Roger Ebert, RIP

[junglehusky]

A lot of great remembrances after his passing today. I found this one by Will Leitch (written in 2010) to be particularly touching:

My Roger Ebert Story

As a kid I didn't go to the movies that often, our family rented maybe one VHS movie a week (or borrowed from the library) but I watched Siskel and Ebert all the time. Later on I'd read his column online, and whenever I wanted a review for a new movie Ebert was always the first one I'd read.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Ebert was my go-to reviewer when i was on the fence about a movie. I almost always agreed with him. He was a little bit of a perv, and had a tendency to bump a movie up a bit if a major actress showed some skin. I completely agree with that approach.

Siskel had too high a rejection rate for me, panning stuff that was not that bad.

Both of them were very readable, and were not showing off like so many movie reviewers (New York Times, for example).

 

[Fishy]

I read Roger Ebert's reviews every Friday - nothing better than seeing that he liked a movie you were looking forward to.

And, conversely, nothing worse than seeing him pan a movie that you were looking forward to.

I dearly loved an Ebert review of a Michael Bay movie....

"Pearl Harbor" is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle.

He had an amazing way with words.

 

[RS9999X]

Where would Facbook be without the thumbs up and thumbs down of Siskel and Ebert?

They were revolutionary in their day. Public Television got a little hipper. It was fast-paced, 6 minutes per movie, a little retrospective piece before the end and the thumbs up and down review of all current releases.

A near perfect half hour for 1978.

 

[Aluminny69]

Ebert was my go-to reviewer when i was on the fence about a movie. I almost always agreed with him. He was a little bit of a perv, and had a tendency to bump a movie up a bit if a major actress showed some skin. I completely agree with that approach.

Siskel had too high a rejection rate for me, panning stuff that was not that bad.

Both of them were very readable, and were not showing off like so many movie reviewers (New York Times, for example).

Just in case you didn't know,

From Wiki: Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for the 1970 Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and sometimes joked about being responsible for the film, which was poorly received on its release but is now regarded as a cult classic.[36] Ebert and Meyer also made Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up!, and other films, and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi? (In April 2010, Ebert posted his screenplay of Who Killed Bambi? aka Anarchy in the UK on his blog.)[37]