What are your thoughts on Roger Ebert?

I watched Roger and Gene way back when. And, I can’t really explain why, but I just don’t feel the need to have his opinions anymore. The magic stopped when Roger and Gene parted.

I’m not too fond of professional critics of any breed.

Roger and Gene “parted” when Gene Siskel died.

I don’t always agree with him, but I do like reading his reviews.

I generally agree with Roger Ebert’s critiques of movies, finding them accurate and “level-headed”. He does make very good points. Sometimes I think he could be a little harsher in his assessment of lousy movies, but I suppose that’s his style. In other words, I think he’s too easy with some of the bad movies out there, being too nice.

He calls my favorite movie “Tokyo Story” (1953) one of the “greatest movies ever made”, and I do agree with him on that point! Lol.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031109/REVIEWS08/311090301/1023

I don’t listen to the pro critics.I have my friend Gina for that.If she likes a film,I won’t go see it ;)

I agree with @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, really. But, in the 70s, too poor for cable, they were amongst our miniscule list of broadcast entertainment. We usually didn’t have movie money either!

He makes his points well, although I disagree with him about half the time (I happen to like trashy horror films).

He liked the 2009 Star Dreck movie and episode 1.
That alone disqualifies him from having any respectable opinion on films.

I agree with some of his opinions on movies and disagree with others, but I think he is a good writer and I always enjoy reading his reviews. I agree with pretty much everything in his Ebert’s Guide to Practical Filmgoing and think it’s brilliant. As others have mentioned, I enjoyed his partnership with Gene Siskel and miss them now that Siskel is gone. I’ll tell you what, Gene Siskel had my unending loyalty the day I found out he owned John Travolta’s white suit from Saturday Night Live.

I miss Siskel and Ebert. They were well matched and well balanced, and I enjoyed them as a partner act even when I wasn’t interested in seeing the movies. I still read Ebert’s reviews now and then when thinking about seeing a movie, and I often find them pertinent to my interests, but the old magic is gone.

I like Jay Sherman better from “the critic” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVtVZWzhG_s

You do know that roger lost most of his jaw and his tongue from thyroid cancer. He types out his critiques; only his wife can understand what he tries to say. over n out

Every year I would sit down with a list of 50 movies from that year. I would rate the ones I had seen (usually about 20–25). I would match my ratings with the ratings of 20 professional critics, and every year Ebert came closest to my views. I trust him, though he isn’t always right. His comments on the underlying homosexual theme in Casablanca is horseshit.

@Dr_Lawrence Yes…that is a fact.

The only movie critic I listen to (or take seriously) is Movie Bob.

Respect.

I have never taken any movie critic seriously. Their product was never the product I was interested in.

Or maybe I’m too bullheaded; like a guy stopping and asking for directions or something – “Just not right.”

Much later I purchased Ebert’s two books, The Great Movies I and II, not for his recommendations, but for his writing skills representing the great movies, most of which I had already seen. I believe he is still the only movie critic to win a Pulitzer Prize; so he’s kind of in a league of his own in writing skills (not movie judgment).

Ebert is not brilliant, but he is a hard worker. His writing shows exactly that.

His special feature DVD commentary on Citizen Kane actually gives Peter Bogdanovich a run for his money; something I would have bet the house against. He holds his own just fine.

Every now and again on NPR I hear more engaging, intellectual, juicy, exciting, and meaningful reviews; reviews where I want to reach in the glove box and fumble to write down a turn of phrase, or something to look up. I don’t know who the people are, but it’s probably not the people anyway, but the producer’s decisions.

@ipso
You should watch the Redlettermedia movie reviews on Youtube.

I generally agree with Ebert’s overall opinions, and I think he’s good at watching movies as they’re intended to be watched—he doesn’t give a kid’s epic fantasy movie a bad review if it’s not psychologically deep and gritty, for example.

I have noticed that he tends to make mistakes, like misunderstand sometimes basic plot points in movies (iirc he didn’t “get” the later two Matrix movies), but these misunderstandings don’t really affect his review.

i think he’s a very good writer. And actually his tweets make me laugh out loud more than his reviews. It’s like he couldn’t give a damn anymore, given his condition and prognosis.

@Qinqu in his defense there wasn’t really anything to “get” about the later two Matrix movies.

@ragingloli – The Beavis & Butt-head shtick was really hard to take, but later on (in the Avatar review) he has some solid movie decomposition. I’ll check out more. Thx!

@Aster Just what does that have to do with my question? I do sympathize with the man, but that’s not related to what I wanted to know.

@Symbeline I’m sorry. You asked for my thoughts and I gave my thoughts.

@Aster No, you didn’t. You shared a fact that didn’t have anything to do with your personal thoughts.

@MacBean I don’t know how you can share a fact you’ve thought of when it has nothing to do with a thought but if you say I can then I admit doing it.

I don’t know about him as a movie critic but I recently saw an interview with him post-cancer and he’s a top notch individual, imo.