I hope both Siskel and Ebert are petting Sparky the Wonder Dog.
Here’s a link to what Ebert called the best restrospective on himself and Siskel that he had ever seen.
And here’s a link to that same guy commenting about his passing.
Even if you don’t usually like the character this guy plays, you really have to watch these.
And if you can’t watch videos or just don’t want to hear the Nostalgia Critic’s voice, here’s a link to a complete transcript of the retrospective. (I’m sure there will be one of the tribute on that site soon.)
I only have two thumbs, but they are both pointing up for these videos. Thanks very much for linking them.
I agree about him being a long-time friend. Just following him on Twitter made me feel like I knew him.
Here is a link to 25 memorable movie quotes from Ebert. I wouldn’t say the top 25 because they are all negative, but they are fun.
Ebert’s funeral will be on Monday at 10am at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago (N State Street). It’s open to the public and seating is on a first come basis. I wonder what public figures will be there. Scorsese ir Spielberg wouldn’t surprise me.
It is favorable: To the Wonder. (Although nothing beat his zero-star reviews.)
One thing I always liked about Roger–he was no snob.
It seems to me that many movie critics have a snobby “I’m-smarter-than-the-rabble” air about them. This can give the impression that with certain movies (especially genre movies), they sit down at the screening with their minds already made up that they won’t like it. I mean, not all critics are going to like the same movies I do, but if they give a movie a fair shake and still it doesn’t do it for them (and they can give honest reasons for it), that’s one thing. But when they come off as condescending, that’s another. I think that was what rankled so much about A. O. Scott’s Avengers review…he came off as dismissing the idea that there could be anything sincere, well-acted or well-done about a (harrumph) mere superhero popcorn movie.*
But Roger…I didn’t always agree with him (I liked Les Miserables and The Village, for example, he didn’t), but at least I always felt that he went into his review with an open mind to give them a fair shake.
RIP, Roger. Hope you’re enjoying whatever flick Orson Welles is working on right now.
*To my mind, there are action movies and action movies…they can be the dumb mindless kind, like any fill-in-the-blanks Michael Bay one, or they can be fun, stylish, or witty, like Raiders of the Lost Ark or Avengers.
I stopped watching S&E years ago because I started to really dislike Siskel always smirking at Ebert and interrupting him.
March 4, 2013 http://www.suntimes.com/18588478-761/ebert-how-i-am-a-roman-catholic.html
Odd for an “out and proud atheist”. So did he change his mind since March 4, or is the Catholic Church okay with not believing in God any more (contrary to the first sentence of the Nicene Creed said every Sunday)?
Yeah, can we not continue with that?
Ebert was my favorite movie critic for a long time. I’ve never found a replacement and doubt I ever will have a favorite critic again. Pauline Kael was before my time and the rest just haven’t grabbed me. It just doesn’t seem like there are household word critics anymore.
Ebert tried to educate his readers and viewers here and there. I liked his Movie Answer Man column and his glossaries. Siskel and Ebert were my introduction to, well, not movies exactly, but to movies like My Dinner with Andre. Sort of like how Kurt Cobain couldn’t shut up about the bands he loved, Siskel and Ebert made a lot of references to the movies they loved, thereby educating my rural ass.
He could also write a great bad review, which happen to be the ones I’ll reread. I see from that greatest quotes link that he used the “calling x y is an insult to y” line too often, and really I never thought of Ebert as highly quotable, despite seeing blurbs with his name on them about a million times. I think that Ebert’s reviews for films like Constantine and Season of the Witch are easily some of the funniest things I ever read that were meant for a newspaper, yet still do the job at hand and also pass along interesting information.
I’m not going to discuss his beliefs, per Marley’s instructions upthread, but Holy Name is where most of the “big” funerals in Chicago are held.
Plus his wife was religious (dunno what kind) and he said he didn’t reject prayers and things from her because doing that made her feel better. So I suspect he would have went along with whatever she wanted for his funeral.
Since the Westboro Baptist “Church” (Phelps et al) claim they’ll be picketing, perhaps the crowd who couldn’t get in can quote his best “bad review” insults back at the picketers to criticize their protest.
BUMP
Can you believe Roger has been dead 10 years? He and George Carlin both feel like they were with us yesterday and both have been dead longer than my mind can believe.
I would have loved to hear his thoughts on these past 10 years, especially with the Republican party losing its mind.
Feels weird that it’s only been ten years. Ebert feels like part of a very different era. Hard to imagine someone becoming as famous as he did for reviewing movies on TV.
Someone like that might be on YouTube these days.
What I valued about Ebert wasn’t his appearances on television but his written reviews. He always had something interesting to say, whether or not I agreed with him about a movie. I haven’t yet found anyone to match him.
As a youth, I watched Siskel and Ebert, but tended to want to see the movies they didn’t like. I didn’t really appreciate either one of them until I was an adult, and I never really read anything Ebert wrote until after he died. On occasion I’ll check online for what he had to say about a particular movie. Even as an adult, I still don’t agree with him all the time, I think he missed the boat on The Thing, but more often than not when he says a movie is bad I tend to agree with him.
I remember one joint appearance by Siskel and Ebert on David Letterman’s show. They were sitting there, arguing over a movie so strongly that Letterman sat back.