Patterico's Pontifications

I believe he gave poor or middling reviews to My Cousin Vinny and Full Metal Jacket. Whatever, dude. I guess he saved the rave reviews for Barack Obama.

Patterico (9c670f) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:00 pm

RIP, though I didn’t agree with his politics, which sometimes made its way into his reviews in a bad way. Read his review of Dirty Harry to see what I mean.

Lawrence (2ae3a6) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:02 pm

In last few years, I read his movie reviews less than 20 years ago. Even today, I look at his 1-4 star ratings as a guide for some movies.

The places to get helpful movie reviews are Debbie Schlussel, John Nolte on Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, and Variety.

slp (347e33) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:18 pm

he would watch movies and tell me whether I should see it or not then his face fell off and we lost touch

happyfeet (c60db2) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:23 pm

Grew up watching his reviews. My wife and I called him, affectionately, “the fat guy”. May he rest in peace.

nk from Chicago (d4662f) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:27 pm

Now he can vote for Democrats in Hell & Chicago.

Ipso Fatso (1e3278) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:37 pm

Grew up on both Siskel & Ebert. Went through a Gene phase, into a Roger phase, then back to a Gene phase. I still measure movies by their basic rule: did it do what it set out to do?

He will live on as the screenwriter of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Karl (5f6b7a) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:39 pm

i loved him cause of he loved mr. tarantino

or at least that’s how I remember it

he was a fascist though and back before the fascism became a huge problem for america that was ok but these days it’s not something you can just look past

happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/4/2013 @ 6:55 pm

Great movie reviews, not as good a critic as Siskel. I think they were better together, Siskel being the critic, Ebert being the reviewer, batting the ball back and forth (criticism is different than reviewing.) I didn’t care for his politics, but mostly when it leaked into his reviews it was obvious and open. As a public fighter against a disfiguring, disabling cancer he had no peer. Rest in peace, and thank you for all of those reviews and insights.

htom (412a17) — 4/4/2013 @ 7:26 pm

I learned a lot about movies from watching Siskel and Ebert and I believe I became a more critical and mindful and appreciative lifelong movie watcher because of them and their long running show. I agree with several others here in that I preferred Siskel’s approach and style, but I also think it’s fair to say that the two of them together were far far better and more influential than either would have been (or were) by themselves.

elissa (3b31fc) — 4/4/2013 @ 8:44 pm

yes they did more than anybody except for maybe the actor’s studio guy to convince people to think of movies as a serious thing about which to think

happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/4/2013 @ 8:47 pm

One other point which stands tall for me about Ebert. He had roots. He stayed in Chicago at the Sun Times and expanded his syndication empire from there. Especially after Gene Siskel died Roger could have gone east or west–and could have probably made a whole lot more money. He didn’t go. And he wanted and made sure his annual film festival would be held in Champaign-Urbana where he was raised and where he got his start in journalism. In recent years Hollywood greats–actors, writers and directors– were happy to make the trek down to the U of I to meet with Roger and be part of his elite film festival.

elissa (3b31fc) — 4/4/2013 @ 9:13 pm

I remember growing up watching Siskel and Ebert and all the different shows that evolved. I think they had 3 shows together in various forms on various stations in Chicago. I also remember getting old enough to recognize how very liberal Ebert was, and how it seemed just like my Professors in College.
Stealth propaganda it seemed.

Gus (694db4) — 4/4/2013 @ 9:25 pm

Compare Patrick’s comment about the passing of Roger Ebert to the left’s comments when Andrew Breitbart died. <———- why I am not a liberal part googol.

Peter (dfde9b) — 4/4/2013 @ 9:57 pm

He should have stuck to movie reviews.

Harrison (975823) — 4/4/2013 @ 10:29 pm

Woah, is the Karl who just commented actually the original Karl? If so, welcome back dude. Nice to hear from you again, and please rejoin the conversation.

If not, why then this parting was well met.

JVW (4826a9) — 4/5/2013 @ 12:17 am

I didn’t agree with his movie reviews any more than his politics. I was more of a Gene Siskel guy. That said, RIP.

I am exactly the other way around — I was far more likely to agree with Ebert than Siskel where they disagreed.

I think that the strength of the pairing was their wide swath of appeal each had to a certain mental approach to movies, each appealed to a different but significant group of viewers. And when they both agreed on a movie it was a pretty good chance it would be appreciated as a good movie by most people.

Other pairings have been far less effective because of the fact that most times the other reviewers were not as good as Siskel OR Ebert alone were. I recall one of the subsequent pairings after S/E left their PBS show for syndication and self-ownership that had one of the idiots select, for a “worst 10 films of the year” list, “Runaway Train”

I’m sorry, but yes, it’s a bad movie. But it’s an OBVIOUS bad movie, not a disappointment. The fact that it has THREE notable name stars (Voight, Roberts, and DeMornay) didn’t mean squat. If you went to that film, looking at the poster and hearing the NAME of it, and didn’t expect one giant load of cheesy filmmaking, you’re an idiot.

“Worst 10 films” should be films that HAD talent, HAD money, HAD direction, and, equally critically, HAD aspirations, and still sucked. Ishtar was not as bad as that, but it’s at least close to an example. Lots of money, two of the more talented actors of the time, lots of secondary talents (Grodin, Weston, Adjani), and clearly very high aspirations. Fights between the director and both the main stars about stuff were the stories of legend. So it’s a much worse movie than it really is — because it should have been far more. Elaine May never directed another film.

IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States and some Canadian provinces (98ae1f) — 4/5/2013 @ 1:16 am

I believe he gave poor or middling reviews to My Cousin Vinny and Full Metal Jacket

LOL, I disagree with the former, but more than amply agree with the latter. FMJ is a cliched, trite, and even at the time worn-out plot for an anti-war movie. Paths of Glory was a vastly better anti-war film.

I waited a long time to see it and it is easily Kubrick’s worst major film, much as I suspected it would be. R.Lee Ermey does a great job but Kubrick makes him look like a senseless sadist, with no appreciation for what a drill sergeant is or does or why. And the whole Vincent D’Onofrio bit is just bogus. I suppose that’s happened once or twice in history, but it’s damned sure not common.

If you want a decent flick about the insanity of the Vietnam war, the film “The Boys In Company C“, made about 10 years earlier, is a much, much better film.

And by no means take this commentary wrong — Kubrick was freaking brilliant. From Dr. Strangelove to 2001 to Clockwork Orange to Barry Lyndon to The Shining, he did some of the best films ever made. Lyndon is the weakest of those and it’s still a gorgeous “picture postcard” of a movie. There were a few other directors in his class but not a lot — Hitchcock comes to mind.

IGotBupkis, Legally Defined Cyberbully in All 57 States and some Canadian provinces (98ae1f) — 4/5/2013 @ 1:27 am

The internet was Ebert’s undoing. It democratized the movie review profession, making him quite less important. It also gave him an instant megaphone for his hasty, shallow political thoughts, which revealed him to be not as smart or kind as widely believed. I’m sorry he suffered such horrible health problems. I will still look at his website weekly for movie pick ideas.

gp (5a38d9) — 4/5/2013 @ 6:52 am

the economic regime dead fascist roger ebert supported is failing to create a meaningful number of jobs

let’s all go to the lobby

to get ourselves a treat!

happyfeet (8ce051) — 4/5/2013 @ 7:34 am

I watch FMJ long time
Stood tall before Teh Man
Then ate teh peanuts

Colonel Haiku (2be9f6) — 4/5/2013 @ 7:53 am

Ebert was a vulgarian at odd moments, and often a slave to the hype machine. I appreciated that he did not detest actiony films simply because they were actiony, like most of the movie reviewing coterie, but he often missed the boat by trying to strike a different pose than his peers (a la his reviews of transformers and the Star Wars prequels.)

And, yes, his soft-minded political nonsense was certainly a distraction.

But the man loved movies. He was often insightful, sometimes incisive, and managed to coalesce the shared sentiment of many moviegoers into a digestible tidbit for light Friday evening reading.

Even though it was quite a while in coming, the world is smaller for his loss.

Hadlowe (33cc56) — 4/5/2013 @ 9:53 am

RIP doesn’t cut it for this leftie schnook.
I prefer the Rabbinical “may his death be an atonement for all his sins!” which truly takes care of business!

el elx (fcf21e) — 4/6/2013 @ 6:44 am

4/4/2013

R.I.P. Roger Ebert

23 Responses to “R.I.P. Roger Ebert”

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