- Roger loves Chaz (July 18, 2026)
Roger and Chaz Ebert‘s wedding was held on July 18th, 1992. Here is a reprint of a blog posted by Chaz to commemorate it.
HOW DO I LOVE THEE: SONNET 43: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death….
When I was a young girl with thoughts of romantic fancy dancing through my head, I envisioned the day when a suitor would write a poem or song dedicated to me. During our courtship, Roger wooed me with Shakespeare, often quoting from “Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer’s Day.” Then one year, my Beloved said he would do one better, and on our 20th anniversary, he surprised me with this article entitled: “ROGER LOVES CHAZ.” He excerpted it from a chapter in his memoir, “Life Itself.” It has been four years and three months since Roger passed away, but today, July 18, on what would have been our twenty-fifth anniversary, his words were once again reverberating, and so please permit me to share them with you once more. And today, I am adding a brief video that I call Joy. —Chaz Ebert
WEDNESDAY, July 18, is the 20th anniversary of our marriage. How can I begin to tell you about Chaz? She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading. If my cancer had come, and it would have, and Chaz had not been there with me, I can imagine a descent into lonely decrepitude. I was very sick. I might have vegetated in hopelessness. This woman never lost her love, and when it was necessary she forced me to want to live. She was always there believing I could do it, and her love was like a wind forcing me back from the grave.
Does that sound too dramatic? You were not there. She was there every day, visiting me in the hospital whether I knew it or not, becoming an expert on my problems and medications, researching possibilities, asking questions, making calls, even giving little Christmas and Valentine’s Day baskets to my nurses, who she knew by name.
Chaz is a strong woman, sure of herself. I’d never met anyone like her. At some point in her childhood a determination must have been formed that she would make a success of herself. She was born into a large family on the West Side of Chicago, and already in high school was a tireless achiever. Her school yearbook shows her on every other page, a member of everything from the National Honor society to Spanish Club, and as vice president of the senior class to best dancer. She won a scholarship to the University of Chicago, but didn’t accept it: “What did I know? Nobody told me it was a great university. I just wanted to get out of Chicago, to go somewhere on my own.” She went to the University of Dubuque, and in keeping with the times she was a civil rights activist.
There she met her first husband, and soon they were married and raising their children Josibiah and Sonia. She might easily have called off her professional dreams and returned to Chicago, where Merle was an electrical engineer. She went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for a BA in sociology, and then graduated from the DePaul College of Law, the alma mater of generations of Chicago politicians and lawyers. And all this time raising her family, as she and Merle moved to the suburbs and bought a home. She was a litigator at Bell, Boyd and Lloyd, an important firm. After 17 years she and Merle were divorced, but remain friends.
We like to tell people we were “introduced by Ann Landers,” which is technically true, although Eppie Lederer didn’t know her at the time. The night I took Eppie to an open AA meeting, we decided to go out to dinner together afterwards; this was the first and only time we ever had dinner for two. In the restaurant, Chaz was at a nearby table that included a couple of people I knew. I didn’t know her, but I’d seen her before and was attracted. I liked her looks, her voluptuous figure, and the way she presented herself. She took a lot of care with her appearance and her clothes never looked quickly thrown together. She seemed to be holding the attention of her table. You never get anywhere with a woman you can’t talk intelligently with.
Something possessed me to pull off one of the oldest tricks in the book. “I have a couple of friends over there I’d love for you to meet,” I told Eppie, and got up to take her across. As the introductions went around, Chaz was included. When we went back to our own table, I had her card. I studied the card and showed it to Eppie, who said, “You sly fox.”
I came back from the Toronto Film Festival with the card on my mind. I called Chaz and invited her to attend the Lyric Opera, which I’d subscribed to a year earlier because Danny Newman, the Lyric’s press agent, had stood in my office door and said, “A man like you not going go the Lyric, you should be ashamed.” Chaz, who later told me she never expected to hear from me again, said, “Actually, I’m on the women’s board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.” I said I loved the Symphony, but I had, cough, subscription seats at the Lyric for Monday night. The opera was “Tosca.” She said it was her favorite. “Does that scare you?” “No,” I said, “why should it?” At the time I knew nothing about “Tosca.”
We went to dinner afterwards at a restaurant in Greek Town. Something happened. She had a particular quality. She didn’t seem to be a “date” but an equal. She knew where she stood, and I found that attractive. I was going out to Los Angeles a few days later, and I asked her to come along. We formed a serious bond rather quickly. It was an understood thing. I was in love, I was serious, I was ready for my life to change. I had been on hold too long. She lived on the 82nd floor of the Hancock Center and started sending me daily e-mails, even after we’d seen each other earlier the same evening. Her love letters were poetic, idealistic and often passionate. I responded as a man and a lover. As a newspaperman, I observed she never, ever, made a copy-reading error. I saved every one of her letters along with my own, and have them encrypted on my computer, locked inside a file where I can’t reach them because the program and the operating system are now 20 years out of date. But they’re in there. I’m not about to entrust them to anyone at the Apple Genius Counter.
Our lives grew together. One day in May at the Cannes Film Festival we rented a car and drove over to San Remo in Italy to visit the grave of Edward Lear, and on the way back we stopped in Monte Carlo and in a cafe over coffee I proposed marriage. Why did I choose Monte Carlo, a place I have no desire to ever see again? I should have chosen London or Venice or for that matter Chicago. I wasn’t thinking in those terms. We were sitting there talking in a little cafe at the end of a happy day and I became overwhelmed with the desire to propose marriage. Chaz filled my mind. She excited me physically. She was funny. She made a reading of my life rather quickly, understood what I did and how I had to do it, and after I proposed marriage she resigned as a lawyer because I wanted her to travel more than she would otherwise be able to.
Chaz became the vice president of the Ebert Company. It wasn’t merely a title. She organized my contracts, protected my interests, negotiated, wheeled and dealed. I’ve never understood business and have no patience with business meetings or legal details. I had a weakness for signing things just to make them go away. She observed this, and defended me. It was a partnership.
We had times together I will always remember. Right after our first Christmas together, we flew to Venice, where I promised Chaz it would be rainy, cold, deserted, and we would have it all to ourselves. That was how I’d first seen Venice in 1966, and it was the same. It was romantic, sleeping late in the Royal Danelli and then waking up and making love and looking out across the Grand Canal. The hotel was half empty, the rooms a fraction of the summer cost. The city was shrouded in mist and always haunting. Romance in the winter in Venice is intimate and private, almost hushed. One night we went to the Municipal Casino, carefully taking only as much money as we were ready to lose, and we lost it. In a little restaurant we had enough left for spaghetti with two plates, and then lacked even the fare for the canal waterbus. We walked the long way back through the night and cold, our arms around each other, figures appearing out of the fog, lights traced on the wet stones, pausing now and again to kiss and be solemn. It was one of those experiences that seals a marriage.
At Cannes we bought a chicken sandwich for Quentin Tarantino in a beach restaurant, after “Reservoir Dogs” had been a success but he was broke. The next time we saw him at Cannes was after “Pulp Fiction,” when Miramax had rented a ballroom in the Carlton for him. It was the first time we remembered. Another night, after seeing “Boyz N the Hood” and being awed by it, we drove out of town for dinner with John Singleton, so young and filled with plans. Chaz seemed to know everybody and to remember all the names; I had often been more abstracted than anyone realized.
We had fun together. In Salvador, the capitol of Bahia in Brazil, we decided to go to a Lambada nightclub, and practiced the dance in our hotel room. Wandering around the town, we saw a dress shop with local fashions and Chaz bought a low-cut white summer gown with lots of ruffles. She looked sexy as hell when we left the hotel. When we walked into the club, an odd silence fell. Something was wrong. People seemed to be smiling for the wrong reasons. An English-speaking waitress took mercy on us, and explained the dress was a national costume intended for pageants and such. Wearing it to a nightclub was like me dressing as Uncle Sam.
In London, we stayed at 22 Jermyn Street, the former Eyrie Mansion. Chaz drew me into the contemporary art scene. I’d started collecting my Edward Lear watercolors in the 1980s, but after we moved into our town house with expanses of bare wall, we could think in terms of larger paintings. In the Purdy-Hicks Gallery on the South Bank, where we’d gone to look at work by our friend David Hiscock, we saw a spacious canvas in a store room and found ourselves side by side just regarding it. This was by Gillian Ayres, a formidable abstract expressionist who covered huge areas with bright impasto. It was a work inspired by a kite festival in India, and its energy flooded the room. Over a few years we obtained five works by Ayres, and even had dinner with her one night at the Groucho Club, where the raffish atmosphere matched her roots in London’s 1950s.
The greatest pleasure came from annual trips we made with our grandchildren Raven, Emil and Taylor, and their parents Sonia and Mark. Josibiah and his son Joseph came on one of those trips, where we made our way from Budapest to Prague, Vienna and Venice. We went with the Evans family to Hawaii, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Venice, and Stockholm. We walked the ancient pathway from Cambridge to Grantchester. Emil announced that for him there was no such thing as getting up too early, and every morning the two of us would meet in a hotel lobby and go out for long walks together. I took my camera. One morning in Budapest he asked me to take a photo of two people walking ahead of us and holding hands.
“Why?”
“Because they look happy.”
At last I could show off my city secrets. I was happy enough to drift for years lonely and solitary through strange cities, but it was more fun with the family. One quality the children had was the ability to feel at home anywhere, in restaurants, theaters, museums. They were attentive and absorbed. They had been well raised.
Those times seem more precious now that they’re in the past. I don’t walk easily anymore. When we were married I told Chaz that in 1987 I’d had a salivary tumor removed. Good Dr. Schlichter observed the surgery and told me, “They got it all. Every last speck.” But I was warned my cancer was slow-growing and sneaky, and might return years later. That’s what happened, and it set into motion all of my current troubles.
I mentioned how expert and exacting Chaz became in my care. Now I must tell you of her love. In the hospital, day after day, she was my staff of strength. In the rehabilitations she cheered me through every faltering step, and when I looked at a flight of three steps I was intended to climb, it was her will that helped me lift my feet. To visit a hospital is not pleasant. To do it hundreds of times is heroic.
The TV show was using “guest co-hosts” and Richard Roeper held down the fort. But after the first surgery failed and I nearly died, it must have been clear to her that my TV days were over. She never admitted it. She had faith, she encouraged me, her presence gave me strength. She brought my friends to see me. Studs Terkel came several times. Father Andrew Greeley was cheerful and optimistic. She brought McHugh and Mary Jo, Gregory Nava, Jon and Pamela Anderson, the mayor’s wife Maggie Daley, the actress Bonnie Hunt (who had once been an oncology nurse at Northwestern). Chaz had become friends with the healer Caroline Myss, and brought her to my bedside to evoke positive thoughts. I did not and do not believe in that kind of healing, but I see only good in the feelings it can engender. I am no longer religious, but every single day Chaz took my hand before she left and recited the 23rd Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer, and from this I took great comfort.
After I was allowed to return home for the first time, Chaz decided I was ready for the Pritikin Longevity Center near Miami. We’d been going to Pritikin, first in Santa Monica and then Florida, since before we were married, and their theories about diet and exercise became gospel to me (sometimes more in the breach than the observance). I had for years been an enthusiastic walker, but now, after rehabilitation, I was using a stroller and it was slow going.
I couldn’t eat the largely vegetarian diet at Pritikin, but Chaz knew the cooks would blend a liquid diet to supplement my cans of nutrition. She also informed me that I was going to walk, exercise, and get a lot of sunshine. Because it was painful to sit in most chairs, Pritikin found me a reclining chair that faced a big TV. I had brought along a pile of books. I cracked open the sliding doors and a fragrant breeze came in, and I would have been completely content to stay there just like that. It was not to be. Chaz ordered me on my feet for morning and afternoon walks, with my caregivers trailing along behind me with a wheelchair. I’d go as far as I thought I could, and Chaz would unfailingly pick out a farther goal to aim for. She was relentless.
In the gym everyday I cranked through 20 minutes on the treadmill and then worked out with weights and exercise bands. After the gym she took me outside to sit in the sun for half an hour. She explained how natural Vitamin D would help strengthen my bones, which were weakened during the muscular degeneration of weeks of post-surgical bed rest. I resented her unceasing encouragement. I was lazy. It was ever so much preferable to sit and read. But she was making me do the right thing.
She did it all over again after my next three tours through the Rehabilitation Institute. Four times I learned to walk again, and each time she took me to Pritikin or Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico, which I had grown to love. I parked the wheelchair for good, I was no longer using a stroller, I was walking, not quickly or for miles, but walking. And getting Vitamin D. At home, we took walks around the neighborhood and down to the Lily Pond in Lincoln Park. We began to go to all the screenings again. She found Dr. Mark Baker, an exercise therapist, to regularly work with me.
It must not have been the most pleasant thing in the world to trail along as I walked slowly. She must have wished we could still be taking our trips overseas. When she thought I was ready for it, she took me back to London and Cannes, and every autumn to the Toronto festival. I know that left on my own I would have stayed at home in my favorite Relax-the-Back chair. That I am still active, going places, moving, in good health, is directly because of her.
We planned all along to produce a show that would continue the Siskel & Ebert & Roeper tradition. Chaz did all the heavy lifting, the negotiations, the contracts. We were going to be the co-producers, but I told her she was born for the job. She repeatedly told me I needed to appear more on the show, even with my computer voice. My instinct was to guard myself. I can never be on television as I once was. She said, “yes, but people are interested in what you have to say, not in how you say it.” The point is not which of us in correct. The point is that she’s encouraging me. She has more faith in me than I do.
I sensed from the first that Chaz was the woman I would marry, and I know after 20 years that my feelings were true. She has been with me in sickness and in health, certainly far more sickness than we could have anticipated. I will be with her, strengthened by her example. She continues to make my life possible, and her presence fills me with love and a deep security. That’s what a marriage is for. Now I know. Excerpted from my memoir, “Life Itself.”
Our flower girls were Gene and Marlene’s daughters, Kate and Callie.
- Chicago, Home of Great Music and Newspapers (July 17, 2026)
There I was in the spotlight, alongside my daughter, Sonia, playing Blues harmonicas onstage in front of a lively crowd. Was this some sort of a surreal dream? It certainly felt like one in the moment. But this was, in fact, an actual event that occurred on a Friday morning earlier this month.
It all began with a Chicago Sun-Times article by Neil Steinberg that I read about a Blues Camp for children at Columbia College. I thought surely that this was some sort of misprint. Why were children learning about the Blues, and why would the music be of interest to them? After reading the column, I contacted Neil, who assured me that what he wrote was indeed not a work of fiction. Fernando Jones, whom Sonia recently met by coincidence on her morning walks, had created the international music program, Blues Camp, in 1989, and it has since grown into a recognized nonprofit.
This realization immediately brought me back to the days of my youth. My love for the Blues began in Grade School. None of my friends could understand why I would want to listen to people they had never heard of like Muddy Waters, Albert King and Howlin’ Wolf. My curiosity had now peaked regarding what sort of kids would attend a camp devoted to Blues music. Thankfully, Sonia is always up for an adventure like I am, so I asked her to join me for the Blues Kids Foundation’s camp recital at Columbia. What we found there entertained and delighted us.
The stated mission of Fernando’s nonprofit is to preserve, perform and promote Blues among America’s youth, educators, parents and community members. The organization operated as a free Blues Camp for children around the world, focusing on providing cultural, social and emotional enrichment activities for its young participants. Though not all of the budding musicians we saw at Columbia are destined to be breakout performers, we enjoyed how their participation in an ensemble taught them to collaborate and cooperate with each other. It also helped them to be less self-conscious when performing in front of others. There were at least a couple standouts, particularly a ten-year-old bass guitar player named Ricky, whose mannerisms were that of an older Blues man.
Sonia Evans and Chaz Ebert (on left) playing Blues harmonicas onstage.
Watching remarkable kids like Ricky caused me to reflect on Chicago’s profoundly rich history of music. We are home to such greats as the Father of Gospel, Thomas Dorsey; the Queen of Gospel, Albertina Walker; Mother Willie Mae Ford; Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers; the Edwin Hawkin Singers; Tammy McCann; and the glorious Mahalia Jackson. We also have Blues greats and other musicians who either were from Chicago or became famous here, from Buddy Guy, Quincy Jones, Earth, Wind and Fire, the Chi-Lites, Herbie Hancock, Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls and Bo Diddley to Esther Phillips, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Jennifer Hudson, Etta James and Chaka Khan, to name a few.
House Music was invented here in Chicago by the late Frankie Knuckles, among others, and thousands flocked to Jackson Park on July 11th for the annual Chosen Few Picnic & Festival honoring him and the other visionaries behind that genre. More recently, Chicago was home to Rappers and Hip-Hop artists like Common, Chance the Rapper, Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Da Brat. What a rich tapestry.
Albertina Walker will be honored posthumously by Calvin Bridges next month on her birthday. Calvin was my classmate at John M. Smyth Elementary School, and recently performed at the inaugural FECK Awards in April. However, his fame extends internationally, where he has been all over the world spreading the Gospel message. He will be joined by singer Sasha Daltonn for Albertina’s birthday celebration. An even bigger event is being planned in Walker’s honor for next year.
I also feel overcome with immense gratitude for the newspaper article in Roger’s beloved Chicago Sun-Times that had informed me about this amazing camp. Though today’s newspapers are not what they used to be, I do believe that they are still an important and necessary part of our lives, especially when they prioritize local reporting. The Chicago Tribune’s Robert “Colonel” McCormick and the Sun-Times’ Marshall Field III should be commended for establishing Chicago as a leading newspaper town. Though most print media has melted away in recent years, keeping up to date on the daily news cycle is more vital than ever. I doubt the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan would’ve had one of the most successful engagements in the history of Chicago’s Lyric Opera with his sold-out show, A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, had it not received ample coverage from the city’s papers.
All of these thoughts were running through my mind as Sonia and I were invited to join a jovial 94-year-old woman from the audience onstage to be taught how to play the blues at the camp recital. It was as surreal a moment for me as any in recent memory, not to mention indicative of how you’re never too young or too old to learn a new skill.
For more information on Fernando’s Blues camp, visit his organization’s official site.
https://www.blueskids.com
- “The Map of Longing” Offers Real Catharsis Despite Its Teen Melancholy (July 17, 2026)
Fans of the book by Alice Kellen probably already know–Netflix’s “The Map of Longing” is more “The Fault in Our Stars” than “Bridgerton.” Yes, the Spanish series is adapted from an adult romance, but it brings a certain teenage melancholy, even as its characters are ostensibly in their 20s. So expect more earnest coming of age (think the driver’s test) and less randy fun (the sex is pretty tame, even if we do see more flesh than U.S. audiences are accustomed to).
The premise goes something like this: Greta Álvarez (a charming Alícia Falcó) believes she was born with a purpose–to save her immunocompromised sister Lucy (Georgina Amorós). But it doesn’t work, and Lucy dies in her early twenties, leaving behind a grieving family who has to figure out what life is like when the departed sister’s illness is no longer organizing their days.
The show opens after all the business of dying is done, with Greta, her mother (Laia Marull), and her father (Mario de la Rosa) stuck in their grief as they’re supposed to be carrying on. Then a handsome stranger arrives–Will Tucker (a brooding Pablo Álvarez)–with a game from beyond the grave, containing a series of challenges that Lucy created to help her family process their loss, and hopefully, live loudly and bravely.
It is maudlin and overwrought. This is a series filled with golden light and twee settings from Will’s cozy trailer to the hip but quiet bar where he works. But it also has quite a lot to say about the contours of grief. It’s hard not to shed real tears as Greta processes hers–the finality of her loss and the way it ricochets out across her life feels both real and too much to bear. And the setting reflects this: her home is a mess, where unwashed dishes and discarded tissues rule. She has to leave to find some light, but she also has to return to address her sadness at its roots.
The series is smart in portraying the family’s different responses as all valid. Her mother watches TV all day in a trance, deep in depression. Her father goes to work and seems to be functioning, even as he’s clearly avoiding his family and emotions. Greta, meanwhile, sets out to process her loss through Lucy’s game. She’s initially reluctant to accept her sister’s help, talk with Will, or participate in therapy. But she trusts her sister and slowly progresses to a better emotional relationship with her loss, thanks to the strength of their bond.
Sadly, “The Map of Longing” has neither insight nor curiosity in the male condition. Will appears as a handsome, mysterious stranger, and that’s the character at its most dynamic. In the second act, he shares his mysterious past, but the reveal makes no sense, turning him from a private person to an impossible fantasy. The show argues that there are “two Wills” and a brush with tragedy changed him–but the transition is too severe to believe. And the six-part series only gives a passing phrase as a way of explanation for how Will, who seems so gentlemanly and sensitive, could ever have been so callous in his past. The audience is simply to believe the delusion that his interactions with the Álvarez sisters could change his very being–from the way he stands to what he values–with their love and acceptance.
It’s pure fantasy, and an immature one at that. The first episode leans into this adolescent approach, making Greta the plucky heroine of too many Disney films, the one who talks too much, doesn’t know her own limitations, but somehow solves her problems with doe-eyed resourcefulness. Thankfully, in the second hour, “The Map of Longing” already starts to move away from that characterization, letting Greta feel and question in ways that match her situation and not the dream of it.
Falcó does a strong job here, even as she’s stuck with a series of strange costume choices like bad bangs for both her past and her future self. She gamely takes on her character’s plucky disposition, finding depth as her writing gets better, and showing a slow transition in fits and starts as Greta heals. She also has excellent chemistry with Álvarez, who is more likely to overplay his hand and is unable to coalesce his fractured character into a recognizable human being.
Still, it’s hard not to root for this young woman to get everything she desires—including the handsome Will, who, within this universe, certainly won’t harm her. It’s party how Falcó lights up from within as she starts to make progress, finally allowing herself to make choices for herself after twenty-plus years of existing for her beloved sister. It’s also the relatability of grief, how terribly universal it is, even if we each respond differently. Greta’s mourning is not overly sentimental or trite. It is lived in.
And so while her journey may feel too pat at times, there’s real catharsis here in seeing her earn her happiness. May we all be so lucky.
Whole series screened for review. Now on Netflix.
- Flashback: Chaz Ebert on Watching a Christopher Nolan Movie During the Pandemic (July 16, 2026)
In anticipation of the upcoming opening of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” let’s take a look back at my article about watching the director’s acclaimed 2010 film, “Inception,” during the COVID-19 pandemic, originally published on August 18, 2020…
NOTE: Elliot Page’s name has been updated to reflect his transition since this original posting.
Perhaps Richard Roeper planted an inception (the idea that movie theaters are still the best way to see a film even during the pandemic) in my head a few weeks ago when he wrote about going to see a film at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. I was agog when I read it. He actually went to the theater even though there are no proven vaccines or readily available treatments for the coronavirus! At that point, I was still too traumatized by the thought of catching COVID-19 and ending up on a ventilator to even think of stepping outside of my bubble to attend a public movie with other audience members. What kind of hygienic steps were they taking? Did they disinfect the seats and restrooms? Were they testing their employees or at least taking their temperatures and making them wear gloves? Were they using sanitizers? Would everyone, including me, have to wear masks the whole time? And more importantly, what kind of steps were they taking to make sure there was no recirculated “CORONA” air wafting throughout the theater?
I could see my way clear to attending one of the drive-in theaters newly mushrooming across the country after reading Matt Fagerholm’s article. At least you stay in your own car and breathe free-flowing outside air and can even take your own goodies if you are too timid to approach the concession stand. But something was compelling about Richard’s article. He had a good time at the movies, watching it with others, and said he would go back as long as they continued to limit the number of attendees. Yet, at that time, I concluded that it would probably be months or even next year before I set foot in a theater again. So it was with utter amazement that I found myself last Friday afternoon in mid-August, sitting in the Music Box Theatre watching Christopher Nolan’s film “Inception.” And I have to admit it was a pretty awesome experience, and I had definitely found my happy place for the day.
From the time I devoured Richard’s article, the small idea he planted in my brain grew. Much like the idea Leonardo DiCaprio had to plant in the brain of the scion of an industrialist in “Inception,” which was celebrating its tenth anniversary with a live 70mm showing. The idea of going to a movie theater was buffeted by our site’s managing editor, Brian Tallerico, even though Brian concluded he would watch it at home rather than take a chance on becoming anxious with every sniffle and sneeze if he went to the theater. Brian exclaimed, “The reason it’s easy to get carried away by ‘Inception’ is simple: it’s one of the most propulsive major blockbusters in history.” (emphasis mine).
I laced up my sneakers and headed out! That is, after going online to purchase a ticket for the 1 pm showing. I didn’t want to take a chance on going later when the theater was sure to be more crowded. Although Brian’s description of Nolan’s ten-year-old film made me want to see it again, it was his statement about the theater reconfiguring their ventilation system so it doesn’t recycle air and only pushes in fresh air from outside that convinced me it was safe enough to venture out. I took a deep breath for courage and set out on my first movie outing since March.
There is something special about watching a Christopher Nolan film. From “Memento” to “Interstellar“, or the ‘Dark Knight” Batman movies and even “The Prestige”, Nolan’s movies draw me in. Whether or not you think his films are ultimately great or merely good, I appreciate the fact that they make me think and give me a worthwhile cinematic experience. Their complexity lets you know that the filmmaker is thinking about the storyline; sometimes it seems as if he is overthinking it, but I’d rather have that than one haphazardly thrown together.
And this time, another payoff for going to the theater was the treat of seeing footage from the making of “Tenet.” If the film is even half as exciting as the footage shot in several countries around the world, it will be a blockbuster. I don’t like making predictions like that based on what is essentially a trailer, but maybe I fell under the spell of being back in an actual movie theater. Or maybe it was listening to John David Washington, sounding like his father, Denzel. Or hearing Nolan talking about why he takes time to so meticulously set up the scenes so he can use as little CGI as possible since certain computer-generated special effects don’t age well. Whatever the reason, I felt as if it was setting me up for another inception idea: returning to the theater when “Tenet” opens. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself.
My first viewing of “Inception” ten years ago was not wholly satisfactory, even though Roger awarded it four stars. I wanted to love it as much as he did, but I could not. “Inception” is about a corporate raider (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) who uses a combination of architecture and psychology to extract secrets hidden deep inside the recesses of one’s brain. Hold on a minute, you may say. Yes, I know, not your ordinary plot. But Nolan is no ordinary director. In the film, this method, known as extraction, is apparently used more often than we think in both political and industrial espionage because none of the other characters seemed too surprised to be invited to participate in an extraction, which takes place during someone’s dream. Oh, and you can take five or six other people with you into the dream to perform it.
But that’s not all. The other thing a skilled psychological architect can do is plant, rather than extract, the idea or meme in one’s head in the first place. And this is where Nolan is a master. An inception isn’t supposed to be easy, and for that reason, almost no one attempts it according to the plot line. In fact, the film espouses rules of engagement that sound as if they are from a manual for a hypnotist or a psychiatrist. For instance, the idea has to be one that the subject thinks is his from the beginning, not one that was forced on him by another. Also, once you’re in the dream state, you can’t encounter anything so out of the ordinary that it takes you out of the logical or even illogical construct of that particular dreamworld, or it could defeat the extraction or the inception. That makes sense to me. We all have had dreams where, at some point, we realized we were dreaming, and so we began to perceive the world in that dream differently. Your mind either wakes up a bit or you can force it to a deeper level.
Ten years ago, I expressed impatience about why the corporate raider needed an architectural student to help with the inception. Roger’s explanation did assuage my impatience. He asked, “Is it a coincidence that Ariadne (Elliot Page) is named for the woman in Greek mythology who helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur’s labyrinth?” And I was willing to accept Roger’s assertion that “…the movies often seem to come from the recycling bin…Sequels, remakes, franchises. ‘Inception’ does a difficult thing. It is wholly original, cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics so it feels like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does.”
So I just watched and accepted it on the cerebral level of the dreams and dismissed the action parts of it. Back then, I wasn’t aware of the plot of going into dreams presented in “Paprika,” the anime by Satoshi Kon based on the novel by Yasutake Tsutsui. Roger concluded that when Nolan left the labyrinth, he threw away the map. And back then, that was enough for me.
A quick review of some of my growing-up experiences may help you understand why I focused on the film’s dreamy aspects the first time around. I grew up in a house with a mother who was a Minister in the Spiritualist Church. Mother was called a prophet, a seer, a psychic, and more. She never used her “gifts” in a commercial manner, but we, all of her children, knew there was something different about our Mom. She was highly intuitive and perceptive. But she was also the most loving, nurturing creature we knew. We said that when she walked into a room, she brought the sunshine with her. So all the woo-woo stuff was just part of the whole package that we loved and accepted.
When my sister Adele and I played school, we held one class where you had to go to different rooms. One person was tasked with drawing shapes or objects, and the person in the other room had to receive the impressions telepathically or by remote viewing and reproduce them on a piece of paper. Back then, we thought that was normal; didn’t every school child do this? Of course, we found out the answer was no. The other thing we were encouraged to do was talk about our dreams so that we could learn how to distinguish the prophetic ones that would come true from the ordinary dreams that were just images from our subconscious rearranging themselves in our brain.
We were taught about lucid dreaming, where you could go in and tell yourself you were dreaming, then reconstruct events or change the dream to achieve the outcome you desired. If you were plagued by a recurring nightmare where a lion was chasing you, for example, you could give yourself a signal to stop and face the lion and tell it you are not afraid, and it is only a dream, and that you want it to stop chasing you forever. That lion may even become an ally in future dreams. But that particular nightmare will stop. Or if you have human adversaries with whom you cannot find an accommodation, you can face them and order a truce. They too may become an ally, right then and there.
On rare occasions, once you realize you are in a dream, you can surrender and coax yourself deeper into the dream. From that point, however, you must trust whatever may come afterward. One doesn’t always have full control during lucid dreaming. But you learn to give yourself a clue to help you. You can tell yourself to look at your arm. Is it solid? Can you pinch it? Or you can look for a mirror to see if you can see your own reflection or another’s. Or you can put your arms up in the air and just take off flying. Lucid dreaming can get really wild!
You learn that time is so fluid in a dream that five or ten minutes can seem like a whole day of activities. So watching some of the characters age in “Inception” felt so real. In fact, I had a dream where I lived for years with children who lived on another planet and thought they were bred in test tubes. I think I was some sort of scientist who watched them grow up. Although I didn’t initiate the experiment with these children, I sat in classrooms watching them being taught by others. They were very bright. I observed them on playgrounds, smiling as they developed first crushes or learned how to negotiate behavior with others.
Somehow, I heard or read their thoughts and knew their belief systems. And so one day, when a quantum flying structure was built that could safely take them to an older planet, they were surprised to learn that they were actually from Earth and that they had parents and relatives down there. I went to Earth with these children and watched them, as teenagers, discover their natural families and learn for the first time that there were other people who looked and laughed and thought like them. On the outer-galactic planet, they were taught to value those most opposite to themselves.
I can still recall the welcome one of the male students received after going to an African country and being overwhelmed by the number of Africans he saw, and the female student who went to China and was similarly overwhelmed when her mother hugged her for the first time. Turns out these students had all been sacrificed by their parents for this experiment, for what they thought would be the good of mankind. At one point, we had a reunion of the students and the people on Earth, and they were asked to sit with social scientists to teach Earthlings how to develop this unconditional compassion and acceptance of others. This was a superpower they developed while living on the other planet.
We traveled all over the globe for these debriefing sessions in the dream. How did I get to each continent with these students? I don’t remember. How did I even get into this dream? I don’t remember. How long was I asleep to be able to observe these children growing from infants to teens? Perhaps a half hour total. I just remember letting myself go and trusting that the dream would take me somewhere safe. Somehow, I knew part of what was happening to me was a dream, but other parts were so real that I felt like I had lived for years. I was experiencing a dream within a dream. So lucid dreaming is something I was interested in, and seeing it play out in Nolan’s movie ten years ago excited me then and still excites me.
Photo Credit: The Music Box Theatre in Chicago.
Nevertheless, ten years ago, I didn’t know why Nolan had to take the characters into three deep stages of dreams and even hook up so many other dreamers to invade the dream. That made it too confusing about whose dream we were watching and why odd elements kept turning up. I also didn’t like it when he turned away from the dreamy aspects and had the characters break out fighting, or skiing down mountains in Switzerland like 007 characters on a busman’s holiday. Last Friday, however, after not having been to a movie theater for almost five months, I sat and watched the film with infinite patience. And lo and behold, I understood why Nolan did what he did, and I loved it. It made sense. And whether it did or not, it was damned enjoyable.
This time I didn’t question whether the totem, the object DiCaprio and his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) twirled to let them know they were dreaming, or in whose dream they were visiting, would keep twirling at the end or wobble and fall. It didn’t make a difference to me. I was just appreciating the layers of Nolan’s film, even the fight scenes, the guns, the snow, and the matching white snowsuits. As Jodorowsky would say, it was a feast for the eyes. I was fully immersed in the world of “Inception” while I was in the theater. Even the preparatory experience of walking into the theater and seeing the ticket takers wearing gloves and having an usher help me find a seat by checking the carefully laid out spaces on her clipboard was comforting. It assured that I would be far enough away from other patrons so that if they took off their masks to eat popcorn, I wouldn’t be affected. It helped put me in a dream state where I can’t recall each specific element of that process, but I can recall the feeling of safety.
There are times today in 2020 when we may question whether this pandemic world is a dream from which we will awaken. Or whether we are caught in the loop of some giant’s dream from another planet, until we go to level two or even level three and find some totem to help us escape. All I know is that it has been a few days since I was at the movies, and so far I have not had a sniffle or a sneeze or a sore throat or any symptoms that made me regret my foray to the Music Box. And as much as I loved the preview of “Tenet,” I can’t promise that I will be back at the Music Box to watch it. Not unless my dream world, where we are inoculated against COVID-19 with much stronger antibodies, comes true. Now that is a dream I want to wake up to.
- Black Protagonists Are Transforming Modern Horror Television for the Better (July 16, 2026)
In the 2020s, horror television has become a genre led and shaped by Black men. While the genre was overwhelmingly white in the 2000s and 2010s, with shows like “Supernatural” and “The Walking Dead” dominating the cultural sphere, the 2020s have given Black actors the space to lead this ever-expanding genre into a new era. Modern horror television is finally allowing its Black male leads to explore the harsh realities of being Black in these respective universes, while allowing the actors who inhabit them to command the screen as inherently flawed heroes, vigilantes, and villains.
AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire” debuted in 2022, introducing viewers to a new take on Anne Rice’s bloodsucker: Louis De Pointe Du Lac (Jacob Anderson) was transformed from a white slave owner into a multifaceted Black brothel owner. Creator Rolin Jones transformed the character into a richer version of the stagnant protagonist, with Louis now commanding the screen and forcing the reformation of this new narrative, rather than having it simply move around him. Tethered to humanity not simply because of his aversion to consuming human blood, Louis’ position as a Black man in 1910s New Orleans conflicts with his newfound life as a powerful creature of the night.
Recently revamped as “The Vampire Lestat,” now taking place in the present day, the series continues to force Louis to confront the realities of his existence, and Anderson delivers a career-defining performance as a broken man haunted by his past, present, and future. Since the show’s inception, Louis’ race has forged an intrinsic bond between him and his Black pseudo-daughter, Claudia (Bailey Bass, Delainey Hayles), whose murder in season two propels him on a journey of reconciliation and revenge in the present day. Like all vampires in the series, Louis’ monstrosity is never shied away from; instead, it flourishes beneath his veins as an inherent aspect of who he is. The adaptation continues to make Louis’ Blackness an integral part of not only who he was as a human but as a vampire unable to escape his past and the shackles the world still desires to entrap him in decades after his turning.
Like “The Vampire Lestat,” instead of trivializing the racism rooted in the foundations of its source material, HBO’s “It: Welcome to Derry” is the first adaptation of Stephen King’s famed novel to directly explore how the Black characters in Derry, Maine, would survive its supernatural and historical horrors. The racism that the Black characters face may be a lot to stomach, but with this brashness, creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti force their viewers to confront the realities of living in a town haunted by a creature who uses the fear and hatred of its inhabitants to wreak havoc. This doesn’t mean the show’s Black characters are perfect; instead, they are flawed products of their circumstances.
Both Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Dick Halloran (Chris Chalk) are imperfect men, and the writing never shies away from their imperfections. As a father and husband, Leroy neglects his family’s concerns for his military job. When he finally abandons his post, it’s not for the greater good, but because the people he loves have been directly impacted by Pennywise’s (Bill Skarsgård) reign of terror. Also a military man, Halloran uses the gift of the Shining to torture Derry’s civilians for information. Like Leroy, he becomes involved in destroying Pennywise only after the entity’s presence threatens to destroy everything around him. The series never absolves either man of their sins, allowing both of them to become multifaceted portrayals of Blackness whose position during the civil rights movement is ever-changing.
“Interview with the Vampire” and “It: Welcome to Derry” boldly heighten their horror by acknowledging that racial tension was a constant, unavoidable aspect of American life in the time periods in which they’re set. While both shows are fantastic vehicles for exploring Blackness in America through genre storytelling, there are other offerings that prove that horror television is as multifaceted as the Black characters who now reign supreme in the genre. Sometimes, it is enough to simply have Black characters exist in horror media without their race shaping their presence, and that’s what FX’s “Alien: Earth” and MGM’s “From” have been doing since their respective debuts.
While the former is chock-full of scene-stealing characters, there is nobody like Kumi Morrow (Babu Ceesay). Originally the security officer on the USCSS Maginot, Morrow is tasked with recovering the Xenomorph cargo that escaped from the ship when it crashed into New Siam, and spends the rest of the series proving himself to be one of the most fascinating anti-villains put to television. As he lurks through dimly lit hallways and manipulates childlike hybrids, Ceesay’s prowess chips away at Morrow’s seemingly impenetrable edges, slowly unearthing a fragile and complicated man whose best interests are always his own.
Instead of his self-interest being degraded by the show’s narrative, creator Noah Hawley allows Morrow to bask in his selfishness, often admitted in the middle of interrogations, where it becomes clear that he’s one step ahead of his opponents and the audience. As one of the few Black characters in the series, Morrow’s Blackness is neither addressed nor relevant to his position in this world. Yet, his Blackness is inherently important to the television landscape he and the series exist in, where Black characters are seldom given the space to be as captivating and as complicated as he is.
Unlike Morrow, Boyd (Harold Perrineau), the protagonist of MGM+’s “From,” is initially positioned as the series’ heroic figure. The de facto mayor of a mysterious town that traps everyone who enters, Boyd was also a military man. The series uses his previous occupation to show how Boyd’s time in the military influences his choices, which, as the series unfolds, quickly spiral from being seen as morally correct to being questioned by everyone around him. As the series has become more complex, so has its protagonist.
As tragedies mount in his life, Boyd’s motivations begin to sway from being about the greater good. The narrative never seeks to absolve him of his fallibility, forcing him to sit with the consequences of his own actions and become a shattered version of the man he once was. Boyd’s decisions, no matter how ludicrous they are, shape the series’ narrative rather than simply having the plot take place around him.
Each of these series has offered the actors who helm them their most versatile work to date, flourishing in a media landscape that often chews Black characters up before spitting them out. As these Black protagonists become more common within the genre, so does the longevity of their legacy, not only within the sphere of their respective shows, but off-screen as well. With the 2020s, television has become a medium where Black actors take center stage, transforming the foundations of a genre that, in the past, had seen them not only as disposable but nearly obsolete.
