Friday, April 5, 2013

Roger and me...

I am sad today, listening to memorials to Roger Ebert and remembering how wonderful he was as a movie reviewer.

I think that what facinates me most about Roger Ebert is the fact that my memories of him (like, I think, a lot of people's memories of him) are divided into before and after. And while that is probably true of most everyone's memories eventually, his is such a stark line. Before, of course, he was this bombastic movie reviewer, always the more sarcastic, always the one completely sure of his opinions and always sure that he was the smartest man in the room. After is who he became in the last few years of his life, robbed of his voice, and yet still able to be such a presence.

I find that amazing.

He really truly embraced media and continued to put his thoughts out there, and on rather a range of topics. He was still the smartest guy in the room. And yet...

It is sad today as I listen to so many of his reviews, and interviews, and his voice, and realize how scary the thought of losing his voice indeed must have been. To lose one of the more important ways that you communicate and make a living, to lose the ability to be so sarcastic (which rarely comes across in print as well as when spoken). I admire him.

I have always had crushes on both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. No doubt born of my love of movies, and also the fact that I only had 5 channels to watch growing up, so I tended to watch "At The Movies" pretty much every weekend. I agreed more often with Siskel and so therefore considered him the better reviewer when I was younger. I probably still do, at least a bit.

But as a teenager I began reading Ebert's reviews in the paper, and I found that he was an insightful man-more than I realized watching him bicker with Siskel. Reading his reviews allowed me to understand that one can watch a movie in the same way that one reads a book, and dig through even the silliest of movies for a deeper meaning. One in particular that I remember was his review of Candyman II, which needless to say he didn't like, but still he found mounds of images to ponder over, to take the script to task but at the same time hold up it's deeper revelations-I was just in awe.

I highly recommend two of his books that I have poured over more than once-The Great Movies and I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, which are a nice ying and yang to each other. In the first, obviously, he is gushing over his favorites (most of which I am still yet to see) and in the second, he is taking many movies to task (I've seen a lot more from that book).

All in all, he loved movies and through writing he made me love them more too. He will be missed.

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