I believe that Roger Ebert is essentially the premier film reviewer, the most reliable to the most movie goers than any other living and working reviewer. And has been for some time.
How did it get to be this way? His paper, the Sun-Times, does not have the rep or reach that the Tribune has, but I (not living in the city or state) do not know who the Tribune reviewer is, much less read it.
Was it just the Siskel & Ebert show? Is that how he did it? Somehow he became the Alpha Reviewer to be feared.
He might be the best-known film critic out there, and that’d be mostly because of At The Movies. But I don’t think he’s seen as the most reliable (everybody has their preferred critics) and I don’t think he strikes fear into a whole lot of hearts.
Ebert has used the full range of media better than any other film critic. He co-created a famous TV show, wrote several books, runs film festivals, has a great web-site and has more than half a million followers on Twitter. In terms of sheer output the guy is a machine. Inevitably not all of it is the highest quality but for example the Great Movies reviews on his website are excellent. I really enjoy reading them for movies I have already watched.
This is the key. It meant that PBS went to him when they thought about developing a movie review show (Siskel was chosen because he was also in Chicago), and that was the springboard to everything.
He was at the forefront of syndication, which allowed him to be seen in living rooms all across the country rather than just locally. He’s also the one that pushed Oprah into following the same path.
Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!
I’d say it was Sneak Previews, since it gave him national exposure at a time when it was difficult to get (mid-70s), at least for a film critic. Ddamn near every television set in the country got PBS back then, so he and Gene Siskel were known not just by people in Chicago, where they lived and worked, but by people in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, etc. And since they were known all over the country, it was possible for Hollywood PR types to include quoted parts of their reviews in advertising campaigns, since it was a “real” name that people could relate to, if not actually read their reviews.
The whole thing took off from there, with Mr. Ebert’s aforementioned prodigious output helping.
He started doing film reviews in the late 1960s. The rumor at the time was that he was the next person up for promotion, and the film reviewer position became open. He was disappointed because he wanted to write sports. And those first many years, it was clear he didn’t know beans about film. He would often make comments, intended to show he knew film history, that were just wrong, such as mistaking the lead actor’s name in an older film. We thought he was pretty much a joke, back then.
And for many years, I thought he was a very reliable guide: if he liked a movie, it was almost certain I would dislike it. He’d like a movie for all the (to me) wrong reasons, like “social significance” rather than actual plot, acting, or direction. Sigh.
Ebert is my most-read reviewer, but I do not base my movie viewing on his opinions as we disagree too often (not so much on older films, but with many produced within the past five years).
The reason I read him is that he is a damn fine writer.
mmm
I’ve read mixed reports on whether they were friends or boyfriend-girlfriend. I think they had dated but by this time were platonic. (Oprah’s his type- his wife and former girlfriends have also been “full figured” tall intelligent black women, which is ironic since he hates Tyler Perry as Madea.)
She fully credits him for his part in her success. At the time she was just beginning to blip on the national radar and Ebert was much richer than she was, and she had been offered a lot of money by one company to do her talk show, but basically as an employee (only very modest profit sharing). Ebert sat down and showed her on a napkin “Gene and I own our show, it runs once per week, it’s 30 minutes, this is how much it makes, this is what our syndicator takes, we divide this figure 50/50… you will be running 60 minutes each time five days per week, so even if you start out with half the ratings Gene and I have it’s just you (no co-host to split the profits with) and you’ll be selling 40 minutes of advertising per week instead of our 8” (or whatever the number of minutes of advertising was) and basically showed her, then a novice to the business side of show biz with managers itching for her to take the million in the hand rather than the billion in the bush, how with even if her show had way more modest ratings than his and Siskel’s and how even if it only lasted a year or two she’d make a ton more money by holding out for ownership. Basically he’s the reason she’s a multi-billionaire instead of a modest-millionaire.
Definitely the TV show vaulted him to prominence. But also, his reviews tend to be very, very good. I sometimes agree with him, sometimes don’t, but I can almost always get a good idea from his reviews of whether I’ll enjoy the movie or not. His reviews are both biased and fair at the same time, if that makes sense.
Yeah, no kidding. I’m not particularly interested in Roger Ebert, and I’m at best a middlin’ movie watcher. But I did pick up his latest book “Life Itself” and it was a great read. Most of the time I read biographies it’s because I’m interested in the person, the career the person is in, or the historical era the book covers. In this case, I’m not particularly into any of them, but I really enjoyed it because Ebert just knows how to tell a good story.
While all of the above is true, I think the concept of “Thumbs up” and “Thumbs down” played a major part. And if it were Ebert who passed instead of Siskel, Siskel would be the premier film reviewer.
Also, longevity. Being omnipresent for extended period of time. 25 years ago if you’d asked who the top reviewers were, you might mention Gene Shalit along with Siskel & Ebert… but no one under the age of 35 today is gonna know who Gene Shalit is because he kinda faded away.
Also, his reviews are pretty approachable and digestible by anybody. Some film critics sound like Frasier and fall in love with talking about a movie’s denouement or some such. That SNL thing of James Lipton asking the five questions originated by Bernard Pipaux or whatever it is…
