It took me a while but I think this is the part I remembered.
Ok Young is the only one with memories, she is a new model, and she doesn’t share memories with the other replicants.
I think I remember a part after this where he speculated why Tyrell would give them memories. And wondered why they looked human at all, and didn’t have four arms or something. We see in the film they are used as sex slaves, the customers of Tyrell demand human looking models.
grude wrote:
It’s not clear to what extent the other Nexus 6 models have memories. E.g., Leon and apparently others collect old photographs of “family”. Roy razes him about them. Deckard talks about it. Were these photographs given to them at “birth” to lead them into thinking that had a history? Rachael is clearly is more advanced version, none-the-less.
Which brings up the question of Deckard and his memories. He also collects old photographs (seen on the piano) and has some other things in common with Rachael. As a replicant, those would have been implanted. And since the scene where Tyrell would have told Deckard about Rachel’s memories isn’t shown, that leaves some interesting possibilities.
And I have to report an error on myself. Indeed 6 escaped in the Final Cut. 2 (previously 1) were killed trying to break into Tryrell Corporation. Leaving the 4 that Deckard is sent after. But Ebert’s complaint is still wrong for this version.
Again: it is hard to find quote’s of some of Ebert’s errors due to later patching of reviews.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that as part of his whole philosophy of trying to review movies as a normal audience would see it, Ebert would usually base the review on one viewing, straight through. Obviously when he first started, that’s how every critic had to work, but as screener copies became common, most critics could watch a movie multiple times and pause it or run it back which I imagine would have reduced most instances of missed plot points. I might be misremembering that, though, and of course there’s still plenty of room to argue he was just being sort of lazy or curmudgeony.
I am going to occasionally check on the review of a movie I’ve seen many times (and have reasonable memory of) and compare to one of his reviews.
Next up: The Freshman.
Ebert: … some very rich people sit down to a strange banquet while Maximilian Schell acts as maitre d’ …
Schell (Larry London) isn’t the maitre d’, he’s the chef for the banquet. His main interaction with the guests is to come out and announce the menu. Nothing about managing the waiters and seating. Others are shown doing that, including greeting Carmine and the others.
In fact, Gianni Russo is listed in the credits as “Maitre D’ Gourmet Club”. Gianni is of course Carlo from The Godfather! A very intersting factoid that a fan of The Godfather like Ebert would have been made aware of and should have been even less likely to have made this error. (Then again, he doesn’t mention that Bruno Kirby played Young Clemenza in The Godfather: Part II.)
Also, he quotes Tina:
“Remember when it was sent over here to tour all of the museums?”
…
“It never went back.”
But the actual dialogue is:
“Do you remember about ten years ago the original toured the country?”
…
“And it stayed here.”
BTW: The online reviews seem strangely short. I wonder if they’ve been cut down. Which means fewer errors, of course.
Ebert remains my favorite movie reviewer. I’ve probably read every word he wrote in his last 30 years and think the reviews that contained errors are very few compared with the total number of his reviews. And even the ones that did contain errors, we had such similar taste that I liked the same stuff he liked at least 95% of the time, I would estimate. There’s simply no other reviewer whose opinion I can count on, errors or no errors.
Ebert quotes Steve Arlo on Daryl Zero: “He has a deeply nuanced understanding of human nature,”
Actual line: “He has a deeply nuanced and thoroughly functional understanding of human behavior …”
In particular, I don’t think Zero really understands human nature all that much. Human behavior is something he can at least observe.
Ebert also truncates the “two obs” quote a bit.
The part about Zero knowing that Gloria worked as a paramedic by using his sense of smell leaves out the other clues he used.
(Too bad the Zero Effect TV show never happened. It was apparently too soon for the “weird detective” genre. Now it would be considered unoriginal.)
Ebert’s review of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets includes this line:
As mentioned on the TVTropes site,
And, as I keep reading the TVTropes page I linked above, I find more examples:
Ebert makes of couple errors regarding Elsa (Lilli Palmer). First he says she “turns up to remind Bogarde of their old love affair.” There is nothing to indicate they ever had an affair. Second he says “Left-wing ex-mistress turns up again.” in the later part of the movie. Her character is not seen at all in the final phase of the movie.
It appears he has confused Elsa with Carol (Janet Munro), his actual girlfriend of sorts who does turn up later.
He also adds: “More paternal Gielgud advice.” before the (obligatory 60s) LSD party scene. Really just a phone call. The only thing resembling advice is “Plod quietly on.”
I suspect the crypto-jibberish he quotes is off, but I won’t bother trying to track it all down.
His overall description of the structure of the film is misleading. He says it starts off as a code-cracking film, then later a romance with Rebecca (Susannah York). But the romantic part is set up from the very first when they “meet cute” in the first act. The code-cracking part isn’t revealed until later.
BTW, this is a very badly written review from Ebert’s early years. Clearly not up to his later standards.
In his X-Men review, Ebert gives a quick summary of the X-Men’s powers, noting that Wolverine’s “fists sprout deadly blades … I can’t help wondering how a guy whose knuckles turn into switchblades gets to be the top-ranking superhero.”
(And just in case you want to be generous, here’s his comment from X2: Wolverine “has blades that extend from his knuckles … Odd, then, that Wolverine is one of the dominant characters even though his X-Acto knuckles seem pretty insignificant compared to the powers of Pyro or Cyclops.”)
When they’re all incapacitated – Wolverine in a manner that would work, if all he had were pop-out blades – our hero gets back in the fight thanks to his HEALING power. He then saves Rogue thanks to his HEALING power; it’s a callback to when (a) she was at death’s door earlier in the movie, and (b) his HEALING power saved her.
So it’s a plot point. And it’s even how the character gets introduced: taking a beating during a prizefight, eventually winning with no hint of pop-out blades, and then getting confronted by the sore loser: “You owe me some money … no man takes a beating like that without a mark to show for it … I Know What You Are.”
(Soon thereafter, we see Wolverine get defenestrated – and we then see the ensuing wounds implausibly close right back up, because, y’know, that’s his schtick. Someone asks about something else: “How could he have survived a procedure like that?” The reply: “His mutation: he has uncharted regenerative capability, which enables him to heal rapidly. This also makes his age impossible to determine; he could very well be older that you, Professor.” Say it with me: he’s the super-HEALER.)
I always considered Ebert to be largely full of shit. I’m not sure I ever learned anything of substance from reading one of his reviews.
Then you weren’t even trying. He introduced me to a whole world of filmmaking by the likes of Ozu and Wenders, to name just a couple.
When I checked it just now, it was 3 stars out of 4 and most of what he wrote looks neutral to positive. I can’t believe actually that he didn’t mention how it completely jumps the shark halfway through.
I am a huge Ebert fan as well, even joined his club as I mentioned in a different thread. And a lot of the errors listed here are really nitpicky. But I have to say that there have been many times reading his reviews that I noticed he had a major misunderstanding about the movie. Not getting a character’s name or age wrong, or what they were wearing or where they met; or slightly mixing up the words of a quote. But a basic plot misunderstanding where it’s like “d’oh, the movie would not make sense if you thought this was what happened–or if it made sense to you, the message would be totally different from what was intended”.
(Mild spoilers.)
Not too bad. Gets some quotes wrong, as usual. "an inker is only a tracer,‘’ is not in the film. Several forms of “You’re a tracer.” in the film and the only use of “inker” is “He’s, uh, he’s dealing with being an inker.”
Later: "Chicks never tell you what to do,‘’ Holden complains. He thinks they should handle sex "like CNN or the Weather Channel–providing constant updates.‘’
That’s Banky, not Holden. And it’s:
“Chicks never help you out. They never tell you what to do, right?” … “You gotta handle it like CNN and the Weather Channel. Constant updates.”
Misquoting a film from memory happens. But at least get the character right.
He also states that Holden and Banky live and work together. They don’t live together. E.g., when Banky comes in to find Holden and Alyssa, he clearly was coming in to work, not to where they lived and worked. Nothing suggests that they shared an apartment elsewhere.
He also gets the budget of Clerks wrong. Not $24k but $27k+.
He introduced me to:
Werner Herzog
In Bruges
Hayao Miyazaki
Knowing
Awake(yes, the one with Hayden Christensen)
He was writing about those two directors long ago. It may seem obvious to appreciate Miyazaki today, but his review of Tortoro was one of my first exposures to him. And Herzog may be popular now, but Ebert had valued his work for a long time.
In Bruges is one of my favorite movies and I only checked it out from his review. Knowing and Awake are underrated movies.
Remembered another error: Regarding “The Muppets,” Ebert writes:
"Jason Segal plays Gary, who not only loves the Muppets but actually lives with Walter, who has been his best pal since he was a child, even though now Gary’s at least five feet taller. This friendship is a problem, as well it might be, for Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams). "
Gary and Walter are brothers, not friends.
Here we have a problem. Ebert so thoroughly dislikes the movie that he barely gives any discussion of the actual content. And what little he specifically cites he tends to get wrong.
Ebert: There are so many “far be it from me’s” and “inasmuches” in his language that he could play Ebenezer Scrooge with the same vocabulary …
Neither expression appears in the movie. Not a one. So zero is “so many …”?
He also references Pampers. Pampers are not mentioned in the movie. But Huggies are … twice!
Maybe if he paid attention to the movie he would have liked it more.
Generally I agreed with his reviews, but for movies like Raising Arizona he is so far off the mark. I think he had a problem with loving Blood Simple too much and wanted the Coen brothers to continue in this vein. The review clearly indicates he was unhappy about their stylistic choices, but mainly because they were not the ones he wanted, rather than being bad choices. He even complains that the movie needs more “velocity”. What the ??? What he most hated is what I most like. (Well, we both loved Nathan Sr.)
That’s one that the Netflix recommendation engine thinks I would really love (it predicts something like 4.3 stars) but I had never heard of it elsewhere before reading your post just now. Guess I need to get around to checking it out.
I watched a Woody Allen movie. I don’t recall which one. And afterwards read Mr. Ebert’s review. I was surprised to find that he had confused two of the female characters, attributing the actions of one with the other, and vice-versa, some of which was pivotal to the plot. (No, it wasn’t “Melinda and Melinda.”) I even went back and re-watched the movie just to make sure it wasn’t me, and sure enough, he was wrong. I couldn’t believe he could have made such a mistake. It was as if he had watched another movie, or perhaps sent an intern to watch it for him, take notes, and then he wrote a review. I always trusted Roger Ebert, and still did after this incident, though I began to take his reviews with a grain of salt.