Film Critic Roger Ebert Dead at 70 Of Cancer

New submitter AndyKrish links to the BBC's report that just two days after penning a "leave of presence" in which he says "I am not going away," Roger Ebert — "arguably the world's most famous film critic" — has died of cancer. Ebert was a long-time film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as (most famously along with Gene Siskel) for a string of television shows. In the course of dealing with persistent cancer that affected his thyroid and jaw, and which took away his voice, Ebert became a prolific blogger on movies as well as other topics, and drew on cutting edge technology to regain the power of speech.

Sad Day

[MightyMartian]

I didn't agree with every review, but all in all he was damned good critic, and a significant part of his Great Movies list is a must-see for me.

Re:Sad Day

[MrEricSir]

I think a huge part of what made him a great critic was that even when you disagreed with his opinion, you could usually sympathize with him anyway. It takes an unusually talented critic to pull that off.

Re:Sad Day

[ackthpt]

I think a huge part of what made him a great critic was that even when you disagreed with his opinion, you could usually sympathize with him anyway. It takes an unusually talented critic to pull that off.

I generally felt that way more about Gene Siskel, he always seemed to be down on movies I enjoyed, but he did articulate well why he didn't like something, rather than be a complete a** like Rex Reed.

Sneak Previews was one of the few television shows I'd free up some time each week to watch. It was a great show and taught that you don't have to agree with all or any one film critic(s). More often I'd agree with Roger, he seemed like he enjoyed basically fun films, where Gene was looking more at the quality of the production. As I grew older I'd appreciate both points of view and not just throw my money away just because Disney, Lucas or anyone else rolled out yet-another movie.

One of the great public philosophers of our time

[Anonymous Coward]

On a regular basis his reviews lept from discussion of the movie to discussion of life and the questions and problems that we face. His clarity of writing was combined with a clear and solid morality. He illuminated whatever corner of life he looked in to. He will be greatly missed.

Re:Sad Day

[MightyMartian]

There is one thing that Ebert said about movies that stands above everything else:

“It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.”

Re:Most world famous??

[MightyMartian]

I suspect if you talk to a Chinese or Indian film critic, they would know exactly who he was. In fact, he'd started to integrate foreign reviewers on his web site with his "Far Flung Correspondence", something I hope whoever takes over his job (I'm assuming Jim Emerson) will do.

Re:Sad Day

[tedgyz]

I generally agreed with his reviews much more than his partner Siskel. Roger recognized that not all movies have to have a greater purpose. Sometimes it is ok to just have fun.

Re:Siskel & Ebert Sneak Previews

[Hatta]

Siskel & Ebert was from a different time when you could turn on the TV and see two educated people have a lively and respectful disagreement about matters of quality. I don't expect I'll live to see such a thing again.

Ebert was a demi-god.

[MarkvW]

Ebert had a plain common-man love for the movies, but he was, at the same time, a sophisticated critic.

I'll miss him.

Re:Sad Day

[MightyMartian]

And put it on his Great Movies list, and it is indeed an astounding movie, the greatest of all of the children of Metropolis.

Re:Sad Day

[AK Marc]

But both of them were capable more than most of saying "I didn't like 28 Days Later, but for a zombie movie, it was so much better than most, I'll give it a thumbs up" (28 Days just being something I could see them saying, I can't recall a specific incident at the moment). They didn't rate every movie like it was for the Best Picture Oscar, but managed some context. Sort of like Skyfall. If you like Bond, you'll like Skyfall. If you think Bond movies have become too slow, and the action scenes all try too hard to out do the previous movie's scenes, then you'll hate it. So how do you rate it? It depends on what you want to see. They were better at articulating that distinction within their reviews than most, who would just give it a star rating and move on.

Form and content

[girlinatrainingbra]

re "It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it."

That's a great point. Form is separate from content. The point of a movie is not just its content, but also in the stylistic presentation form it uses to deliver that content. I've seen movies that had a nice "story" behind it but with poor execution of the plot by the actors or timing and editing of the scenes. I've also seen movies produced and directed by music video directors and by Michael Baye that are beautifully styled and paced and so well lit and with gorgeous sweeping camera movements that actually go with the underlying scene and with good music that punctuates and emphasizes the action but the content of the plot and the storyline is crap.
.
When both form and content deliver something beautiful, it's a wonderful movie. I like Ebert's side commentaries and I also like that he was part of some schlocky movie writing in the 1960s.
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Ebert wrote the scripts for Who Killed Bambi? [wikipedia.org], a 1978 movie about the Sex Pistols that ultimately was not made because the financiers did not like what was in the script. Ebert's screenplay [suntimes.com] for the movie is on his blog. Bizarre.
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He also wrote the for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," [wikipedia.org] a movie for which he wrote the screenplay in 1969.

Re:Sad Day

[ultranova]

rather than be a complete a**

Say "ass". You know you want to. We're all adults here, we can take a vulgar reference every now and then.

Seriously, either curse or don't; this *bleeb* business is simply pathethic.

Re:Don't mess.

[a_mari_usque_ad_mare]

He wrote an entire book about that incident. It is called ,"Your Movie Sucks." Most of the book is actually reviews of other really bad movies he wrote, but the Rob Schneider scenario was clearly the best part.

It's a great read, and a great introduction to Ebert if you would like to know more about him.

http://www.amazon.com/Your-Movie-Sucks-Roger-Ebert/dp/0740763660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365120593&sr=8-1&keywords=your+movie+sucks [amazon.com]

Re:Sad Day

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I only read a few of his reviews because I found most of them to be rather thoughtless and lame. Take his review on "Team America" for example. He gave it a bad review mainly because it joked about those waging the war on terror. The content of the movie, even its purpose, was just completely lost on him. I later found out that he gave Fahrenheit 9/11 a good review for exactly the same reason, only that movie wasn't even entertaining unless you like watching the blooper reel of political messages. I know its purpose wasn't intended to entertain, but it wasn't useful for anything else unless you like watching political propaganda.

I really don't see any sense in respecting the opinion of such a person. My opinion of him isn't just based on that though - rather that is one of the most egregious examples of where I can think of him giving a movie an unfair review because it offended him. (And that's part of the message of the movie - they intended to offend everybody who watched it in at least some way.)