Disagree. those guys are pretty conventional, esp Bahrani. plus Ebert likes to ionsupport indie American directors, esp.of ‘ethnic’ persuasion :-
Ebert also deserves a kick in the ass for not seeing Colossal Youth because he heard it was ‘boring’
Ebert is probably many persons introduction to film criticism, which is too bad. He and his pal Gene Siskel were the first to popularize film criticism on television. Before that it was the crazy-haired guy on the Today Show, Gene Shalit, who hung around until he was 84. Actually, he was much more entertaining than these two drones. But, anyway ; )
I can’t say much about Ebert introducing film criticism into households, as not many people know or care for him in Australia.
And everyone talking about different films that he has appreciated and all that stuff is missing my original point of not caring. He loves pretty much everything (I hate to be hypocritical, but this is the guy that gave Speed 2 3/4 stars) so it’s never amazing to see him give a lesser known film a high rating. As I said before I do respect him, and he has brought some lesser known films and directors to light, but I just don’t get why on sites such as this one people are always saying how Ebert gave this film and that film 4/4 stars, when their own opinions would be far more interesting.
>>He loves pretty much everything<<
For a guy that loves everything, its kind of funny that he’s got two books exclusively devoted to reviews of movies he hates.
>>people are always saying how Ebert gave this film and that film 4/4 stars<<
Doesn’t that usually happen on threads about Roger Ebert? In any case, while I agree with him more than most critics (which is less important than appreciating his writing), I agreee with myself 100% of the time.
Moderated
Ebert has done and continues to do a huge amount to promote a wide range of directors — in particular African American directors — whose work would otherwise never reach a mainstream audience. I’m kind of amazed that people would complain about him.
^ Especially after all of his recent health issues (actually seems like a euphemism to describe what he’s been through). Reading this Esquire spread on him from a few years back (http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310) helped make me appreciate him more. When he dies, there will be nobody to replace him. Does anyone even watch that Roger Ebert Presents At The Movies?
Ebert is a gateway critic that only leads to a deeper addiction to film. Sure, I used Ebert recreationally when I first started, but it led to heavier things.
“Ebert has done and continues to do a huge amount to promote a wide range of directors — in particular African American directors”
I agree. Without his positive review of I Will Follow on his PBS show last year, I never would’ve gone to see this film in the theater (much less have even heard of it).
@ Ari – I set my DVR to tape the Ebert show when it was one but it’s currently on “hiatus”. Christy and Ignatiy were not very good together but sometimes when nothing else was on, I’d watch it just because I was that desperate to see two people on TV talk about current releases.
I thought Phillips and Scott were the best since Siskel and Ebert but I don’t think they’ll ever be back.
“really? Most of those directors were praised heavily in their time though, or at least by their 3rd or 4th film, except for perhaps Cassavetes, who was always divisive.”
Really. As Brad says, I think it’s easy to overlook the degree to which Ebert contributed to the canonization of a lot of worthy directors. Ebert started writing at the times in ‘68. Rohmer, for example, had only La Collectionneuse at that point. Truffaut, at the time, had been around a while and was obviously a “name,” but also was fresh from the relative failure of his lone Hollywood film Fahrenheit 451 (In the US, the NY Times called it Time called it "pretentious and pedantic production . . . dully fashioned and dully played). Pontecorvo wasn’t much known beyond Kapò (and, again, if you look at the contemporary reviews, the acclaim of that film is far from unanimous). Watkins was known acclaimed in the UK for the TV work starting with Culloden (which wasn’t shown theatrically in the US until ‘68). Bondrachuck was not well known or acclaimed outside the Soviet Union at the time. The Mother and the Whore was Eustache’s first film. Lee wasn’t widely known before Do the Right Thing. Ferrara was so beloved that a screening of his previous feature, King of New York inspired mass walkouts at the New York Film Festival . . . blah blah blah.
This idea that Ebert is some sort of shallow populist who’s been carried along by the mainstream is silly if one bothers to look at his work in context. He may not have had the opportunity to see and write about a lot of films as early as the NYC and LA critics, but that’s a hazard of the of the market he was working in.
Glegs said, He isn’t at all an interesting reviewer. He very rarely has interesting things to say about a film or has an interesting view or interpretation.
My two cents:
I don’t think his reviews provide deep analysis, but I haven’t gotten insights from his reviews. But to be fair, given the scope of a lot of these views, I don’t think you can expect a lot of deep criticism. The reviews function as information to help viewers decide if they want to see a film—versus offering criticism to offer a deeper understanding of the film.
Moreover, his reviews are well-written and entertaining to read (I agree that the reviews on films he hated are often the most entertaining.) My good friend, who is an English teacher, liked to use his reviews as examples of good writing (especially, attention getting first sentences/paragraphs).
Glegs: He loves pretty much everything (I hate to be hypocritical, but this is the guy that gave Speed 2 3/4 stars) so it’s never amazing to see him give a lesser known film a high rating.
His tastes are really broad and hard to pin down. I don’t think he has really strong preferences in terms of styles or genres. He likes arthouse fare as well as lite Hollywood entertainment. So I don’t think he likes pretty everything, and I don’t agree that he doesn’t like arty films. The sense I get from Ebert is that he’s his own person, and he doesn’t just like or hate a film because of accepted opinions.
@Santino I liked Scott and Phillips too, but I liked Richard Roeper as well. I’d love to see Scott and Phillips back on TV as well. I didn’t like it when Ben Lyons was on the show. I purposely stopped watching it then because I didn’t care for him.
I find your opening statement interesting because I completely disagree. Ebert is the only critic that I actually pay any attention to. I have even listened to his film commentaries and they were very enjoyable. I have always been a fan.
“I don’t think his reviews provide deep analysis, but I haven’t gotten insights from his reviews. But to be fair, given the scope of a lot of these views, I don’t think you can expect a lot of deep criticism.”
I think this is to a certain degree a function of the mediums he’s working in. Mainstream newspapers don’t really provide the sort of space for deep analysis, and co-hosting a TV show is probably even more restrictive, but Ebert used to do shot-by-shot analysis in films at festivals and classes that was by most accounts really outstanding.
He may not have had the opportunity to see and write about a lot of films as early as the NYC and LA critics, but that’s a hazard of the of the market he was working in.
Not true, Matt. For the past two decades, Chicago has been just as significant a film (festival) town as those on the coasts. He’s never been denied advance copies of just-released films.
Chicago is a great city for film culture (I lived there from the early ‘80s through the mid-’90s), and has had over the years, I think, three of the finest three American film critics of their generation—Ebert, Dave Kehr, and Jonathan Rosenbaum, but still . . . critics get to see films in advance of them being released in their market. Typically, with the exception of the Hollywood megareleases, prints are released according to what is essentially a tier system, so films open in NY and LA before they open elsewhere in the US, which means that NY and LA-based critics get to see and write about them first. If you’re a critic in, say, Chicago or Washington DC, you’re seeing films prior to them opening in your respective city, probably a week or two later, which puts those with significant posts in NY/LA in a position to seem more influential than other cities Do cinephiles not know this?
Here’s Jonathan Rosenbaum (who seems to me in a position to speak on the matter with some authority), writing in 2003 for the French magazine Trafic:
“Chicago, as the third largest American city, is commonly treated by the American film industry as much less important —- or at least demographically less relevant — than either New York or Los Angeles. This has had certain positive as well as negative consequences. The main negative result is that, even though most of the big studio releases open everywhere at once, the majority of art films, foreign films, and so-called independent films premiere in New York and/or Los Angeles and either arrive in Chicago several weeks or months later or —- in certain cases when they’re received poorly in those cities -— never reach Chicago at all”.
@Matt
I think this is to a certain degree a function of the mediums he’s working in. Mainstream newspapers don’t really provide the sort of space for deep analysis, and co-hosting a TV show is probably even more restrictive, but Ebert used to do shot-by-shot analysis in films at festivals and classes that was by most accounts really outstanding.
Shoot. That’s exactly what I meant to say (e.g., “…given the scope of his reviews…”)
Btw, I meant to say that I have gotten some insights from his reviews. Argh.
You could be right for the time period you describe, Matt, but I lived in Chicago from the late 90s into the first decade of the 21st century, and we regularly received foreign and independent films the same weekend they were released in NY and LA. And, if you’re talking about upper-echelon critics in second-tier cities—who have access to releases before general cultural consumers—I dispute your contention that they are behind the game in weighing in with their opinions.
Rosenbaum wrote about this sort of thing regularly until his retirement from the Reader in 2008, Z. (and I’ll recall having heard similar from Kehr, though I could not lay my hands on a source) . . . and even if the 2000s have been markedly different (and I have no reason to doubt you on this), bear in mind that I speaking about the whole of Ebert’s career, which began in ‘68, so we’re still talking about Chicago being a second-tier market for the majority of his career thus far. This is mainly my point—that young people tend to judge Ebert by the last decade or so of his career without understand what he accomplished and the context in which he accomplished it.
“This idea that Ebert is some sort of shallow populist who’s been carried along by the mainstream is silly if one bothers to look at his work in context.”
Again, nobody was really saying that i don’t think. We have just noticed that he tends to trend hop a lot. and changes his views on films later after a popular consensus has been established. Perhaps he was ‘different’ in the 60’s and 70’s, but if that’s really the case, then he just lost his touch.
You said “for mainstream films he is decent. For ‘art films’, however, he is OK at best.”
others have said:
“he just champions any notable director unless they get too arty.”
“If a film is a classic, unless it’s arty, chances are Ebert gave it a 4/4.”
Yet no one has made any effort to substantiate these claims with any sort of evidence. I agree that Ebert has some big “misses” than you can point to (Taste of Cherry is a very good example of this), and I think it would be fair to say that he has not been able to keep working at the same level though the entirely of his illness and subsequent incapacitation, but the implication that he was simply countersigning established tastes and mainstream films is not accurate.
(and who cares what star rating he gives a film, for godssake)
I was slightly disappointed that Ebert couldn’t muster enough energy to give Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie a serious pan.
Wow, are people who live in Chicago really that insecure about not living in LA or NY?
Rosenbaum, you mean?
“et no one has made any effort to substantiate these claims with any sort of evidence”
What would count as evidence?
Guess at best we can only point to examples. and some of us have done that.
As i said before, it really ticked me off when he decided to skip ‘Colossal Youth’ because somebody told him it was boring. You would think he would be aware of that films growing reputation and as a film buff would have developed a natural curiosity to see it.
Rosenbaum is a great comparison to Ebert. That guy checks out almost everything. He doesn’t wait for the directors to be validated by committee. Ebert checks out art film makers once they have reached the periphery of the mainstream. That has been my 20 year experience of Ebert. I could care less what he did in the 70’s. We are not living in the 70’s anymore.
And all those directors that were named checked before are from the major film production centres of the world, like France and Japan, for example.
I’m starting to sound like Dimitris noiw hehe
There’s an entire site devoted to Ebert’s misses:
http://rogersworst.blogspot.com/
Yeah, I think it’s funny to think about Chicago as not being LA or NY (and I don’t even like Chicago from the few times I’ve been there – it seems like a town filled with frat boys – but I wouldn’t really worry so much about being third on North American release schedules).
“What would count as evidence?”
I gave you a bunch of it above to support what I said . . .
“Yeah, I think it’s funny to think about Chicago as not being LA or NY (and I don’t even like Chicago from the few times I’ve been there – it seems like a town filled with frat boys – but I wouldn’t really worry so much about being third on North American release schedules).”
Well, bear in mind that in Rosenbaum’s case, it isn’t simply complaining—Ebert and Kehr and Siskel, and later Rosenbaum himself (along with lesser known critics like Fred Camper, who’s brilliant), did a lot to establish a film cultural in the city that rivaled those in LA and NY, so part of what Rosenbaum was doing all along was trying to tilt the film distribution status quo enough to speed that along.
“Rosenbaum is a great comparison to Ebert. That guy checks out almost everything.”
Sure, and on the whole I prefer JR to RE, but you have to remember that Rosenbaum was writing for the Chicago Reader, which is an free alternative weekly with a circulation of somewhere over 100,000, and therefore an entirely different animal than the Chicago Sun-Times (which probably has a circulation of closer to 400,000). Rosenbaum had more freedom about which films he wrote about (and obviously the readership skewed toward indies, foreign, and “art films”), and he far greater latitude in terms of word count, so his writing could be much more in depth. Comparing the Reader to the Sun-Times is a bit like comparing the Village Voice to the New York Times (not sure how to translate that into Australian media, Joks. Sorry)
“And all those directors that were named checked before are from the major film production centres of the world, like France and Japan, for example.”
C’mon—you want me to dig through every damn thing the man every wrote? That list was just from glancing at the top 10 lists he put together over the last 35 years.
“As i said before, it really ticked me off when he decided to skip ‘Colossal Youth’ because somebody told him it was boring.”
Richard Corliss, to be exact (who apparently didn’t see it either, but his wife did). And it wasn’t that she told him it was boring, it was that Corliss told Ebert that “Mary walked out after an hour because the movie made her feel like rats were fighting in her skull.”
It’s embarrassing in retrospect, but if you’ve ever been to a festival, you can’t possibly see everything that’s screened, so sometimes you have to make some tough calls. And I’m sure you’re aware that lots of otherwise reasonable critics have little patience for Costa.
“We have just noticed that he tends to trend hop a lot. and changes his views on films later after a popular consensus has been established”
Brings Blade Runner and The Big Lebowski to mind, just off the top of my head.
>>Wow, are people who live in Chicago really that insecure about not living in LA or NY?<<
No Ari. The word you were looking for was thankful.
“C’mon—you want me to dig through every damn thing the man every wrote?"
I was about to ask you the same question earlier :-)
“Sure, and on the whole I prefer JR to RE, but you have to remember that Rosenbaum was writing for the Chicago Reader, which is an free alternative weekly with a circulation of somewhere over 100,000, and therefore an entirely different animal than the Chicago Sun-Times (which probably has a circulation of closer to 400,000). Rosenbaum had more freedom about which films he wrote about (and obviously the readership skewed toward indies, foreign, and “art films”), and he far greater latitude in terms of word count, so his writing could be much more in depth. Comparing the Reader to the Sun-Times is a bit like comparing the Village Voice to the New York Times (not sure how to translate that into Australian media, Joks. Sorry)”
Yeah, i understand they were writing for different audiences, but aside from that fact, J.R has more insight into film as an artistic medium imo.
“And I’m sure you’re aware that lots of otherwise reasonable critics have little patience for Costa”
All too well
Santino
I think Ebert’s fawning over guys like Bahrani and Egoyan dispute the notion that he dismisses filmmakers who are too “arty”. Both of these guys have no business getting props from anyone, let alone Ebert.