Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebertwas an American film critic and historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. As of 2010, his reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Ebert also published more than 20 books and dozens of collected reviews...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth18 June 1942
CityUrbana, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it.
What am I to think when six weekends of this year already have been won by slasher movies that were not screened for critics and got bad ratings on the tomato meter when they were screened?
Dr. Leonard Shlain, chairman of laparoscopic surgery at California Pacific Medical Center, said they took some four and five year-olds and gave them video games and asked them to figure out how to play them without instructions. Then they watched their brain activity with real-time monitors. At first, when they were figuring out the games, he said, the whole brain lit up. But by the time they knew how to play the games, the brain went dark, except for one little point.
Well, you know what, I'm 60 years old, and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.
I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic - the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.
Last year, I reviewed a nine-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen, and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners.
The secret of the movie is that it doesn't strain to draw parallels with current world events - because it doesn't have to.
There was a bedrock of respect that developed over the years,
The target audience didn't care that we hated those movies because they just expected us to hate them.
We had lots of big fights, ... We were people who came together one day a week to work together and the other six days of the week we were competitors on two daily newspapers and two different television stations. So there was a lot of competition and a lot of disagreement.
I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.
The prevailing style in the mainstream is represented by Michael Bay. This is shorter and shorter takes and less and less dialogue.
The reason (Burton) wanted to make 'Ed Wood' is that Ed Wood had so much fun making movies. And that's where Ed Wood and Tim Burton connect. Tim Burton makes films that are a lot better, but he doesn't make them with any more love.
As someone who admired the freshness and energy of the earlier films, I was amazed, at the end of 'Episode II,' to realize that I had not heard one line of quotable, memorable dialogue.