# What is your favorite Roger Ebert review? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2014, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202 "2014-04-15T20:15:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/21 "2014-04-16T01:07:41Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Ebert did frustratingly miss plot points, but not as often as some in this thread say. > > I loved that he reviewed movies “in context”. A horror film might not be better than an Important drama in absolute terms, but with Ebert you knew if it was a four-star horror movie or a two star drama. > > My favorite comment was his reply to Vincent Gallo calling Ebert a “fat pig with the physique of a slave trader”, which was, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny.” All of this. Plus he re-reviewed the re-cut “The Brown Bunny” more favorably, so he wasn’t averse to reconsidering works. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/22 "2014-04-16T01:16:26Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > I liked a comment Ebert made more than once on his old TV show with Siskel, after Siskel pontificated about how the movie at issue would’ve been better if the director had done X, Y and Z, and Ebert just said something like “Gene, just review the movie they did make, not the one you think they should’ve made.” Ironic in light of how Roger would often do exactly that in his twilight years (_The Lovely Bones_, for ex.). ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/23 "2014-04-16T01:25:47Z")
His negative reviews shone brightest. Here’s his summary of _Pearl Harbor_: > [@Roger Ebert](#): > > “Pearl Harbor” is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them. ---
**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 16, 2014, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/24 "2014-04-16T04:25:58Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Right. Because a good reviewer always sticks with his preconceptions and knows that bad actors can never make a good film. I’m sorry to report that I’ve seen _Knowing_ and that it is the same shitty, totally derivative film that Cage has been remaking ever since that craptastic _Gone in Sixty Seconds_ remake. At least Liam Neeson can elevate the gutter level screenplays he’s elected to star in; Cage sinks to the level of the work. As long as there is a paycheck, he’ll show up and chew scenery until the cows come home without a hint of irony. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > My favorite comment was his reply to Vincent Gallo calling Ebert a “fat pig with the physique of a slave trader”, which was, “It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny.” And yet, after Gallo cut _The Brown Bunny_ into an equally horrible shorter cut, Ebert praised it as part of a negotiated reconciliation with Gallo. Ebert had a clever way with words, especially in excoriating a film he disliked. But there are offhand easily a dozen notable film critics who were much better critics by any technical standard and who were also much more accomplished than Ebert in writing, directing, and producing instead of just being notable for film criticism, whose film work outside of criticism pretty much consists of writing the Russ Meyer schlockfest _Beyond the Valley of the Dolls_. Ebert was inconsistent, often wrong, and generally noted for being abrasive and dismissive. He is hardly the genial personality that some have made him out to be, and not mich accomplished outside the field of marketing himself as a film critic extraordinaire who too often repeated his “accomlishment” of performing a frame-by-frame analysis of _Casablanca_ as if that should quality him for the Nobel Prize for Film Criticism should it come into existence. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/25 "2014-04-16T05:03:07Z")
My favorite Ebert review was for a film I never saw, _Atlas Shrugged_. It contained this brilliant summation of Ayn Rand’s worldview: “For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: ‘I’m on board; pull up the lifeline.’” Ebert was never my favorite film critic. He loved to pounce on logical lapses which sometimes weren’t lapses at all; I sometimes wondered if he missed important plot points because he was busy scribbling in his notebook. I also remember how he castigated the makers of _Troy_ for omitting the gods from the storyline; he evidently forgot (or was unaware) that Shakespeare wrote a play about the Trojan War and didn’t include the gods either. But when Ebert ventured into politics or social criticism he was always right on target, and I wish he had developed a second career as a political columnist. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/26 "2014-04-16T14:53:23Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > …he was notorious for missing crucial plot points while snacking down or taking a smoke break… He also has a reputation–at least, when he was still drinking… Wonderful guy, great critic. In a parallel universe, perhaps. As far as I can tell, Ebert never smoked. His parents died of lung cancer and he said he hated smoking. Seems in poor taste to falsely accuse a person who had oral cancer of being a smoker. Ebert quit drinking a long time ago-- 1979, according to a blog post of his. Do you have any cites that he tried to get Siskel booted off one of their shows? Nobody in the thread claimed that Ebert was a wonderful person. I feel certain, however, that he would have better sense and taste than to write something about a person who died not so long ago that was as sketchy and mean as your post. I opened the thread thinking of a couple of Ebert’s reviews that I wanted to share. I don’t feel like it anymore. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/27 "2014-04-16T16:19:20Z")
One paragraph from the review of “Armageddon”: “Disaster movies always have little vignettes of everyday life. The dumbest in _Armageddon_ involves two Japanese tourists in a New York taxi. After meteors turn an entire street into a flaming wasteland, the woman complains, ‘I want to go shopping.’ I hope in Japan that line is redubbed as ‘Nothing can save us but Gamera!’” ---
**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 16, 2014, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/28 "2014-04-16T16:31:48Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > I opened the thread thinking of a couple of Ebert’s reviews that I wanted to share. I don’t feel like it anymore. Don’t pout-it’s unseemly. Post your comments. Some people in this thread like Ebert, some don’t, but only **Stranger** seems to have a hard-on for him that’s out of proportion. His attacks seem personal rather than professional. ---
**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 16, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/29 "2014-04-16T16:54:42Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > As far as I can tell, Ebert never smoked. His parents died of lung cancer and he said he hated smoking. Seems in poor taste to falsely accuse a person who had oral cancer of being a smoker. > > Ebert quit drinking a long time ago-- 1979, according to a blog post of his. Do you have any cites that he tried to get Siskel booted off one of their shows? > > Nobody in the thread claimed that Ebert was a wonderful person. I feel certain, however, that he would have better sense and taste than to write something about a person who died not so long ago that was as sketchy and mean as your post. > > I opened the thread thinking of a couple of Ebert’s reviews that I wanted to share. I don’t feel like it anymore. I agree that citations would be nice. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/30 "2014-04-16T17:00:28Z")
My favorite Ebert line is the last line from his review of “Lake Placid.” “This is the kind of movie that actors discuss in long, sad talks with their agents.” ---
**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 16, 2014, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/31 "2014-04-16T18:08:00Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Ebert was a man who couldn’t see art when it was right in front of his face, if it happened to be in the form of a video game, and he almost couldn’t even bring himself to admit that someday, somewhere far in the future, a video game may one day approach being art. **Good riddance to him.** Thus, my favorite review of his was when he tried a few games that were presented as art to him, and he bashed them all cluelessly, putting his bias and irrational opinions out in the open for everyone to see. (Bolding mine) I’m sorry, did you just…say “good riddance” to Roger Ebert’s unfortunate, horrifying, long term battle with Thyroid Cancer, to which he finally succumbed, because he didn’t treat video games as art? I don’t recall you being so despicable. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/32 "2014-04-16T20:17:32Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I loved that he reviewed movies “in context”. A horror film might not be better than an Important drama in absolute terms, but with Ebert you knew if it was a four-star horror movie or a two star drama. His review of “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Empire” opens with > [@](#): > > Moviegoers who knowingly buy a ticket for “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” are going to get exactly what they expect: There is a mummy, a tomb, a dragon and an emperor. And the movie about them is all that it could be. If you think “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” sounds like a waste of time, don’t waste yours. He gave it 3 stars. There’s also this quote from “Freddy Got Fingered” > [@](#): > > This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels which really was that awful. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/33 "2014-04-17T00:30:21Z")
I met him when he came to town for a film festival, before he lost his voice. Actually, my favorite articles were his Answer Man columns which came out before tvtropes. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/34 "2014-04-17T02:07:45Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > (Bolding mine) > > I’m sorry, did you just…say “good riddance” to Roger Ebert’s unfortunate, horrifying, long term battle with Thyroid Cancer, to which he finally succumbed, because he didn’t treat video games as art? I don’t recall you being so despicable. Agreed. I vehemently disagreed with Ebert’s perceptions of video games, having been reduced to tears on more than one occasion by various video games over the years (including the end of Gone Home), but no fucking way would I cheer on his demise over such a slight. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/35 "2014-04-17T03:26:48Z")
Ebert musing on the “National Geographic loophole” (which treated topless shots of ‘native’ women as non-erotic) in a review for “Rapa Nui”: “For years in my liberal youth, I thought this loophole was racist, an evil double standard in which white women were protected from exposure while ‘native’ women were cruelly stripped of their bras, not to mention the equal protection of the MPAA. Watching _Rapa Nui_, in which there are dozens if not hundreds of wonderful bare breasts on view, I have changed my mind. Since female breasts are the most aesthetically pleasing part of human anatomy, it is only a blessing if your culture celebrates them.” (His collaboration with Russ Meyer makes a lot more sense suddenly.) ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/36 "2014-04-17T07:17:57Z")
[Armageddon](http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/armageddon-1998). The whole thing is great, but the intro and conclusion are especially good: > [@](#): > > Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. “Armageddon” is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you’d have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out. > > […] > > Staggering into the silence of the theater lobby after the ordeal was over, I found a big poster that was fresh off the presses with the quotes of junket blurbsters. “It will obliterate your senses!” reports David Gillin, who obviously writes autobiographically. “It will suck the air right out of your lungs!” vows Diane Kaminsky. > > If it does, consider it a mercy killing. I have a much higher opinion of Ebert than **Stranger On A Train** does, and even joined the “Ebert Club”; but I do have to admit he constantly got elements of plot wrong. I had never before heard that it was because of actually leaving the screening room though. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/37 "2014-04-17T11:41:49Z")
Everyone’s quoting his negative reviews, and while those are fun the thing that endeared him to so many people was the humanity and warmth he communicated in his writing. (On that note, to those who claim he was rude or abrasive in real life: I don’t know if he was, I suspect you don’t either, and I don’t really care. He communicated the exact opposite of that in his work, and for me that’s what matters. Aside from that, this thread is not “let debate Roger Ebert’s legacy;” if that’s what you want to do, could you please just go post elsewhere?) What I remember from a Roger Ebert review is him talking about how the older he got the more moved he was not by love or heroics, but simply by watching people trying their best to be good. I can’t remember which review that was in (I thought Casablanca, but apparently not), but he wrote on the theme in an article [here](http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/reflections-after-25-years-at-the-movies): [QUOTE=Roger Ebert] What kinds of movies do I like the best? If I had to make a generalization, I would say that many of my favorite movies are about Good People. It doesn’t matter if the ending is happy or sad. It doesn’t matter if the characters win or lose. The only true ending is death. Any other movie ending is arbitrary. If a movie ends with a kiss, we’re supposed to be happy. But then if a piano falls on the kissing couple, or a taxi mows them down, we’re supposed to be sad. What difference does it make? The best movies aren’t about what happens to the characters. They’re about the example that they set. “Casablanca” is about people who do the right thing. “The Third Man” is about two people who do the right thing and can never speak to one another as a result. The secret of “Silence of the Lambs” is buried so deeply that you may have to give this a lot of thought, but its secret is that Hannibal Lecter is a Good Person. He is the helpless victim of his unspeakable depravities, yes, but to the limited degree that he can act independently of them, he tries to do the right thing. [/QUOTE] There was another review, I think in the Great Films series, where he wrote pretty movingly about seeing a movie at age 20, then seeing it again at 30 and how different things stood out to him, and then at 40, and 50. I’m getting to an age where I’m starting to relate to that myself. I do miss that guy. ---
**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 17, 2014, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/38 "2014-04-17T15:14:26Z")
To me, the thing I liked about his reviews is that they were _helpful._ Not only did he review the movie for what it was (in the category of raunchy frat boy comedies, was it a good one or a bad one?) but his tastes mostly agreed with mine. If he disliked a movie, he usually disliked it for the same reasons I would have. Witty writing and clever put-downs can be fun in and of themselves, but to me, the primary function of a reviewer is advising on whether or not I, the reader, should invest my time and money to see a movie. Since one’s enjoyment of a movie is a matter of individual tastes, any random reviewer may not be ‘helpful’ in that way. But when you find one that matches your tastes, keep reading him. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/39 "2014-04-17T15:33:09Z")
Here is the first paragraph of his review of Almost Famous (a semi-autobiographical Cameron Crowe movie). It’s a great movie, but I think he also identified with the teenage lead character. Ebert was a high-school and college journalist and so is the William Miller character in the film. > [@](#): > > Oh, what a lovely film. I was almost hugging myself while I watched it. “Almost Famous” is funny and touching in so many different ways. It’s the story of a 15-year-old kid, smart and terrifyingly earnest, who through luck and pluck gets assigned by Rolling Stone magazine to do a profile of a rising rock band. The magazine has no idea he’s 15. Clutching his pencil and his notebook like talismans, phoning a veteran critic for advice, he plunges into the experience that will make and shape him. It’s as if Huckleberry Finn came back to life in the 1970s, and instead of taking a raft down the Mississippi, got on the bus with the band. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202/40 "2014-04-17T15:46:59Z")
I couldn’t possibly pick my favorite Ebert review. But I do have my favorite Ebert quotes: “No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” and "It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-roger-ebert-review/686202.md?page=3)