They’re probably doing it right now. The idea alone makes me smile.
Bummer. Like a lot of people, I grew up watching Siskel & Ebert. I usually agreed with Siskel more, but Ebert was the better writer. R.I.P.
Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
All those projects he’d listed in his last blog post, never to come to fruition. A great talent silenced forever.
Farewell, Mr. Ebert. You will be greatly missed.
I just read the story that the AP is running about Mr. Ebert’s death, and it ends (fittingly, I thought) with this:
RIP Roger. I heard just yesteday on the news that he was announcing a “Leave of Presence”, which I thought was an awesome phrase.
(I see the OP mentioned that phrase. I obviously posted without reading…)
is this a thumbs up in honor or a thumbs down for what it is?
You said it. I probably haven’t agreed with an Ebert review in a decade, but the man was (and likely always will be) the best film writer ever.
One of my most favorite Ebert moments was when he was discussing John Carpenter’s Vampires in his Answer Man column. Someone asked if he thought the treatment of the female lead (she’s regularly hog-tied and slapped around by Daniel Baldwin) was misogynistic. Ebert wrote that treating any woman that way was reprehensible, but considering the fact that she was a vampire who moments before had tried to eat Baldwin’s face, she got off lightly. Just a perfectly witty answer.
RIP Roger.
HOLY CRAP! That’s not enough time to get used to the idea! I was just dealing with the idea that his cancer was back.
I enjoyed his writing, and when he reviewed something, I had a good idea whether or not I’d like it, regardless if he did, by the reasoning he’d use. I enjoyed his writing, and he was my only go-to critic. I’d read other reviews, but I didn’t seek them out by name.
Snowboarder Bo, great quote. Thanks for posting it, and I’ll join with others in enjoying the statement, “Leave of presence”. Think I’ll use this one in the future.
My goodness.
This is a sad thing to read.
I really respected him as a writer and he appeared to be a really good man, as well.
Dang.
I’m going to have to get used to thinking, “I wonder what Roger Ebert would have thought of this movie?”
Roger Ebert was a great guy. A friend tweeted him and though it took a couple months, actually got a “Thank You” back. I have no doubt that for the longest time, he must have replied to most of the people who wrote to him. Personally. 
He was a man who wrote what he believed and while I didn’t always agree with his movie opinions, I never doubted once that that was honestly how he felt. The cancer? Horrible. He was a public figure… and it took his Face. I can’t imagine anything worse.
But, it didn’t stop him. If anything, he refused to let it stop him. He pushed on with a power and a presence that made guys with just average or ugly faces question ourselves: I mean, here is a man happy and smiling in a rubber prosthetic mask.
What kind of excuse did We have to hide ours in shame if he could smile and bravely face the world!?
Roger Ebert’s #1 quote according to Google is “Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.” Sir, I hope someday to be less confused, but I Know that I am sad right now…and I Know that that is the Truth.
If I’m very lucky…Someday… maybe I Will see you at “The Movies”.
I promise I’ll turn off my cellphone & the popcorn will be on me…
Probably not “progression” so much as of one the acute complications that people with cancer can develop such as a pulmonary embolism, i.e. blood clot going to the lungs (which are especially common if there’s been a fracture of the hip as in Roger’s case).
And he won a Pulitzer for his writing.
Damn. I’ve followed Roger Ebert his entire career, way back in the At The Movies Days, and I bought all his books. They’re so amazing, those collections of reviews, he was so prolific, and so entertaining. I still have a couple of his books that I keep to just pick up and read when I can’t fall asleep.
RIP, Mr. Ebert. You brought a lot to the world of entertainment, and I admired you so much.
And his voice. And he was a man who loved to eat and it took that, too. But you know what? He remained Roger Ebert, and because of his writing he was able to communicate that to us. Dealing with those kinds of losses - for yourself and for people around you - is incredibly difficult and he rose to that challenge and shared it with others. I like to think he helped a lot of people handle that, and if he helped them even a little, that’s a tremendous thing. And one of the gifts the Internet and other technology gives us is that we get to have more of people like Roger Ebert.
Leading to his epic comment to Rob Schneider.
Short version for those who don’t know the story: Most critics panned Schneider’s movie Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo but one, Patrick Goldstein, particularly pissed off Schneider, who published a snide response essentially calling Goldstein a hack who had not exactly won a Pulitzer for his own work and was therefore unqualified to judge the work of others. Ebert entered the fray with a defense of Goldstein, then ended with this to Schneider:
Supposedly, he and Schneider became sorta kinda buddies afterwards.
Ebert’s review of Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo gives a much better synopsis of the events than I gave above.
I think the same kind of thing happened after his initial pan (and later reappraisal) of Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny.
Probably my favorite review of his ever: Jaws the Revenge. A sample: