http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310



I heard about this on the Dan Le Batard show today. Very excellent article. Pretty sad, I love Ebert.

That was excellent.

I want to know more about his process of just tossing his notes on the floor during the movie. Is there a reason for that? Like he wants to go back and recreate the movie from his notes instead of just reading it back? Or is it just what he does?

That was great, really great.

An aside about his note tossing, I've been to a couple of screenings where he was present, and I don't remember the paper tearing sound. But, this was years and years ago when he was still in good health, and I don't believe I was in the private screening room described in the article. Maybe the movies I saw with him in the audience were a rewatch for him? Or maybe the nonlinear note taking style is something that's become more pronounced since he's lost his voice.

I love teh Ebert.

All the best to you, sir.

I had no idea he'd had cancer/surgery/illness/anything. I saw that picture and thought "Damn, why'd they use such an unflattering shot?". Crazy to think he can't eat, drink or talk anymore. Poor guy. What an inspiration though, it really shows how much you can achieve in the face of adversity if you just keep your will strong.

More often than not after I watch a film, I look it up on wikipedia, check out the rottentomatos score, and look for a review by Ebert. I don't always agree with him due to differences in our personal tastes, but his insight is so spot-on in terms of imagery, cinematography, meaning, etc. Hate the thought that at some point in the not-so-far-off future there won't be anymore Ebert reviews. He's such a legend.

Heh

For reference, this is the face of adversity:



This Chinese guy is absolutely incredible. For some reason his body started growing these giant tumours on his face and neck. They crushed one of his eyes, smushed his mouth up so he has no teeth and can't speak clearly, and are now the tumours are slowly strangling him to death. It's really dangerous for him to have surgery done to remove them since they are full of networks of blood vessels and one of his ears is on the end of the left tumour so the doctors are afraid to damage it. He has had part of the tumours removed, but there's still a long way to go in terms of surgery and he will never look 'normal'.

It's crazy and surreal to see him because he doesn't look real/human, but I watched a documentary about him and it's just amazing. He is so brave, and his family is so supportive. I think a lot of people might just kill themselves in his situation, since he is a complete burden on his family - they have to do everything for him since he can't earn a living. People like this guy honestly do inspire me, since he is making a go of life despite having drawn possibly the worst lot in the world.

I actually avoid his reviews before I've seen the movie because I feel like he influences my thinking too much. But the first thing I do after seeing a movie is go read his review.

On his website he has a "great movies" section where he went back and reviewed what he considered to be the greatest movies. I highly recommend checking them out.

I also enjoy his Answer Man section.

Website

Oh, and the Your Movies Sucks files are fantastic too.


Your Movie Sucks

GI Joe - An 118-minute largely animated film with sequences involving the faces and other body parts of human beings. It is sure to be enjoyed by those whose movie appreciation is defined by the ability to discern that moving pictures and sound are being employed to depict violence. Nevertheless, it is better than "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

That last line kills me.

His 1 star reviews and under really are works of art. He released a book of his bad movie reviews, and it is hilarious.

"Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" makes a living cleaning fish tanks and occasionally prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie. "Deuce Bigalow" is aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience. The best thing about it is that it runs for only 75 minutes.

Rob Schneider is back, playing a male prostitute (or, as the movie reminds us dozens of times, a "man whore"). He is not a gay hustler, but specializes in pleasuring women, although the movie's closest thing to a sex scene is when he wears diapers on orders from a giantess. Oh, and he goes to dinner with a woman with a laryngectomy, who sprays wine on him through her neck vent.

The plot: Deuce visits his friend T.J. Hicks (Eddie Griffin) in Amsterdam, where T.J. is a pimp specializing in man-whores. Business is bad, because a serial killer is murdering male prostitutes, and so Deuce acts as a decoy to entrap the killer. In his investigation he encounters a woman with a penis for a nose. You don't want to know what happens when she sneezes.

Does this sound like a movie you want to see? It sounds to me like a movie that Columbia Pictures and the film's producers (Glenn S. Gainor, Jack Giarraputo, Tom McNulty, Nathan Talbert Reimann, Adam Sandler and John Schneider) should be discussing in long, sad conversations with their inner child.

The movie created a spot of controversy last February. According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture Nominees and wrote that they were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that ... bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to 'Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,' a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic."

Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind ... Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers."

Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can't take it. Then I found he's not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists' Guild award for lifetime achievement.

Schneider was nominated for a 2000 Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor, but lost to Jar-Jar Binks.

But Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

good thing he has such a smokin' hot bod.

Great Article, thanks for posting that. He has always been my favourite movie critic.

Some might argue that the truly brave thing to do would be to eliminate his family's heavy burdon.



Awesome. I'm going to go play on his website for a while...I didn't realize how much I liked the guy until recently.

Every. Time.

He could make a decent living on the star wars convention circuit as a jabba the hut impersonator.

seriously though, ebert is my favorite non-porn star twitterer. All kinds of great comments and links. http://twitter.com/ebertchicago

What? Did you read my post as saying I do all that shit BEFORE I watch a movie? Because it didn't say that. It said I look up the review AFTER. Like you described yourself doing above.

No, I was just using your post to lead into talking about me. Maybe I should've said "actively avoid" to emphasize it.

THe only time I'll read Ebert before watching a movie is if I'm on the fence about seeing it (or have no intention of seeing it at all, and want to read his scathing review) was on the fence about seeing avatar, for instance, and Ebert's gushing review pushed me over the top.

hmm. He seems to be pretty political on Twitter. No thanks.

Heard his name here a lot but never checked him out, the article, his review of deuce bigalow and his tweet got me intrigued. His tweeter is great and I spent a good portion of work reading his reviews. Now I have something to new to endlessly pester my friends about. They'll be happy that I've moved off the wire.

He happened to be pretty poltical on the top of that list, but he isn't always. He often has really random or interesting links. Politics in general bore me, it's not why I follow

I mean, he linked this from his twitter lol

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/pages-for-...-webs-wors.html


I mean, yeah he's a liberal, but it's not too hard to browse past a couple posts to get to his good stuff, ffs. And the man has no chin, let him have a bleeding heart.

Ebert responded to the article in his blog, here.

It's quite the Ebert love-fest in here, but he's the man. I enjoyed that entry.

Also, is this his wife?

Yes.

Hmm, looking at my post now, I probably should've realized that when the link title had "Chaz" in it.

Isn't that the point of a thread titled Roger Ebert?

Or it could be a place where someone can give their opinion on him, good or bad.

does not compute.

I don't know much about Ebert, but that Siskel sure was an *******.

I read on Perez Hilton that Ebert has booked a show with Oprah to be taped next week.

Well that will be a one-sided interview.

With the aid of a text-to-speech computer program and his own make-shift sign language, Roger will sit down with Oprah Winfrey next week for what is sure to be an amazing interview

But, yeah, I would imagine it'll be a closed taping, no audience, maybe in Ebert's home.

I'm kind of afraid to see video of his creepy frozen mandible-less smile.

well now we're just talking semantics

The show airs today.

Another good article

http://m.deadspin.com/site?sid=deadspinip&...refId%3D5482198

I watched the Oprah interview. It showed some of the voice technology the Esquire article mentioned. The beginning of each Ebert voiced sentence sounded good, sounded like Ebert, but by the end of the sentence it sounded like a computer.

From his twitter feed:

"The trailer for "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" goes online Thursday. Now I won't be able to sleep for two nights."

That's great.


From a fake Ebert twitter account:

"Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" - accidently rented this one, meant to get "Fled" with Laurence Fishburne (confused by the similar titles). Was ok."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUMZjy8rXE4

that was awesome, ebert really had gene's sway down pat. did gene have parkinsons or something?

Video games can never be art
by Roger Ebert

Thoughts?

I've never been that interested in defining art. It's art, all of life can be argued to be art. Some of it is better than others. (This is where the real squeamishness lies, labelling art as bad, or inconsequential.)

I think the point where Ebert loses me is his literal idea of "video game". It's pedantic, yes, but little of what I love about video games are the gaming portion. I don't play online. [And how does Ebert keep this going in his mind? Does he refrain from saying things like "Woody Allen's new film... Woody Allen doesn't use film.]

Some of what I enjoy goes to the sandbox element--killing all of the Flying Rats in Liberty City, for example. But if I didn't respect (tm Lil Jacob) the relationship of Niko and Roman, then I wouldn't keep playing.

The technical side is compelling for me, too, but not enough to make me play a game I find boring. I thought Oblivion looked gorgeous, but I wanted more art direction (like Shadows of the Colossus). Parts of Dragon Age are fun, but I find it's glitchy nature and difficult to read menu system a dealbreaker. Shale's my favorite DLC in recent memory, but I'll never finish Dragon Age: Origins because of all the glitches and breaks. When I play it, and see how the QA procedures broke down, I feel like my intelligence is being insulted--just like when I see an aggressively mediocre movie.

This is my least favorite argument of Ebert's. He's usually pretty persuasive, and I like to hear his point of view. Regarding this, though, I feel like he's saying he can judge what makes something art. And that's straight douche bag material.

They seem to be having fun in that one. Not so much in this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkwVz_jK3gA...feature=related

Note: your same clip is featured part-way through, but then there's another bizarre bit after. Is Siskel drunk during his rant about WASPs?

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/05/pu...e_on_thing.html

Ebert did give Face/off three stars, after all..

Dear Roger Ebert,

You get cooler to me every day.

Frau.

Ebert!

awesome.

Did anyone else watch the new program?

I think it's alright, I didn't love either of the two main critics, but I'm hoping they find their groove. The program will also have a commentator dedicated to classic film, one guy focusing on social issues, and another doing something I can't remember.

The best part of the program was Ebert's review of an animated movie about a man and his dog. He liked the movie, the clip looked good, and WARNER HERZOG narrated Ebet's review! Sweet lord, do I love that guy's voice!