisely, so, therefore, I told the studio, Mr. Alan Ladd Jr., bless his heart. I said, Sir, I know that you’ve agreed to produce the film, but I have one very crucial, important request. I said, I know Hollywood, when they go to any countries outside the United States and the films have Black folks, they usually cast Black Americans, African American actors, because they believe they are the best, and they don’t even look for actors in those countries. Part of it is because of money, because they want stars. I said, I understand that, but I’m going to put my life on the line. They can kill me for what I’m doing, and I’m ready. I take responsibility for it, but I cannot make that movie with my brothers and sisters who are African American. I’m not doing fiction. I’m talking about history, about things that really happened. The uprising in the 70s was horrible. So I’m not going to betray that. I want to give a voice to those people. 

For example, in the film when Stanley (Zakes Mokae), the cab driver, takes Gordon (Winston Ntshona), the gardener and Gordon’s wife Emily (Thoko Ntshinga), to to the mortuary, and you see all those kids laid down with bullets and blood everywhere, and then and they touch them, and they say what their lines, when you listen to them talking with the accent, the way that they walk, they breathe…I mean, you cannot ask, and must not ask an African American actor, to do just like them. You need to have real people. 

And I said, this is not a comedy, okay? This is real life. I said I will get the best, and I will train them. I am a director. I direct actors. Alan Ladd Jr. said he understood. I’m sure that he might have been the only head of a studio in Hollywood, who would let a director do that. It was very important for me, and because today I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in a mirror. When Nelson Mandela became president, he wanted to meet the woman who did that movie, because it was so accurate. So, I wouldn’t be able to look at my face in the mirror today if I had betrayed that. Andre Brink, who wrote the book, met with me in Paris secretly before the filming began, because he had to give me the rights and everything. And he told me when we met afterwards, when the movie was made, he was the first one to see the film in England. He told me, “Oh, people are saying that my book is a masterpiece. Your movie is the masterpiece. It is so real.” That’s why you know it’s important. If you want to change stuff and write a comedy, create your own story, do whatever you want, but the minute that you touch history, you cannot lie about it, you cannot cheat. You can take licenses, yes, but only if they can support the truth.

When I create, I think of the new generation. That’s why I brought those two kids to the Academy Awards with me at my official table, so they could see those girls. This is the world, Hollywood, there are those people. Look at them! I work for them. I create for the young generation, Black, white,  Latino, Chinese and African. Whoever they are and wherever they are. Because when you disappear as a creator, you disappear, you die. This Your work will outlive you. That’s what I truly believe. So you need to give them what is true. Because everything that you put on screen, that’s your life. 

Rewatching “A Dry White Season,” I felt a lot of parallels to things happening in the world today. What do you think audiences today might take from this film?

A decade after that film I did “Ruby Bridges” and I made that film for the same reason, because it was a true story. When they approached me to do it, I couldn’t say no. Disney was producing it, and I was very worried that they might not give me the freedom that I needed to really do the movie as it happened in real life. I was very worried about that, but they gave me everything I needed. They didn’t remove one frame of the film when I delivered my director’s cut. Recently there was a woman in Texas who wanted them to take “Ruby Bridges” out of schools. And you see how people reacted, white ones, Black ones, they reacted. They said, “No! Go to the internet and you will see the real thing in black and white.”

So today, I truly believe, when people see “A Dry White Season,” it will affect them. In France, for example, kids came to me, teenagers who were fifteen or sixteen, who wanted to meet with me and tell me after seeing my movie they decided to go to Amnesty International and register. They said, “We did it because we need to fight that.” In America, I know that some white folks who saw my film, told me that the person who walked in to see “A Dry White Season,” was not there anymore. They walked out a new person. I said to them, “But have similar inequalities in your city. It is not as extreme today, but you still have it going on. Maybe you will do something about it. “

I had never seen “Siméon” before, and it’s such a vibrant, playful film, and very different from “A Dry White Season.” It’s such a beautiful love letter to your home country. Where did that whole story come from, and since it rarely screens in the United States, what are your hopes for this screening?

I wish we could have a real release of “Siméon” in this country. There was a film festival in the Caribbean a few years ago, just before COVID. They screened “Sugar Cane Alley” and “Simeon,” and I’m telling you, the theater was packed. People were asking if we could have another screening. But they couldn’t, unfortunately, and I was leaving. “Simeon” hasn’t aged. That movie is just as vibrant today. Miles Davis had fallen in love with Kassav, the band featured in the film, and called his guitarist Marcus Miller and said, “Listen to that, dude.” And he said, “I’m telling you, in a few years, the bands that will survive are Prince and Kassav.” They never came to Los Angeles, but they went to New York and they loved their music there. “Siméon,” I’m telling you, is timeless. And my dream, my dream is to be able one day have a proper release of that movie. 

It’s a really fun one. It’s rife with folklore–were you building on stories you’d heard from your childhood? 

Yes. “Sugar Cane Alley” and “Siméon” both are inspired by my childhood. In my life, when I talk to people, sometimes I tell one of my stories to them and they crack up and say, “Write it down! Write it down!” So, Siméon is filled with folktales, absolutely. So I must tell you why I made “A Dry White Season” after “Sugar Cane Alley.” It is not a comedy. It’s a very poignant story and you laugh and you cry because it’s about life, about misery, about struggle. There are a lot of human universal values in those movies. That’s why, even if the characters are Black, the story is very universal. The first distributor of “Sugar Cane Alley” was Japanese. They bought it out of the Venice Film Festival. Just after they gave out the award winners, the Japanese bought the film. A few hours later, it was the Americans. There’s universal themes in all of my movies, and anyone can watch a film that I made and find a connection with their culture. 

So, I had to do “Siméon,” or something like it, because when I came out of “A Dry White Season,” I was broken. I was absolutely emotionally broken because I knew that I was dealing with the truth, and I saw so much footage, not fiction, real footage of these atrocities. Can you believe these people? I saw white folks in South Africa when I went to a district where a Black person was married to a white person, and they would use the tools you use to cut the trunks of trees, and use it in the middle of the night, break into homes and cut the couples into pieces, to punish them. I saw so many horrible things. I was gone. I would be crying. I had a nervous breakdown. 

Afterwards, my friend Francis Ford Coppola invited me to visit his set, where he was filming the third “Godfather.” On the plane to Italy to visit him something happened to me. Don’t ask me why, but something just happened. In my head, I started to hear music. My muse came back, and said, “Hey, girl, wake up and grab a piece of paper and write.” And you know what I did? You know when you fly on a plane they have those little bags if you feel like vomiting? I asked for a ton of them. I said I had an idea and I didn’t want to lose it. So the flight attendant gave me a ton of them. And I wrote everything that came to my mind, the little girl, the old man, everything that came to my mind.

Then I felt a little bit liberated, you know? And then I went to Francis’ set and we talked. I think that I spent something like two or three days with him, and then I went back to Paris, and I started to write the story of “Siméon.” It was like therapy for me, okay?

People when they see “Siméon,” they come out with a little smile on their face. They say “Siméon” is a treatment against morosity. It’s a cure if you are sad or depressed. When I screen that movie, during the end of the movie, people dance. They grab their women, they grab their girls, they grab their man, and all they dance along. They stay in the theater and they dance. You see, they are so happy. I’ve done this at a few screenings, I will sneak in the dark for the last five minutes and I wait. Everybody dances, they do that everywhere. That was the impact that “Siméon,” has on people. And I can understand it because by making “Siméon,” I healed myself, you see, and that’s why I say that, with my camera, I don’t shoot, I heal.

I’m trying to heal the wounds created by history. When I talk about Black folks, I say that I’m not lecturing people, but I do show things, and that’s it. And people, they feel better because they are represented. Black folks are seeing themselves on screen. It’s like when you see old movies about the Native Americans. White people stole their land and killed many of them, but they portray them in movies like savages, even though they are the savages. They are the killers and the bastards. But when you see somebody making a movie to re-establish the truth, and showing you the true face of the Native American people, their culture, how they lived, that will make you feel good, and that will certainly make those people and the new generation feel a bit better.

In your Oscar speech, you talk about the generations of Black women who were inspired by your films like Gina Prince-Bythewood and Kasi Lemmons, and now they’re inspiring another generation of younger Black women who are making films. Do you have any advice you’d like to impart on this next generation Black women who are making films?

I will give them the same advice that I give to anyone in this new generation, as well the one after them. First of all, it’s a very tough job, and you need to look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you really love the job and are you a good fit for the job? Because in order to do the job, you need to really believe strongly in yourself. Have faith in yourself and in what you want to do. You also need to know why you are doing it. If you love comedy and you want to tell a great comedy story, do it! Fight for it! Never give up. 

And just know that today it’s easier for you than it has been for me and has been for others. Today, just with your cellular phone, your iPhone, or whatever you can you can make a feature if you want to. You can make short films. I also say to kids, question your parents, because all telephones today have a camera. Use it. Question your grandmother. Question your grandfather. Your neighbor. Ask them. Be very, very curious. Start collecting things, you know? Because later on, when they will die, you will be able to see them and they will be still alive for you. My grandmother, Camille, she gave me all the tools that I needed to go to France and to confront people, to face any hard thing that could happen to me. She gave me all those tools to fight. And I would say other weapons too, because, you know, and I use many of them, I can be very funny, and that’s what made me who I am. 

This Friday, Palcy’s films “A Dry White Season” and “Siméon” will screen at Metrograph in New York City as part of Director Fits x Metrograph: Euzhan Palcy x2, during which she will also be conversation with Director Fits‘ Hagop Kourounian.

CHAMPAIGN, IL (April 1, 2025) — Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, also known as Ebertfest, announced today the final three films screening at this year’s festival, to be held April 23-26 at the Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign:

• Francis Ford Coppola’s MEGALOPOLIS
• Walter Salles’ Academy Award®-winning I’M STILL HERE
• Lotte Reiniger’s THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED 

Coppola will participate in a virtual Q&A immediately following the screening of MEGALOPOLIS, Michael Barker, Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics, will discuss the Oscar-winning film I’M STILL HERE, which Sony Pictures Classics distributed domestically, and back by popular demand, The Anvil Orchestra will perform during THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED. 

“It is incredible that Nate Kohn and I are just as excited to present the line-up for this 26th Ebertfest as we were for the first!” said Chaz Ebert, CEO of movie review site Rogerebert.com and cofounder of Ebertfest. “What Roger said about movies being a machine that generates empathy is so true. My heart swells with emotion in anticipation of the films and guests who will join us. And I look forward to sharing this communal film experience with our Ebertfest audience. Roger, we thank you!”

“Echoing Chaz, this year’s line-up is one of the most exciting we’ve ever had,” said Nate Kohn. “There will be lots to celebrate in Champaign this year, and I know Roger would be very proud to see how his festival continues to grow.”

MEGALOPOLIS is a Roman Epic set in an imagined Modern America. The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), a genius artist who seeks to leap into a utopian, idealistic future, and his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.

The film was nominated for multiple awards and had its world premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in 2024. 

“Francis Ford Coppola has once again given us big ideas to digest,” said Chaz Ebert, “Are the characters in Megalopolis akin to those in Rome before its collapse, or can we find some redemption in acts seemingly small, but that portend hope for the future. Does Coppola’s film hold a mirror up to today’s society? And if so, does this master director give us a roadmap to avoid similar obstacles? We will eagerly pose these questions and others when he appears after the screening of this gorgeously shot film.”

I’M STILL HERE is set in Brazil, 1971, as it faces the tightening grip of a military dictatorship. Eunice Paiva, a mother of five children, is forced to reinvent herself after her family suffers a violent and arbitrary act by the government. The film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s biographical book and tells the true story that helped reconstruct an important part of Brazil’s hidden history.

The film had its world premiere at the 81st Venice International Film Festival in 2024 where it was critically acclaimed and received the Best Screenplay Award. I’M STILL HERE, which is certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 97%, has continued winning over audiences globally and earned 69 nominations and 49 awards including a Golden Globe Award and the Best International Feature Film Academy Award, the first-ever Brazilian produced film to win an Academy Award. 

“Through Fernanda Torres’ formidable presence, the deliberate I’M STILL HERE, a film that locates further meaning in the face of Brazil’s present Far-Right wave, remains in the heart long after the picture fades,” said Robert Daniels in his 4-star review for RogerEbert.com.

THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED is a fantasy animated film from 1926 that tells the story of a handsome prince with a flying horse who befriends a witch, meets Aladdin, and battles demons to win a princess’ heart. The screening will feature a performance from Ebertfest’s audience favorite group The Anvil Orchestra. 

Newly announced guests include actresses Carrie Coon (HIS THREE DAUGHTERS) and Jane Levy (A LITTLE PRAYER), and critics Michael Phillips, Richard Roeper, Matt Zoller Seitz, Nell Minow, Brian Tallerico, Eric Pierson, Dion Metzger, and Brenda Butler.

The 2025 Roger Ebert’s Film Festival will open with a new 70mm print of the Western classic THE SEARCHERS (1956), starring John Wayne and Natalie Wood on Wednesday, April 23. Additionally, Guy Maddin’s RUMOURS will screen, and Todd Phillips’ THE HANGOVER will close out the festival on Saturday, April 26. The festival recently announced a 40th anniversary screening of Susan Seidelman’s DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, 35MM screenings of both Azazel Jacobs’ HIS THREE DAUGHTERS and Barbara Kopple’s HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A., and screenings of Baltasar Kormákur’s TOUCH, Angus MacLachlan’s A LITTLE PRAYER, and David Fortune’s COLOR BOOK.

Ebertfest tickets and passes are currently available to purchase online or by calling the Virginia Theatre box office at 217-356-9063. Individual tickets to each film cost $20, while festival passes to see all films cost $200, with both including reserved seating.

Roger Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, a University of Illinois journalism alumnus, and an Urbana native.

Chaz Ebert is also the author of the indie bestseller It’s Time to Give A FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness.

Ebertfest is hosted by Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn, the festival director since the very beginning, in collaboration with the College of Media at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

For additional information, including the full festival schedule, please visit https://ebertfest.com/, and follow us on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Ebertfest/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ebertfest/ 

To become a supporting Festival Sponsor please contact Molly Cornyn, the Festival Coordinator, at mcornyn2@illinois.edu. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Someone either dies, or goes to Hell, or is otherwise handpicked to become a bounty hunter for—get this—escaped souls from the underworld. And he’s got to spend his days tracking down these demons at, on average, the pace of a monster per week, all while juggling his personal demons and interpersonal relationships. While I’d never dismiss a show like Prime Video’s new “The Bondsman” for running with an unoriginal idea (how many police procedurals do we have now?), the Blumhouse Television production’s biggest sin is how badly it wastes its premise and the movie star who deigned to headline it.

Longtime genre-heads might remember shows like ’90s cult one-season wonder “Brimstone,” with Peter Horton as a dead cop who had to bring 113 souls back to Hell. Or even CW’s Kevin Smith-penned “Reaper,” which introduced some fun slacker-comedy elements to the premise. “The Bondsman” lacks the kind of show-stopping character turns those shows gave folks (John Glover for the former, Tyler Labine and Ray Wise for the latter), opting instead for a sleepy, sloppy “Supernatural”-esque presentation that feels 20 years out of step.

Kevin Bacon (oh, poor Kevin) stars as Hub Halloran, a down on his luck bail bondsman who, in the opening minutes, gets his throat slit by a couple of brothers he’s been tracking down. Next thing he knows, he wakes back up, the deep gash along his esophagus is healing like crazy, and he has three claw marks pressed into his forearm. As his helpful handler Midge (Jolene Purdy) explains, he died, went to Hell, and has been spat back out to help old Scratch bring a few souls back who’ve jailbroken out of the big hot house down below. If he does it, his debt has been paid; forfeit, and he’s back down to Hell.

Creator Grainger David and showrunner Erik Oleson (“Carnival Row,” “The Man in the High Castle”) strain so hard to do something interesting with the concept; Hub is a bad guy, after all, whose anger issues and addiction to the job estranged him from his country singer ex-wife Maryann (Jennifer Nettles) and their young son, Cade (Maxwell Jenkins). (Doesn’t help, of course, that Maryann’s new boyfriend, Lucky Callahan [Damon Harrman], is undoubtedly behind the hit that killed Hub in the first place.) But as much as the show tries to fold the family drama into the show’s A-plot—predictably, the family get wrapped up in Hub’s criminal past and demon-hunting present—it just feels like so much dead air keeping you from the grisly delights “The Bondsman” is trying to present.

“Trying” being the operative word; for a show so seemingly committed to its Blumhouse horror bona fides, “The Bondsman” has a hard time making its demon fights seem, well, fun. There are a few scant set-pieces that offer some novelty, like a fight with a possessed teen influencer in an indoor swimming pool and the time Bacon gets to wield a flaming chainsaw. But apart from a few bursts of practical gore, “The Bondsman” is content to rest its laurels on some of the creakiest CGI I’ve seen on television. When “The X-Files” or “Supernatural” feel fresher and more up-to-date with their visual effects, you know you’ve got a problem.

There are a few bright spots, of course, with a couple of game performances trying to elevate the perfunctory, exposition-heavy (and joke-scarce) scripts. Bacon has had a helluva time trying to make a TV show stick in recent years: “I Love Dick,” “The Following,” “City on a Hill.” Here, there are glimmers of Val from “Tremors,” with his Southern drawl and aw-shucks we’ll-think-of-a-plan-later charm. Purdy also does a lot with a little as a beleaguered middle manager for Hell’s inscrutably corporate way of soul retrieval. But it’s Beth Grant as Hub’s mom, a tough-as-nails Christian woman who throws herself immediately into the role of sidekick, who gamely livens up the proceedings when the rest of the show can’t meet her level. (You haven’t lived till you’ve seen Grant trudge around action set-pieces wearing a tactical vest that reads “Momma Bear.”)

Granted, “The Bondsman”‘s eight thirty-minute episodes go down easy, and it’s a breeze to blow through it in an afternoon. But by the time you’re done, and the cheap-as-nails climax in the suburban Atlanta woods leads to the uninteresting cliffhanger for a second season, you’ll be left wondering whether you’d sell your soul to get that time back.

All episodes screened for review. Series streams April 3 on Prime Video.

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