R.I.P. Roger Ebert

I know this is one of those deaths where you could definitely see it coming, as Roger Ebert seemed to have been battling one physical ailment after another ever since being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002.  But still, it’s hard not to be affected whenever we lose one of the all-time greats in any particular medium, and Roger Ebert was certainly one of those for film criticism.  I can’t speak for everybody here at Mildly Pleased, but I’m sure Mr. Ebert’s work has had more than a considerable impact on this forum for amateur film & media criticism.

Sure, the late great At The Movies, starring Ebert and his long time friend and sparring-partner Gene Skiskel was a bit before my time.  And yet, when the entire archives from that show were released on to the show’s website in 2007, it had a pretty profound impact on the way I thought about film.  I was just then getting serious about the possibilities of film as an art form, and here were two guys that embodied that love of movies as a medium capable of high art as well as thrilling entertainment.  And I’m certain that the whole At The Movies format also managed to leave somewhat of an impact on the way we do things over on our T3 podcast.  Because along with the unending intelligence of the conversations that took place on At The Movies, you always felt that these guys were very close friends, and were just as eager to make each other laugh as they were to jump in to a heated argument.

As for Ebert as a writer, the man’s pedigree pretty much speaks for itself.  He’s of course the only journalist to ever win a Pulitzer for film criticism, and his work for the Chicago Sun-Times has been syndicated in countless different places.  And despite his fame as one of the few household names in the world of film criticism, you always got the sense that writing was his first love.  Take for instance when Ebert was rendered unable to speak after a series of cancer treatments in the late ’00s.  Yet despite his physical shortcomings, he started producing about as many reviews and as much content as any film critic out there.  And of course, every review was delivered in that very personalized and conversational tone of wit and reverence that had become Ebert’s trademark over the years.

I think it’s always hard to say what impact film critics truly have on the world of filmmaking as a whole, but I think you can undoubtedly say that for four decades, Mr. Ebert was a force for good in a Hollywood landscape that often needed someone like him to demand more of it.  In my book, that’s more than worthy of one final thumbs up.

T3 55: Top 10 Siskel & Ebert & Roeper Reviews

Roger Ebert passed away last week and it hit us pretty hard. The man has been a role model for all us a critic and a promoter of the discussion of art. There might not be any individual who was more influential on this podcast or Mildly Pleased, except for perhaps his co-critics, Gene Siskel and Richard Roeper. So we dedicated a show to Ebert’s memory, and his shared television legacy, by counting down our favorite reviews they ever did. We give all of them four thumbs way up.

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Oscars Fortnight: Love Story

Love Story (1970)

43rd Academy Awards (1971)
Nominations:
7
Wins: 1

I had no idea until two minutes ago that Love Story was the highest grossing film of 1970. You know what number 2 was? Airport, which Colin covered two days ago. It’s crazy to think that back in the day, if a film was a big enough hit it would factor big into the Oscars. It doesn’t even matter if it was good. I think this is why the Oscars seemed way more relevant back then. The Oscars, good or bad, were a better reflection of popular culture. Now you ask your average joe how many Oscar nominated films they’ve seen and chances are they haven’t even heard of half of them.

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Colin’s Top 10 Movies of 2023

I didn’t really touch on this in my top ten albums or TV shows lists, but it didn’t feel like a particularly special year for either of those mediums. I would not say the same for movies, even if it was sometimes hard to tell where the state of film was heading, especially after actors and writers went on strike and we had that weirdly long gap of notable movies coming out in the wake of Barbenheimer. Though, once November rolled around, I felt like we got a bunch of really great, prestige-y movies, and it seems we’re still getting a bunch coming out in time for the Oscars.

This feels a bit like the way things used to be, and I could complain about this familiar feeling of having to cram in watching a bunch of movies in December and January in preparation for this list, but I won’t. Mainly because movies are in such a weird, uncertain state that I’m just glad talented filmmakers are able to get their work out at all, and if that comes with the price of seeing the best films of the year all at the same time, that’s the price I’m willing to pay. This is all a long-winded way of saying that I thought this turned out to be a pretty good year for movies, and hopefully one that saw Hollywood reflecting on how to reinvent itself instead of churning out the same old garbage. Continue reading

Criterion Month Day 19: Hopscotch

Hopscotch (1980)

As long as we’ve had edgy, paranoid, cool spy thrillers, we’ve needed punchy satires of them to keep us all in check. All work and no play makes us all MAD. There were a lot of these movies post-Watergate, so we needed a big swing by 1980. Hopscotch wants to be that movie. It almost is that movie. The only problem is it’s a bit too caught up in the genre it should be dismantling. And that’s not just coming from me, a huge Hot Shots! Part Deux fan. Even Roger Ebert wrote, “Hopscotch is a shaggy-dog thriller that never really thrills us very much, but leaves a nice feeling when it’s over… It’s a strange thing to say about a thriller, but Hopscotch is… pleasant.”

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Criterion Month Day 6: The Music Room

The Music Room (1958)

When exploring the work of a great director, it’s always hard to know what the best “next steps” are outside of their most highly regarded work. This is something I had to figure out when deciding to watch a Satyajit Ray film for this year’s Criterion Month, since Sean had effectively taken the Apu trilogy off the table. I have to imagine that those films are also probably the best introduction to Ray, which perhaps put me at a disadvantage when watching a film like The Music Room that was made around the same time as these more famous films. Still, The Music Room seems like it was a solid choice, since several esteemed filmmakers and critics like Mira Nair, Werner Herzog, Roger Ebert, and Pauline Kael are all big fans of the film. While I had a bit of a hard time sinking my teeth into this one, it still does make me curious to explore more of Ray’s work. Continue reading

Criterion Month Day 19: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

For a second, while watching Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, I thought we were heading back to Breaker Morant and military legal drama territory. However, it’s just one of the opening scenes that takes place at a military tribunal, while the rest of the film concerns the events leading up to that tribunal. Still, it does sound like it’s in similar territory as this other recently reviewed film, as it also depicts what happens to men on different sides of a war when influenced by their own allegiances and the muddy morals of wartime, and it even shares an actor in Jack Thompson. Continue reading