Roger Ebert

I cannot recommend "The Lives of Others" enough. Won an Academy Award in 2006 for best foreign film. Ebert review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070920/REV… Another, very moving, review: http://www.nationalreview.com/content/great-lives And the film has two or three great Honecker jokes. :-)

I always loved Ebert's re-appraisal of The Big Lebowski in 2010: "If a man has a roof over his head, fresh half-and-half for his White Russians, a little weed and his bowling buddies, what more, really, does he need?" http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100310/REV…

> I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions. A great example of this was his review of The Human Centipede. He said that the film perfectly accomplished its ambitions, but those ambitions were so dark, so far outside the norm that his rating system was simply incapable of properly rating the film. In his own words[1]: > I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine. [1]http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100505/REV…

I'm just going to link to one of my favorite reviews of his. You can __taste__ the contempt he has for this movie and all its characters in his words: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19981211/REV… I'll also never forget when Ebert lambasted that ridiculous "Benjamin Button" movie. At the time, I felt like he was the only one on earth that agreed with me. The film recieved nothing but praise, and I was sitting there wondering if I had seen the same film as everyone else. I was so delighted to read his review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081223/REV…

While it might be cheap to remember a critic by something as sensationalist as a scorcher - and Ebert was of a higher caliber than to build a career on the entertainment value of them - his review of "Highlander 2" has been a favorite of mine for its good-natured bickering about the gaping holes in the film's logic: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19911101/REV… (Cache: http://web.archive.org/web/20121026130620/http://rogerebert.suntimes.c… I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions. An action film was good so long as it had effective action; films purporting to be more cerebral in nature had rather more to answer for. He resisted the ivory tower most other writers with his level of film knowledge would climb.

. I'll just leave one of my favorite quotes from Ebert about a movie that is actually one of my all time favorite comedy. "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." [1] - Roger Ebert review of "Freddy Got Fingered"; April 20, 2001 [1] http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010420/REV…

PS, one more: for those of you who know Jay Mariotti (sports "commentator - all around ass), Ebert's note on his way out was brilliant: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080828/COM…

While it was satisfying to watch him hate the films I hate, it was incredibly validating to see him love the films I love. Synecdoche, New York http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081105/REV… Paris, Texas http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19840101/REV… (I just notice the similar form of those film titles. Curious!)

I watched this movie on a flight home recently and loved it. Loved the man, loved that he found a calling and stuck to it, loved that he never changed a thing and won worldwide acclaim because of it. Then I got home and read Ebert's review. This paragraph hit me like a punch to the stomach and put it all in perspective: "Even at the high prices of his premium fresh ingredients, you realize he must be a rich man. But to what end? The existence of his sons are an indication that he has a wife, although we never see her. He must have a home, although we never visit it. There must be hours when he cannot be at work, but the film indicates no amusements, hobbies or pastimes. The idea of his courtship of his wife fascinates me: Forgive me, but I imagine that even while making love, he must be fretting about the loss of valuable sushi-making time." http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120404/REV…

Ebert wrote an article in 1997 about 2001: A Space Odyssey which changed the way I watch movies. He made me start thinking about why the director and his characters do things rather than caring specifically about what they were doing. His work will stick with me for the rest of my life. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19970327/REV…

Ebert commented in his review that the film was unique in that it just showed OSX and standard programs like mail.app and iphoto instead of having everything be obviously faked. I like that approach but for whatever reason it is pretty rare in films. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100317/REV…

Simple, funny machines like this are mesmerizing in their elegant performance and almost Unix-way determination of doing one thing, but doing it well. The video also instantly reminds me of another guy having fun with little colored candies - the one that conducted M&Ms breeding experiments (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081030/OPI…

and every few years there is a new "biggest grossing film of all time." That, at least, can be accounted for by inflation: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm Titanic (1997) is the most recent in the top ten (at #6). Avatar is the most recent at #14, and one of only two movies from the 2000s in the top 30. Movie revenue is dropping. Roger Ebert has a rundown of why 2011 was such a terrible year: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111228/COM… As for TV- no, it isn't in such a decline. But more and more people are watching online, and the existing TV networks don't have the stranglehold on content that they do on cable/etc. A lot of people watch stuff on YouTube, Netflix is making original content... there is space to disrupt TV watching yet.

Can't believe nobody has mentioned Breaking Away http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078902/ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19790101/REV…

FWIW, Ebert wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19700101/REV…

I actually found Ebert's online reviews more compelling than the TV show ever was. He could take his time in them and explore little facets of the films, relate them to obscure references and dote a bit on things he just plain liked. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=REVIEWS

I thought so too, but Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091211/REV…

And the pedals could power the transmitter. It could work on a dual RFID solution, one in the bike, one in your rental card. Riding the bike without a renters card could then trigger the giant sky magnet to aim at that bike and suck up the thief. "The Bicycle Thief 2: Paris" coming to theaters next year? [ http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990319/REV… ]

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051013/REV… This is Ebert's review of Touch the Sound, which is a documentary about a deaf percussionist.