#and then that the missing wedding guest was a politician with whom the party had a bad history

[simsroyallegacy]

Royals Spotted at Hampton Estate Birthday Party

The Hampton family was celebrating the 88th birthday of Sir Graham Hampton, beloved patriarch of the family, at their expensive estate in Windenburg. The garden party was attended by the crème de la crème of Lunarian high society, including some of our favorite Royals.

Sir Graham Hampton was made an Officer of the Realm by the Crown Prince’s late grandfather, His Majesty King Vincent, forty-five years ago for his service in the House of Commons (AKA the HoC, which now holds little to no political power in the Lunarian government contrary to back in Sir Hampton’s heyday.) where he continually fought for the common folks’ welfare and quality of life. Sir Hampton, despite being born into the incredibly old and incredibly wealthy Hampton family and sitting on an inheritance of over a billion simoleons, became a voice for the people, helping King Vincent push back against the House of Lords (HoL) back in the day and organizing the House of Commons into something more than a puppet organization used to aid the HoL.

His greatest achievement within the HoC, which also gave King Vincent the incentive to make him an Officer of the Realm, was his part in pushing forward the law that would allow women the right to sit in the HoC, which previously, like the HoL and the Crown, did not allow women to hold office or propose legislation (although his proposal to allow women into the HoC was a giant leap in the right direction for the Lunarian Women’s Rights movement, to this day neither the HoL or the Crown allow any female successors to hold power in their own right). His work made him incredibly popular and he was a prominent leader in the HoC until his retirement almost a decade ago.

It was no surprise when we captured His Royal Highness Crown Prince Nicholas at the beloved former politician’s celebration, right by young Elliott Hampton’s side. The two have been inseparable best friends since their days at the University of Britechester and continue to spend plenty of time together. Elliott’s grandfather treats HRH as one of his own grandchildren because the two have been so close over the course of the last decade.

Prince Nicky looked suave in his navy suit when snapping a pic with his best friend. The two were the “entertainers” of the party according to the other guests, apparently cracking jokes with Sir Graham and playing minor pranks on him.

“He [Sir Graham] has always had a stern countenance,” an inside source at the event tells us. “It all goes away when the boys are with him though. Elliott and Nicky bring out a childish side in him that isn’t seen by anyone outside of his close circle.”

Other notable attendees for the event include HRH Princess Annaliese and Her Imperial Highness Princess Minerva, whom both were photographed arriving together to the party. Princess Minerva was Ana’s plus one for the afternoon and evening, reportedly taking a well deserved break from her many charities here in the capital. The two were seen catching up with Lisa Cartwright-Hampton, wife of Elliott Hampton and former supermodel.

(Above Top: The three ladies share a lively chat before the birthday cake is brought out, each looking stunning in their floral fascinators. Bottom: Princess Ana and Princess Minerva arrive to the Hampton estate arm in arm as each other’s plus ones.)

For the party Princess Ana dressed to impress, arriving in a pastel pink, sleeveless Channel dress trimmed with white ruffles. The finishing touches of her outfit were her matching pink fascinator and gold and pearl necklace and earrings and a pair of adorable white heels. HRH also decided to keep her dark locks in a braided updo.

Lisa Cartwright-Hampton kept up the pastel theme with her simple lilac ensemble which showcased her incredible diamond and pearl necklace, a wedding gift from her in-laws. Her own hair was let down to frame her face in loose waves.

Finally, Princess Minerva missed the memo on the pastel color code but she still looked fantastic in navy blue! HIH’s peplum wrap jacket and matching skirt set are from fashion house Lafayette, a Pierreland based designer who catapulted into fame recently after winning the Designer of the Year Award back in HIH’s homeland. The sophisticated top was accented with a lovely bow and fit HIH like a glove. She too let her down for the day, leaving it in loose curls and topped off with a floral and pearl headband.

@officalroyalsofpierreland​

#ts4 monarchy #ts4 royal legacy #ts4 royal family #ts4 legacy #sims 4 royal family #sims 4 royal legacy #sims 4 monarchy #sims 4 legacy #sims4 royal family #sims4 royal legacy #sims4 monarchy #sims4 legacy

[cloverorgan83-blog]

The 1833 Saul Alley Mansion - 6 Washington Square North

Between 1790 and 1797 the City purchased 13-acres of land near Greenwich Village as the site of a burying ground and execution site.  The potter's field was the final destination of paupers and criminals.  During periods of epidemic wooden coffins were stacked in trenches sometimes three or more deep.  Although the hangings stopped on July 8, 1819, the surrounding area was by no means affable. That all changed in 1826 when Mayor Philip Hone renovated the potter's field into a parade and drill ground named in honor of George Washington.  Before long the tens of thousands of interred bodies were forgotten. In 1828 George Rogers erected his elegant Federal-style country house on the northern edge of the Square.  In doing so, he knocked over a domino which would result in one of the most exclusive residential enclaves in Manhattan. The land on the north side of the Square between Fifth Avenue and University Place had been part of Captain Robert Richard Randall's 24-acre summer estate.  Upon his death in 1801 he donated that land for the formation of an "Asylum or Marine Hospital to be called the Sailors's Snug Harbor."  The organization was formed; however Randall's family established the hospital and grounds on Staten Island, instead.  The institution wisely retained ownership of the Washington Square land. In 1831 three prominent businessmen, John Johnston, John Morrison and James Boorman embraced the potential of the Square and planned a row of high-end speculative residences.  To do so, they leased the plots from Sailors' Snug Harbor.  Completed in 1833, the nearly matching mansions were faced in brick and trimmed in marble.  Designed in the rising Greek Revival style, they exuded refinement, wealth and taste.

The project began at the corner of Fifth Avenue and ran eastward.  photograph by the author

John Johnston erected two of the homes--Nos. 6 and 7.  He moved his family into the slightly wider house and sold the leasehold of No. 6 to the prominent Quaker merchant and politician, Saul Alley.  Alley's new home was an ample 27-feet wide.  Three stories tall plus a squat attic floor, its wide marble stoop rose to a Doric-columned portico.   The exquisite Greek Revival fencing wore generously-sized anthemia, or palmettes. Alley had begun his career as a partner with another Quaker, Preserved Fish, and Moses Grinnell in the shipping firm of Fish, Grinnell & Co.   In 1816 Alley and Fish formed the commission merchant firm of Fish & Alley.  The two would continue working together when they were named commissioners of the newly-incorporated East River Fire Insurance Company of the City of New-York in April 1833. Alley's name was well-known for a number of other reasons.  He was a Director in the Bank of the United States, a water commissioner (a highly important post at a time when the massive Croton Aqueduct project was forming), and in 1839 was a commissioner of the Custom House. Saul and his wife, the former Mary Underhill, had seven children.  Both 20-year-old Mary Anna and 8-year old Josephine died in 1841.  Son John was still living in the house when he opened his law office at No. 38 Wall Street around 1846.  He died in the house in 1851. George, who was just two-years-old when the family moved in to No. 6, would become a prominent banker and close friend of William H. Vanderbilt.  William would go on to become a partner in the banking firm of Alley, Dowd & Co.

The graceful sweep of the staircase takes a gentle bend at the second floor.  photograph by the author

Alley added to his resume (and fortune) in 1842 when he became a director of the New-York and Erie Railroad Company.   The population of No. 6 was reduced by one on May 4, 1848 when Lydia married George Catlin, Jr.  She would not go far, however.  The wealthy Catlin family lived just three door away at No. 9, and Lydia and her groom moved in with her new in-laws. Lydia's brother George was married to Louisa Ann Smith Johnson on April 19, 1852.  The bride was the great granddaughter of former U.S. President John Adams.  Six months later, on October 21, Saul Alley died in his Washington Square mansion.    The Alley family held on to the leasehold of the house until the death of Mary in 1868.  Although there were still five years left in its term, it was auctioned "by order of the executors of Saul Ally [sic]" on April 9 that year.  

At each turn of the staircase a niche was provided for statuary or flowers.  photograph by the author

The auction announcement offered "The Lease of the lot, with the handsome three story, attic and basement brick House, No. 6 Washington square, northside" and noted it was "in complete order."  Included was the two story stable in the rear.

The marble Greek Revival mantel in the back parlor is an exact match to the one in the front.  photograph by the author

The leasehold was purchased for $36,000 (about $640,000 today) by Goold Hoyt Redmond.  The millionaire bachelor, son of William Redmond, Sr. and the former Sabina E. Hoyt, would not be living alone.  Of his ten siblings, his sisters Emily, Matilda and Frances (known familiarly as Fannie) were listed in the house with Goold. Immensely wealthy, Goold was listed as a "gentleman," which simply meant he did not work.  He preferred sports and society and was a member of the Metropolitan, Union, Knickerbocker, and Racquet and Tennis Clubs, as well as the Tuxedo Club among others. The Redmond sisters were no doubt distraught when their Scotch Terrier, Sam, disappeared a few months later.  Wearing his new red leather collar, he went missing on May 10, 1869.  When he did had not returned five days later, they offered a $5 reward (nearly $95 today). Sam was replaced by Rowdy, a white Bull Terrier with a black spot around his eye.  Another $5 reward was offered when he, too, went astray in March 1873. Matilda married English-born railroad mogul and banker Richard James Cross on June 3, 1872, and in 1881 Frances married Henry Beekman Livingston. In June the same year of Frances's wedding, Goold hired architect G. L. Baxter to add a one-story extension to the rear.  Costing about $42,000 in today's money, it would create a new dining room.   Although it was now just Emily and Goold in the house; the expanded space would soon be necessary.

The dining room extension featured a barrel-vaulted ceiling.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

It serves as a conference room today.  photograph by the author

Tragically, Matilda died in 1883, just months after the birth of her sixth child, Eliot.   Her bereaved husband Richard James Cross accepted the invitation to move into No. 6 where Emily could care for the children.  Two years later Richard married his sister-in-law, Annie Redmond.  The family continued on in the house with Goold and Emily--creating a population of 10 not including servants. It prompted Goold to enlarge the house again.  In June 1883 he brought G. L. Baxter back to add a second story to the dining room extension, providing additional bedrooms.

The front parlor as it appeared after the turn of the century.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The space as it appears today.  photograph by the author

There was still room, apparently, for one more.  On June 15 1894 William Redmond was granted an "absolute divorce" from his wife, Margaret, whom he had married on May 1, 1889.  Newspapers reported "She did not defend the case," intimating that she had been caught in a dalliance.  William moved into No. 6 Washington Square. The Redmonds and Crosses were highly visible in society as well as political and social causes.  Mary Cross held anti-Tammany meetings in the drawing room in 1894 and was also a member of the Washington Square Auxiliary.  The couple gave financial backing to the erection of the Washington Arch in 1890. In the meantime, Emily, William and Goold often moved about society together.  They shared a cottage in Newport, for instance, and traveled to Europe together.    Goold's unmarried status made him sought-after guest by Newport socialites.  The Sun mentioned on July 4, 1897 that by his arrival "the ranks of the bachelor contingent have increased...which encourages the givers of dinner parties."  If there were any hopes of marriage in the minds of wealthy matrons, however, they would never come to pass. William Redmond died in the Washington Square house on December 6, 1898 at about 50 years of age.  Emily and Goold continued traveling and entertaining together.  On May 6, 1900 the New-York Tribune noted "Goold H. Redmond and Miss Redmond, of No. 6 Washington Square North have arranged to sail for Europe on Tuesday next in the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.  They will remain abroad for several months."  And the siblings leased the Bishop Potter mansion in Newport together every season starting about 1901.

In the last years of the Cross-Redmond residency, there were no lions on the newels, suggesting they were added by the Morrons after 1919.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Following her brother's death on December 21, 1906, Emily continued to live on with the Cross family in the only home she had ever known.  (She would, incidentally, outlive all ten of her siblings, dying at the age of 90 on January 9, 1934.) The Redmond estate sold the leasehold to No. 6 to Henry W. Kent on March 14, 1913.  Kent lived nearby at No. 80 Washington Square East.  He soon transferred it to Robert de Forest, who lived in the former Johnston house at No. 7. The eagerness of neighbors to keep control of the leasehold may have had much to do with the changing nature of the lower Fifth Avenue district.  The owners of those mansions were fleeing northward to newly-fashionable neighborhoods.  The Washington Square denizens, however, were adamant about preserving the patrician tone of their enclave. In February 1914 De Forest leased the house to George Dallas Yeomans, attorney for the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Co.  The timing could not have been better--the debut of Isabel S. Yeomans was on the near horizon. On November 25, 1915 the New-York Tribune reported on Isabel's coming-out reception in the house.  "The debutante had a record number of girls receiving with her.  There were forty-six in line."  The astoundingly long list of those in the receiving line included the names of some of the wealthiest families in New York--Alexander, Platt, Riker and Cushman among them.  Following the reception young male guests arrived for dinner and dancing. In May 1919 De Forest renewed the leasehold to No. 6 and immediately leased the house to John Reynolds Morron.  The industrialist was president of both the Peter Cooper Gelatin Co. and the Chicago-based Atlas Portland Cement Company, and was a director of the First National Bank of New York, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Pullman, Inc. and the International Rubber Company.  Before he and his wife, the former Belle Goodridge Burch, moved in Morron made renovations to the house.  He hired architect James Gamble Rogers to install an elevator within the house and to create a two-story "brick studio" in the rear.  The total cost topped a quarter of a million in today's dollars.

John Reynolds Morron, United States Passport photograph 1925

Morron's residency here was not without upheaval.  In 1922 he went on trial accused of cement price-fixing.  On the stand he denied that there had ever been "an agreement or understanding between his company and any other" for fixing prices or controlling distribution of cement.

Another view of the front parlor taken when the Cross family was here shows no chandelier, suggesting it was Belle Morron who installed the antique crystal fixtures in place today.  Note the gas sconces stationed strangely enough on the columns.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The opening between the front and back parlor was necessarily narrowed to accommodate Morron's 1919 elevator (hidden within the walls separating the two parlors and entered from the hallway).   photograph by the author

And then in June the following year a witness jotted down the license plate number of the get-away car used in the holdup of Joseph Szabo.  The three perpetrators had robbed the businessman of $887.  Unfortunately, the plate number came back to John R. Morron. On July 19 detectives entered Morron's garage and examined his automobile.  The New York Times reported that it "had not left the garage in at least a week, and that the plates gave no evidence of having been temporarily removed."   The witness had apparently incorrectly remembered the tag number. A few weeks earlier Morron's name had been linked with another run-in with the law; although this one was much less serious.  Proud of his aristocratic residence, Morron hired Connecticut artist Ozias Dodge to make a sketch of the house.  On May 17, 1923 he began, but, according to The New York Times, "He found he could not get far enough back from the house to get all the trees of the Morrin [sic] home in the perspective of his drawing without climbing over the fence of Washington Square Park."  The Morron butler kindly brought a chair from the house for the artist to use. Washington Square in 1923, however, was far different from today.  Park goers were expected to stay on the pathways and the grass was strictly off limits.  But Dodge had been promised a permit to "work on the forbidden ground" by his friend, the Secretary of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Dodge's mistake was that in his hurry he did not bother getting that permit. The artist needed only five minutes on the grass to complete the sketch and had been there three minutes when he was ordered to move by Patrolman Harry J. Booth.  Dodge refused.  "He said he had worked all over New York and even in Paris without being treated that way before."  Patrolman Booth lost his patience and arrested him.

The bronze lions, seen here in 1932, were later stolen.  Only one was recovered.  The plaster copies made from it now grace the newels and the original is kept safely inside an NYU building.  photograph by Gottscho-Schleisner, Inc from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

At the Essex Market Court Dodge pleaded guilty "but contended that the policeman had not shown common sense."  He was given a suspended sentence and advised not to go back to the same spot to complete the sketch. Belle died around 1945 and John died at his summer residence in Littleton, New Hampshire on June 25, 1950.  He was 82. No. 6 was acquired by New York University later that year.  It now held the leases on Nos. 1 through 6.  Gently renovated for office space, it was joined internally to Nos. 5 and 7 by doorways placed in unobtrusive locations on different floors.  

A second floor bedroom as it appeared when Emily Redmond and the Cross family occupied the house.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

A doorway accessing No. 5 Washington Square can be seen to the right of the window today.  photograph by the author

Today the former Saul Alley mansion is home to the the administrations for both NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science, and the Faculty of Arts and Science.  The university deserves high praise for carefully preserving so much of the historic interiors. Many thanks to NYU associate Dale Rejtmar for his invaluable input.

Source: http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-1833-saul-alley-mansion-6.html

#read more #see more #check it out #interesting #learn more

[mrmichaelchadler]

Dear Roger: I Can't Believe Our Film Festival is Twenty Years Old!

Dear Roger,

I find it hard to believe that our film festival is 20 years old! In the beginning there was Cyberfest and the birthday party for Hal 9000, the computer from Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” And then Dean Kim Rotzoll and Nancy Casey in the College of Media at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign asked you to hold a film festival for one year that would reflect what you would find satisfying. You brought in gems of independent movies, and all manner of genres from silent black-and-white films to 70 mm masterpieces. Of course once you had done it for one year, you considered it a tradition, and so there we were planning for the next year on our ride back home. And here we are twenty years later. 

When you took your "Leave of Presence" on April 4th, 2013, I had a very difficult decision to make about whether to continue the festival. Actually, the decision the first year wasn't too difficult because by then we had the festival organized and we were making plans for you to attend. But once we learned you wouldn't be there with us, Nate and I took a look at the somewhat unusual line-up you insisted upon, with a choir of singers onstage for Orson Welles' "Chimes at Midnight" followed by a melancholy short video by Grace Wang about a woman mourning her dead lover, and then segueing into "The Ballad of Narayama" about the villagers who took its old people up the mountain to meet the gods when they were 70 years old (you were 70 years old). We had Paul Cox's elegiac "The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh" and your beloved Tilda Swinton with "Julia." And with each screening, we realized that you knew you wouldn't be there. It was so sad that it left us all in tears, including me and Tilda sobbing in each others' arms, as she had recently lost her mother. We concocted a plan to cheer things up and Tilda, Goddess that she is, led the whole auditorium into a dance-a-thon. We pranced and swirled and clapped our hands and danced around so joyfully that it changed the mood to one of a celebration in a great Temple of Cinema. 

This film festival production definitely takes a village. I am so grateful to Nate Kohn, the festival director who has been with us from the beginning, and for the unwavering support from your alma mater, the University of Illinois, including Interim dean Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, President Timothy Killeen and his wife Dr. Roberta M. Johnson, and Chancellor Robert J. Jones. Huge thanks to the beautiful movie palace, the Virginia Theater and the Champaign County Park District. We have some amazing supportive donors and sponsors both old and new including Betsy Hendrick of Hendrick House, the Robeson Family, Marsha Woodbury, Champaign County Alliance for Inclusion and Respect, Shatterglass Studios, Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Brand Fortner, Steak N' Shake, the African-American Film Critics Association, Carlton Bruett, Roger and Joanne Plummer, Glenn Poor's Audio Video, Laurel Leone and Steve Bellamy, LA Gourmet Catering, SAG-Indie, Fandor, The Welch Family Foundation, Brenda Robinson and Greenberg Glusker, Busey Bank, Jeanene & Rick Stephens, Fandor, Chipman Design Architecture, the Daily Illini and the News-Gazette and many more too numerous to name here. We couldn't have existed for twenty years without our loyal audience and of course our special guests of filmmakers and film critics and scholars who all have contributed to making this one of the most satisfying of film festivals. And last, but certainly not least, eternal gratitude to our illustrious Volunteer-troop. I am so proud of this festival. 

We collaborated and experimented with various types of films and guests, and stage cues, and indeed we have had to change some things over the years, but the goal has remained the same, to bring together a community of film lovers to celebrate cinema under some of the best conditions possible, in the hope that we would emerge from the theater slightly better than when we entered it. The enthusiasm of festivalgoers each year—both return customers and new faces—has exceeded our wildest expectations.  And I daresay you would be thrilled at this year’s line-up. 

But before I tell you about the films, I want to honor four people who passed away recently who were important to us at the festival. First, Mary Frances Fagan, whom you dubbed our “Guardian Angel,” because as a spokeswoman for American Airlines, she helped to bring in guests from all over the world at a crucial time in the festival’s development. She passed away in February surrounded by many friends and family who loved her. Her Memorial Service took place April 14th in Chicago at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. We are also saddened at the deaths of Leonard Doyle and Sharen (Sherry) Slade who greeted us so cheerfully over the years. They were among some of the best and most devoted Volunteers at the Virginia Theater, and were both pillars of the community. We will bestow prizes in their names at the festival this year to keep them close in our memories.

And just this past Friday, one of your oldest and dearest friends from the University of Illinois, the revered sports writer William (Bill) Nack, left us. You were close pals during your time at the Daily Illini when you were editor and you remained life-long buddies. Bill was one of the finest writers around, not just about sports, but about everything. He loved quoting the last chapter of The Great Gatsby, in fact he did so at our wedding. And he did it on the stage of the Virginia Theater in your honor after you left us. He loved Ebertfest and he will be missed.

Roger, a seismic change has taken place in Hollywood starting with the reckoning over sexual misconduct by powerful men like studio head Harvey Weinstein. It evolved into the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, which we hope will contribute to the dignity of human interaction, and will also lead to more transformative and equal opportunities for women and people of color. In a nod to those movements, we are spotlighting the work of extraordinary female directors and performers this year. Six out of twelve of our movie selections were directed by women.

We are proud to present a trio of filmmakers I’ve dubbed the Three Queens of Cinema: Ava DuVernay, Julie Dash and Amma Asante. They will be joined at Ebertfest by three more exceptional female directors: Martha Coolidge, Shari Springer Berman and Catherine Bainbridge. For the full line-up of our scheduled guests, make sure to check out our two-part list (click here for Part One and here for Part Two). We will also be highlighting great performances from women such as Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Haley Lu Richardson and the 25th anniversary of Jennifer Lopez’s star-making role as “Selena,” not to mention an avant garde actress in a silent classic. I’ll tell you a bit more about each of those later…

Opening our festival this year is one of the greatest cinematic love letters to the city of Chicago ever crafted, Andrew Davis’ 1993 edge-of-your-seat thriller, “The Fugitive.” Adapting the hit 1960s series for the big screen, Davis cast Harrison Ford as Dr. Richard Kimble, a man wrongly accused of his wife’s murder who must prove his innocence, all the while being pursued by the dogged Deputy Gerard (played by Tommy Lee Jones in an Oscar-winning performance). In your four-star review, you praised Davis for transcending genre and showing “an ability to marry action and artistry that deserves comparison with Hitchcock, yes, and also with David Lean and Carol Reed.”

We are welcoming back director Gregory Nava to Ebertfest with his film, “Selena,” the biopic of the Texas-born Tejano singer who rose to the top of the Latin music charts before being murdered by the president of her fan club at age 23. This is the film that made Jennifer Lopez a star, and her riveting portrayal never ceases to move and inspire audiences. You wrote in your three-and-a-half star review, “‘Selena’ succeeds, through Lopez’s performance, in evoking the magic of a sweet and talented young woman. And, like Nava's ‘My Family,’ it's insightful in portraying Mexican-American culture as a rich resource with its own flavor and character.”

Roger, you would be happy to know that Jeff Dowd, who inspired the iconic character of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski, played by Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brothers’ cult sensation, “The Big Lebowski,” will be with us. You once wrote of him, “I have long known Jeff Dowd. I can easily see how he might have inspired the Dude. He is as tall, as shaggy and sometimes as mood-altered as Jeff Lebowski, although much more motivated. He remembers names better than a politician, is crafty in his strategies, and burns with a fiery zeal on behalf of those films he consents to represent.” 

Once again, the Alloy Orchestra, our friends Terry Donahue, Roger Miller and Ken Winokur, are planning to wow us with a rarely seen silent landmark, this time from Japan. Teinosuke Kinugasa’s 1926 picture, “A Page of Madness” is a drama with a surrealistic dash of horror, following a man’s attempts to free his suicidal wife from an asylum. Kinugasa was part of an avant grade group of Japanese artists dubbed the “Shinkankakuha” (a.k.a. “School of the New Perceptions”), and the original story was credited to future Nobel Prize-winner, Yasunari Kawabata. Lost for 45 years, it was rediscovered by the director in a storehouse, and will be presented at the Virginia Theatre in a pristine print with an all-new live score courtesy of the Alloy Orchestra. (Click here to read Jasper Sharp's article about the film at Midnight Eye.)

One of the most thrilling big screen events at this year’s Ebertfest promises to be the 70 mm print of Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning 2014 epic, “Interstellar.” Matthew McConaughey plays an astronaut who volunteers to travel through a wormhole to ensure the survival of his family—and humanity itself. To me, this film illustrates not only empathy for other human beings but empathy for the planet. In fact, the Ebert Center will present an inaugural symposium on Empathy and the Universe in October of 2018, at the University of Illinois. 

Nominated for three major prizes at this year’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, including Best First Feature, writer/director Kogonada’s “Columbus” charts the budding relationship between Jin (John Cho), the Korean-born son of an architect, and Casey (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman resolved to being a caregiver for her mother. RogerEbert.com critic Sheila O’Malley marveled at how Kogonada and cinematographer Elisha Christian “blend the background into the foreground and vice versa, so that you see things through the eyes of the two architecture-obsessed main characters. Watching the film is almost like feeling the muscles in your eyes shift, as you look up from reading a book to stare out at the ocean. From the very first shot, it's clear that the buildings will be essential. They are a part of the lives unfolding in their shadows. Sometimes it almost seems like they are listening.” 

The first of our six women directors, Ava DuVernay, first met you outside of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion during rehearsals for the Academy Awards when she was 8 years old. Currently, she has become the first African-American female filmmaker to direct a $100,000,000 movie, “A Wrinkle in Time,” which is a love letter to girls everywhere.

In 2011, she released her first feature, the documentary “I Will Follow,” which you praised as “an invitation to empathy.” Two years after the success of her 2014 Best Picture nominee, “Selma,” DuVernay returned to the nonfiction realm with “13th”, a scathing exploration of injustice in the U.S. justice system. Awarding the film four stars, our critic, Odie Henderson, wrote, “Director Ava DuVernay takes an unflinching, well-informed and thoroughly researched look at the American system of incarceration, specifically how the prison industrial complex affects people of color. Her analysis could not be more timely nor more infuriating. The film builds its case piece by shattering piece, inspiring levels of shock and outrage that stun the viewer, leaving one shaken and disturbed before closing out on a visual note of hope designed to keep us on the hook as advocates for change.” 

Julie Dash’s 1991 classic, “Daughters of the Dust,” is a work of pure cinematic artistry that explores how African mores flourished on the sea islands off the coat of South Carolina and Georgia, where the Gullah culture remained preserved in the 20th century. Since its release, the film has gained a reputation for being one of the greatest independent films ever made, and also loosely inspired Beyoncé’s “Lemonade.” Julie Dash led the way for other woman directors. 

When Amma Asante’s “Belle” premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, it was clear that a star had been born both in front of and behind the lens. This was only the second directorial effort of Asante’s career and it affirmed her status as a major talent, while providing a stellar showcase for its leading lady, Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She plays the illegitimate mixed race daughter of a Royal Navy Admiral in 18th century England who is raised by her aristocratic great uncle (Tom Wilkinson). Though her social standing is high, her skin color prevents her from being fully accepted. As she fights to end the scourge of slavery, she falls for an idealistic young man (Sam Reid) who just might be her match. Bilge Ebiri of The Playlist wrote that the film is as much about “being a woman as it is about being black.” Amma Asante did what no one thought was possible, bringing a Jane Austen sensibility to topics of race and slavery. 

Hail Martha Coolidge and her 1991 film, “Rambling Rose”, which succeeds in making history with Diane Ladd and Laura Dern becoming the first mother-daughter duo to earn Academy Award nominations for the same film. You hailed their performances as two of the year’s best, saying, “Laura Dern finds all of the right notes in a performance that could have been filled with wrong ones. Diane Ladd is able to suggest an eccentric yet reasonable Southern belle who knows what is really important.” You also noted that the film likely benefited from being directed by a woman. “Men, I think, are sometimes too single-minded about sex,” you wrote. “Bring up the subject, and it's all they can think about. Coolidge takes this essentially lurid story and frames it with humor and compassion, putting sexuality in context, understanding who Rose really is, and what stuff the family is really made of.”

The so-strange-it-must-be-true life of file clerk Harvey Pekar served as fodder for his comic book alter ego in “American Splendor,” a rigorously unsentimental self-portrait. The 2003 film adaptation of the same name, directed by Shari Springer Berman and her husband, Robert Pulcini, made the inspired choice of juxtaposing the real Pekar with an actor portraying him. That actor turned out to be Paul Giamatti, and the role proved to cement the actor’s status as one of American cinema’s most cherished performers. In your four-star review, you wrote that this “magnificently audacious movie” allows “fact and fiction to coexist in the same frame.” 

Continuing our musical Sundays at Ebertfest, we are happy to present Catherine Bainbridge and Alfonso Maiorana's documentary, “Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World”, which earned major prizes at festivals such as Sundance and Hot Docs. It’s an exploration of the crucial and under-appreciated role Native American artists have played in the music industry. Our critic Glenn Kenny writes, “the music of the Shawnee, the Choctaw, the Mohawk, the Apache, and so many other tribes, is in a very real sense the first American music. Race-mixing between African-Americans and Indians resulted in a cultural consciousness that enabled a melding of African music and Indian.” He also believed Link Wray's 1957 guitar instrumental, “Rumble,” is “to modern rock music what the monolith was to those primates in the ‘Dawn of Man’ section of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’”

In your honor, for the twentieth anniversary, we are hosting a panel on the future of film criticism and inviting a critical mass of your fellow film critics such as Claudia Puig, the first Latina film critic to head the Los Angeles Film Critics Association; your partner, Richard Roeper, Leonard Maltin, Michael Phillips, Carrie Rickey, Rebecca Theodore-Vachon, Monica Castillo, Matt Zoller Seitz, Brian Tallerico, Matt Fagerholm, Nick Allen, Peter Sobczynski, Sheila O’Malley, Susan Wloszczyna, Nell Minow, Angelica Jade Bastién, Scott Mantz, Sam Fragoso, and Chuck Koplinski. 

In addition to the Critics Panel, we will present other stimulating academic panels such as the one about destigmatizing mental illness through the arts led by Professor Eric Pierson and the Alliance for the Promotion of Acceptance, Inclusion and Respect; and Leveling the Playing Field in the Age of #MeToo, and Dr. Richard Neupert’s Cinema History. You would have no doubt been eager to participate in each of these. 

And finally, on your behalf, Roger, I want to thank Donna and Scott Anderson, and the artist Rick Harney, for the magnificent sculpture of you outside the Virginia Theatre. I thank them and the festival-goers for honoring your memory and keeping your legacy alive. In your spirit of inclusiveness, I encourage everyone to gather around the sculpture to greet each other Friday night when we have the big Street Party with a band and cake and ice cream on the plaza to celebrate this auspicious anniversary. I know, somehow, that you will be there. 

Love,

Chaz

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