RIP Roger Ebert

[nec13]

http://www.suntimes.com/17320958-761/roger-ebert-dies-at-70-after-battle-with-cancer.html

Two thumbs down to this news.

 

[Greggulator]

Even though it's been over a week I'm still thinking about Ebert and what he meant to me, as much as a film critic/celebrity I've never met can mean to someone.

I went through a pretty tough time of things after college. I moved back home with my parents and wasn't sure of what I would do in my life. I ended up dating a girl that was absolutely devastating. She was the younger sister of a really good friend of mine. She was the first girl I ever was in love with but when it ended, it was the absolute worst. I won't go into details in case I ever get into writing my own book but she did a very good job of destroying my life, which was her intent and purposes. It ended up ruining the friendship with her brother and another one of my friends. I ended up cutting out an entire circle of friends from my life in order to get away from that whole situation and it completely sucked. On top of it, I also had a rebound girlfriend and I not-so-unconsciously exacted my revenge on her. At many points during this awful stretch of my life, I woke up and went to bed every morning thinking I was the absolute worst person alive.

I went to a psychatrist/therapist type person for the first time. It was a terrific, life-altering experience. He taught me that it was okay to be depressed and that, no, I wasn't a bad person but there were ways I could make myself feel like a better person. One of the things he suggested was that I find a hobby that was easy enough to get into that could take over my thoughts as opposed to constantly worried about girls and the unknown that is my life.

It was right around then the AFI Top 100 list came out. I decided to dive into that list and start watching as many of those movies as I could. I then started reading reviews of these movies. I obviously knew who Roger Ebert was but always assumed he was just a celebrity without any depth. I had absolutely no idea that he was the greatest film critic of all-time, and what set him apart was that he knew movies were more than just movies for a lot of people. He helped explain that to me -- film could create an entire new world for us and give us experiences and, more importantly, give people hope that there are better things out there. (And that it was terrific to rip people apart, too.)

I saw The Iron Giant in the movies around this time. I was working at nights (covering school board meetings for a crappy weekly newspaper) so I went to a lot of matinees by myself. I had no idea what The Iron Giant was about -- I didn't even know it was a cartoon; it was just the next movie on the schedule -- and I ended up bawling my eyes out. I went home and read Ebert's review and saw he loved it, too. There was something really comforting about that.

So, thanks, Roger Ebert. You have no idea that your words meant so much to me at an awful time in my life.

[buffcoat]

My experience with the AFI list was like this:

b: "Hey, what's this channel Turner Classic Movies? Who is this Robert Osborne guy?"

I ended up watching all but three of them in a year.  To answer the next question: Snow White and Fantasia (which I doubt Disney will let TCM show) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I have the last one on DVD and will watch it eventually.


I really disliked Roger Ebert watching him on PBS as a kid (for some reason I rooted for the far-more-obnoxious-in-retrospect Gene Siskel), but I came to respect him in his later years for his no-nonsense pro-human-being take on things. We need more people who are just generally pro-human.

[Greggulator]

I fell in love with Billy Wilder because of that list. I never heard of The Apartment before that and it's my favorite movie of all-time.

The worst movie, by far, was Guess Whose Coming to Dinner? UGH.

[cavorting with nudists]

The worst movie, by far, was Guess Whose Coming to Dinner? UGH.

Agreed, that one Sucks. Out. Loud.

I went a long time dismissing Ebert as, in Matt Groening's words, a TV clown with nice sweaters. I came around on him, though. He was too kind to too much middlebrow dreck, which made it easy to write him off as a lightweight--

(Anecdote: J. Hoberman once gave him a razzing for saying "If we don't say Shoah is one of the greatest films of all time, then we really have to question what we mean when we call a film great," then at the end of the year voting for The Color Purple as the year's best.)

--but having read more of him in print, I now see that he knew how to talk about films in a very incisive, articulate way that looked easy because it was so conversational.

[buffcoat]

My least favorite was Raging Bull, then 2001.

Oh, I get them. I just don't like them.

I like other Scorsese and Kubrick (in fact, I really like Goodfellas and A Clockwork Orange, which are also on the list), but I really don't like those two.

Positive surprises were some of the mid-century comedies like The Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night.  They didn't become my favorites, but they were worth seeing.

[Greggulator]

My least favorite was Raging Bull, then 2001.

Oh, I get them. I just don't like them.

I like other Scorsese and Kubrick (in fact, I really like Goodfellas and A Clockwork Orange, which are also on the list), but I really don't like those two.

Positive surprises were some of the mid-century comedies like The Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night.  They didn't become my favorites, but they were worth seeing.

I haaaaaaaaaaaaaaate 2001 with a fiery passion. I like Raging Bull enough but I don't love it.

Billy Wilder was really the big discovery for me. Sunset Boulevard also blew me away. Same with Double Indemnity and Some Like It Hot.

Cameron Crowe had a book out where it was him interviewing Billy Wilder. It was amazing and so great.

The French Connection also completely blew me away. "Gene Hackman, Badass" was such a foreign concept. I love that movie so much.

[buffcoat]

I agree on Billy Wilder - he's underrated. As is David Lean, oddly enough.

I think Scorsese is overrated just because of how highly rated he is. His longevity has led to his hagiography. He's a great director. He doesn't need to be a saint of the cinema. It lessens what he actually is, somehow.

[nec13]

I agree on Billy Wilder - he's underrated. As is David Lean, oddly enough.

I think Scorsese is overrated just because of how highly rated he is. His longevity has led to his hagiography. He's a great director. He doesn't need to be a saint of the cinema. It lessens what he actually is, somehow.

I'm a big fan of Scorsese's work, but I agree with you.

As for Wilder and Lean, it seems that their reputations took a substantial hit after auteurist-oriented critics (namely Andrew Sarris) began to scrutinize their oeuvres. Although, I believe Sarris did a 180 on Wilder years later, saying that the criticism he leveled at him was misguided.

[nec13]

What I admired most about Roger Ebert was the way in which he conducted himself in the face of such tremendous adversity. His life from 2006 onwards was one prolonged, harrowing medical ordeal. Any other person might have easily wilted under such pressures, but Ebert stayed active on the various and sundry forms of social media. Twitter, Facebook, his blog, those things became his voice. The fact that he was still producing insightful and compelling work in spite of his terrible medical circumstances is quite remarkable.

[cavorting with nudists]

Yes, Sarris did reconsider on Wilder and placed him in the Pantheon. His reasons at the time for disliking Lean and Wilder were different: As an auteurist, he looked at films as the expressions of their director's personalities. Lean's films he considered grandiose and impersonal. He saw that Wilder's films were an expression of his personality--he just disliked the personality he saw there. Anyway, I don't know how influential Andrew Sarris' opinions were overall.

I'm also not sure Wilder is really underrated either--at least among people who take an interest in movies made before they were born. Wasn't Some Like It Hot #1 on that dumb AFI Best Comedies list? And everybody loves Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, don't they?

BTW, if you like Wilder and haven't seen Ace in the Hole, remedy this, stat.

[nec13]

Yes, Sarris did reconsider on Wilder and placed him in the Pantheon. His reasons at the time for disliking Lean and Wilder were different: As an auteurist, he looked at films as the expressions of their director's personalities. Lean's films he considered grandiose and impersonal. He saw that Wilder's films were an expression of his personality--he just disliked the personality he saw there. Anyway, I don't know how influential Andrew Sarris' opinions were overall.

I'm also not sure Wilder is really underrated either--at least among people who take an interest in movies made before they were born. Wasn't Some Like It Hot #1 on that dumb AFI Best Comedies list? And everybody loves Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, don't they?

BTW, if you like Wilder and haven't seen Ace in the Hole, remedy this, stat.

Yes, that's a great film. It might be Wilder's best.

RE: your first point: I do think Sarris' opinions were pretty influential, perhaps not to the average filmgoer, but there's no question that his opinions resonated quite a bit with many cinephiles and a certain subset of critics. I imagine that Rosenbaum, Hoberman and other critics of that ilk borrowed a lot of their ideas from Sarris.

I don't think much of the auteur theory though. My tastes in film are a great deal less rarefied.

[Greggulator]

I've seen everything in the Wilder pantheon BUT Ace In The Hole. It's something I've been meaning to fix forever.

I don't know if's underrated or not. But I do know this: When I was at the peak of my movie nerddom, I had this group of friends who could be a bit pretentious at times (we were also in our early 20s). All of those guys love Kubrick and swore about him being the best director ever, with Scorcese taking a second. When I entered Billy Wilder in the discussion, no one heard of him or saw any of his movies.

As far as Ebert's final days: He died with dignity despite all the hardships faced. The dude lost his jaw and still made public appearances. He had no fears about his physical appearance at all. Good for him; I don't know if I could do that.

[not that clay]

I've seen everything in the Wilder pantheon BUT Ace In The Hole. It's something I've been meaning to fix forever.

I don't know if's underrated or not. But I do know this: When I was at the peak of my movie nerddom, I had this group of friends who could be a bit pretentious at times (we were also in our early 20s). All of those guys love Kubrick and swore about him being the best director ever, with Scorcese taking a second. When I entered Billy Wilder in the discussion, no one heard of him or saw any of his movies.

Ace in the Hole is funny, but it's not a comedy. Have you seen One, Two, Three?

I saw the first 30 minutes of Raging Bull and thought it was ridiculous and had to turn it off. I think to enjoy it I would have had to have seen it before De Niro turned into a parody of himself.

[not that clay]

Back when I worked at a bookstore we had some review copies and otherwise free books, and I picked up a bunch of Ebert's books. The guy was a great writer. It's hard to get cheerfulness across and he pulled it off. He had this great little book about his favorite walk in London ("The Perfect London Walk"). I really liked his book of movie cliches