# Errors in Roger Ebert's reviews. How many are there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 18, 2014, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383 "2014-04-18T02:14:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/21 "2014-04-18T16:25:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What the father actually says, and he says it (often more than once) in almost every scene in which he appears, is “The wrong _kid_ died.” I’m curious how Ebert got such a simple and oft-repeated phrase wrong. It’s like saying Citizen Kane’s last word was “Rosebutt.” HA! He’s not the only one. My wife and I always quote that line as “the wrong SON died!” I had to look it up because of your post, and you are correct. Interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/22 "2014-04-18T16:50:01Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > There was some plot point he didn’t get about the second Matrix movie. It was a simple point, not a ‘convulated metaphor’ one. Between that and his stupid attack on some kid for wearing an American flag t-shirt to school on Cinco De Mayo\*, I was done with him at that point. So what did he not get about The Matrix 2? > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > From his review for _Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story_: > > What the father actually says, and he says it (often more than once) in almost every scene in which he appears, is “The wrong _kid_ died.” I’m curious how Ebert got such a simple and oft-repeated phrase wrong. It’s like saying Citizen Kane’s last word was “Rosebutt.” I’m curious how people get “No, _I_ am your father” and “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” wrong so often too. Something popular must start the misquote ball rolling. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/23 "2014-04-18T17:03:05Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > I’m curious how people get “No, _I_ am your father” and “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” wrong so often too. Something popular must start the misquote ball rolling. I wonder if a linguist has ever done a paper about the ways famous quotations get misquoted. It seems to me there are some rules: the misquotes make the grammar simpler, they modernize the language, and if there is no reference to the work being quoted, they will add one. That’s why “No, I am your father” becomes “Luke, I am your father” - without the “Luke” it’s not as obvious the quote is from Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/24 "2014-04-18T17:04:49Z")
I’ve never been fond of his [Resident Evil](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/resident-evil-2002) review (it’s like my favorite guilty pleasure movie): > [@](#): > > There is one neat effect when characters unwisely venture into a corridor and the door slams shut on them. Then a laser beam passes at head level, decapitating one. Another beam whizzes past at waist level, cutting the second in two while the others duck. A third laser pretends to be high but then switches to low, but the third character outsmarts it by jumping at the last minute. Then the fourth laser turns into a grid that dices its victim into pieces the size of a Big Mac. Since the grid is inescapable, what were the earlier lasers about? Does the corridor have a sense of humor? Shortly after the laser grid kills most of the cast, we find out that the AI program running security is sentient and DOES have a sense of humor. > [@](#): > > Oh, and the film has a Digital Readout. The Hive is set to lock itself forever after 60 minutes have passed, so the characters are racing against time. In other words, after it shuts all of its doors, and gasses and drowns everybody, it waits 60 minutes and really shuts its doors–big time. That “Digital Readout,” it’s a stopwatch that a character carries with him. And the countdown was explained as a short window for an investigation team to go in and figure out what happened. It’s not technically “wrong,” but it is being nitpicky over something that was explained. He also complains about slamming noises that don’t actually happen and spends a paragraph complaining about (since-corrected) vandalism in the movie’s IMDB listing. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/25 "2014-04-18T17:18:20Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Sometimes he reviews movies that are being screened early at a film festival (Sundance, Toronto, Cannes, etc), and that might be re-cut depending on how it’s received. He often made mistakes, yes, but it could be that he reviewed a different edit of the film than the final version. I don’t think he reviews too many movies now. Like Dale Sams’ example this is also not Ebert, but when Flashdance first came out Wichita’s movie critic referred to the main character as an “exotic dancer”. The closest thing the movie had to a major plot point was that she refused to be an exotic dancer, repeatedly turning down offers from a nearby strip club owner. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/26 "2014-04-18T17:36:45Z")
If we’re going to slide into other critics, everyone has to read Rex Reed’s take on [Cabin in the Woods](http://observer.com/2012/04/cabin-in-the-woods-rex-reed-richard-jenkins-bradley-whitford/): > [@](#): > > It’s all part of an elaborate video game that allows paying customers to watch real people slaughtered according to the horror of choice. The five kids in the cabin are innocent pawns to test the mechanics of the game, the way fiends in a horror movie test the sounds of screaming babies as they feed them to the jaws of mutated crocodiles. Not a single word of that actually happened in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/27 "2014-04-18T17:44:54Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > So what did he not get about The Matrix 2? > > I’m curious how people get “No, _I_ am your father” and “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” wrong so often too. Something popular must start the misquote ball rolling. Like some of the other reviews, it seems to have been cleaned up. I can’t remember the exact details because I’ve only seen the movie once, but I seem to recall that he confused an attack with the ships with Zion being attacked. “You would think the last bastion of humanity being bombarded would warrant more attention.” Yes, Zion is going to be attacked, but they didn’t wipe out Zion right in the middle of the second show. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/28 "2014-04-18T17:57:23Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I wonder if a linguist has ever done a paper about the ways famous quotations get misquoted. It seems to me there are some rules: the misquotes make the grammar simpler, they modernize the language, and if there is no reference to the work being quoted, they will add one. That’s why “No, I am your father” becomes “Luke, I am your father” - without the “Luke” it’s not as obvious the quote is from Star Wars. That was part of the PhD thesis I never finished, though mine was more about misquoted Shakespeare lines and why they were misquoted. I had intended to include the misquoting of “No, I am your father” as a parallel. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/29 "2014-04-18T18:16:23Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > My Wanted error from six years ago remains there. The [Ronin](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ronin-1998) one is still there too. What the hell I’ll post it again: > [@](#): > > And there’s another American, Larry (Skipp Sudduth), who is supposed to be a great driver but is too much of a showboat, choosing as he does to replicate the Diana death chase (actually, that’s just the movie’s in-joke, if it’s a joke at all). Nobody “chose” the route through the Pont D’Alma tunnel - they were **chasing** Dierdre and Seamus, who were desperately trying to get away from them. Oh, and Larry was **dead** during that chase. DeNiro was driving the other car. I guess Larry was such a “showboat” that he used his ghostly influence to steer the other cars through the tunnel. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/30 "2014-04-18T19:22:19Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > I can’t believe that nobody has pointe out that it’s _ **Roger** _… Hijack: I can’t believe more people haven’t made a joke about the Canadian telecom company Rogers Communications: “Rogers Communications. It’s more than a name. It’s a mission statement.” ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/31 "2014-04-18T19:43:59Z")
Also from his review of _[Ronin](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ronin-1998)_: _Consider the Stellan Skarsgard character, who is always popping out his laptop computer and following the progress of chase scenes with maps and what I guess are satellite photos. Why does he do this? To affirm to himself that elsewhere something is indeed happening, I think._ Well, no Rog. As is made clear at several points in the film, Gregor uses the cell phone of the people holding the case to track them, and feeds this information to Skip (the driver of the Audi S8) and the rest of the team to intercept the car with the case. This is absolutely clear if watching the chase scene through Nice, where Gregor is calling out turns to Skip to cut off the other car. This point is also made later after Gregor double-crosses the team and DeNiro has to seek the aid for a former collegue to track Gregor’s cell phone. That Ebert could miss this point and assert that Gregor doesn’t appear to have any function means that he either wasn’t paying any attention to this scene, which is a shame because it is a crucial plot development (that Gregor has the ability to ensure that he is in location to replace the case without being observed while the rest of the team is busy in a firefight), or he just doesn’t care about getting plot points correct. In the same review, he complains twice that the film “is bereft of plot” and notes that the contents of the case are not revealed, but apparently fails to connect the fact that the contents of the case (whatever they may be) are not just the McGuffin in the film, but are within the plot of the film also a McGuffin, designed to pull Seamus out of hiding (so he can be captured or killed by “Sam”) while the rest of the action and plot developments is actually incidential to Sam’s plot. The misdirection is classic Mamet writing and Ebert appears to completely miss it. In general, Ebert makes a gross amount of factual errors in his reviews to the point that it appears he didn’t even do cursory fact checking. Now it may be that film reviewers need not be held to the same standard of factual content as, say, reporters of world events or financial news, but when many of his highly critical comments hinge on complete misunderstandings of plot developments or character motiviations it doesn’t give much creditiblity to his capability as a fair and objective critic. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/32 "2014-04-18T19:54:16Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Moneyball: > > “In the 2002 season, **the nation’s lowest-salaried Major League Baseball team** put together a 20-game winning streak,” > > All three of the bolded sentences are untrue, and nowhere in the movie are they stated as fact. I’m pretty sure there’s a moment in the movie where the Beane character says something along the lines of, “Here’s where the Yankees and Red Sox are in terms of payroll” [gesturing], “here’s where everybody else is” [hand comes down], “and then there’s us” [hand comes down further]. Yes, the statement’s untrue (the A’s in Beane’s time have never been the lowest payroll team in the majors), but if I’m remembering correctly then it’s not really Ebert’s mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/33 "2014-04-18T20:29:27Z")
I know I’ve posted about this topic before. I can’t remember what movie it was now, but in one of his reviews his primary reason for disliking a movie was based on his complete misunderstanding of a plot point that was very clear in the movie itself. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/34 "2014-04-18T20:59:55Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > HA! He’s not the only one. My wife and I always quote that line as “the wrong SON died!” I had to look it up because of your post, and you are correct. Interesting. Somebody assembled a [gag reel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdtfcOlr0tk). Notably, the father is wearing the some outfit for his first and last scenes (and a few intermediate ones as well), despite being 30 years apart. My favourite line from the father, though, is early on the movie. The family are simple farmers and in 1946 when Dewey accidentally cuts his brother in half, they summon a country doctor: Doctor: This was a particularly bad case of somebody bein’ cut in half. I was not able to reattach the top half of his body to the bottom half of his body. Pa: Speak English, Doc! We ain’t scientists! Plus despite all the gratuitous nudity in the movie, I think the sexiest bit is Jane Lynch doing a fully-clothed cowgirl on John Reilly’s lap. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/35 "2014-04-18T23:39:07Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > I’m pretty sure there’s a moment in the movie where the Beane character says something along the lines of, “Here’s where the Yankees and Red Sox are in terms of payroll” [gesturing], “here’s where everybody else is” [hand comes down], “and then there’s us” [hand comes down further]. > > Yes, the statement’s untrue (the A’s in Beane’s time have never been the lowest payroll team in the majors), but if I’m remembering correctly then it’s not really Ebert’s mistake. Sort of. That doesn’t explain the other two mistakes though. 🙂 > [@](#): > > Billy Beane: The problem we’re trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there’s fifty feet of crap, and then there’s us. It’s an unfair game. And now we’ve been gutted. We’re like organ donors for the rich. Boston’s taken our kidneys, Yankees have taken our heart. And you guys just sit around talking the same old “good body” nonsense like we’re selling jeans. Like we’re looking for Fabio. We’ve got to think differently. We are the last dog at the bowl. You see what happens to the runt of the litter? He dies. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/36 "2014-04-19T08:18:37Z")
There are major errors in his Blade Runner review, like basic plot point errors. He asks why Tyrell corp would seek to make replicants with memories, just for the joy of torturing them? It is outright stated in movie that they are seeking to implant memories because replicants without them are unstable emotionally. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/37 "2014-04-19T10:39:20Z")
I tended not to pay attention to his reviews; it was almost sure that if he really, really liked something, then I wouldn’t. (The reverse, alas, couldn’t be counted on.) When he first started doing movie reviews, back in the early 70s IIRC, he tried to show how well-versed he was in film history by (mis)citing: he’d compare someone’s performance to Orson Welles’ performance in GONE WITH THE WIND, that sort of thing, completely missing the boat. I have no concrete examples, sadly, it was lonnnng ago. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/38 "2014-04-19T10:42:03Z")
Many. Mostly his opinions. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/39 "2014-04-19T13:06:19Z")
> [@grude](#): > > There are major errors in his Blade Runner review, like basic plot point errors. > > He asks why Tyrell corp would seek to make replicants with memories, just for the joy of torturing them? It is outright stated in movie that they are seeking to implant memories because replicants without them are unstable emotionally. I just checked his [first review](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blade-runner-1982-1) (different ones for different cuts, of course). Ebert: “Blade Runner” asks us to imagine its own future, in “the year 2020.” Actually, the opening has “Los Angeles, November 2019” in really big letters. If you’re going to actually put in quotes, quote it right. In the [Director’s Cut](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blade-runner-directors-cut-1992) review he has: Ebert: One of the film’s poignant scenes has Ford coldly telling Young what she remembers from when she was a little girl - because she has the same memories as all other replicants. Actually, Deckard tells Rachael that the memories are Tyrell’s niece’s. It might be assumed that some other replicants have the same memory, but it isn’t explicitly stated. Given the special nature of Rachael, Tyrell might have given only her those particular memories. From his review of the [Final Cut](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-blade-runner-the-final-cut-1982): Ebert: The action follows Deckard, a “blade runner” who is assigned to track down and kill six rebel replicants who have returned illegally from off-worlds to earth, and are thought to be in Los Angeles. (The movie never actually deals with more than five replicants, however, unless, as the critic Tim Dirks speculates, Deckard might be the sixth). This was one of the original’s errors that is cleaned up in _TFC_. The count is fixed to 5. So actually dwelling on the incorrect count in the version that doesn’t have it is really funny! He also says that the original analog effects were kept with no CGI. Actually, a lot of CGI was added in _TFC_. And who knows how many errors there were in the original versions of the reviews that have been edited out? ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383/40 "2014-04-19T13:14:23Z")
> [@grude](#): > > He asks why Tyrell corp would seek to make replicants with memories, just for the joy of torturing them? It is outright stated in movie that they are seeking to implant memories because replicants without them are unstable emotionally. Can you quote the section where he mentions the torture? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/errors-in-roger-eberts-reviews-how-many-are-there/686383.md?page=3)