Roger Ebert RIP
 

http://news.yahoo.com/sun-times-fame...194432507.html

Roger Ebert has died in Chicago today. What I liked about Ebert and his ol' pal Siskel was that they gave their honest appraisal of films, and whether or not they liked the film, I could tell from their words whether I would or would not like the film. That was very valuable to me.

His blog posts of the past years were always insightful and usually brought back a ton of memories for me, especially his love of books.

and he wrote the script to Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. RIP

rip rugger eggman

Roger and Russ

He also dated Oprah Winfrey back before her show went into syndication.!

it's true....

I love his 3 volumes of the best films. Some choices seem very dubious but always worth a read. He made me want to re-view some films that I may never have done otherwise.

so vincent gallo's hex finally worked... the bastard!

Whilst I was never able to read or see his reviews, till recently, he was always someone who's opinion on the back of the dvd case actually meant something.

One other thing, in this day and age of IMDB etc where every Tom, Dick and Harry is a critic and nobodys opinion is cared he really was one of a dying breed. A shame really. I'm just waiting for Barry Norman next then it really is the end.

dontchu ingleses have some kind of youngish/middleaged critic that's supposedly good or something? i forget his name... gggg... gooogggooogaaagaaa... something. ha! but no, seriously. some guy from some newspaper that's readable.

Yeah Barry Norman is our Legend. As for a youngish one then this is our man



Mark Kermode. He's generally pissed off about the state of films today and HATES 3D with a passion. However every year he has a program called 'the kermodes' and it's his award show for films that got shamefully ignored by the Oscars. That's always a good watch.

Philip French for The Guardian is usually good but he's gotta be close to retiring. The big young pretender to some kind of Ebert figure in the UK is Mark Kermode, who I personally can't stand but he seems to have a massive following.

kermode! that's the one i've heard about. haven't read him much though.

He mostly works on TV and radio. He's mainly associated with going on massive rants about massive blockbusters, and for thinking the Exorcist is the best film ever made.

...

ha. he had him on his cancer list, right?

rip

not sure about any lists he may keep, but the story is that when the brown bunny was shown in cannes (it was still a rought cut, or so gallo claims, but it was longer and even more boring than the final cut) ebert called it the worst movie ever or something.

so then gallo pubicly threatened ebert with a hex to his colon and prostate (i think by then ebert had had a bout with cancer) and ebert apologized and gallo withdrew the curse, supposedly, or it was a joke all along, or whatever.