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Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

suntimes.com

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Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#61

Post by nsxwolf »

smacktoward wrote: post #17
wcfields wrote: post #12

. I'll just leave one of my favorite quotes from Ebert about a movie that is actually one of my all time favorite comedy. "This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." [1] - Roger Ebert review of "Freddy Got Fingered"; April 20, 2001 [1] http…

My favorite line of his is the one he ended his review of 1996's Mad Dog Time ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Dog_Time ) with: " Mad Dog Time should be cut up to provide free ukelele picks for the poor."

Also:

"'Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time."

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#62

Post by username111 »

tptacek wrote: post #13

Fitzgerald said "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Ebert seemed to have a knack for thinking all the thoughts simultaneously, and then getting their product onto a page: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.... http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/03/how_i_am_a_roman_cat... One of t…

Caches that worked for me (though some styling was off):

1. http://web.archive.org/web/20130130054900/http://blogs.sunti...

2. http://web.archive.org/web/20130324015956/http://blogs.sunti...

3. http://web.archive.org/web/20130117072812/http://blogs.sunti...

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#63

Post by barce »

nsxwolf wrote: post #58
tptacek wrote: post #13

Fitzgerald said "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Ebert seemed to have a knack for thinking all the thoughts simultaneously, and then getting their product onto a page: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.... http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/03/how_i_am_a_roman_cat... One of t…

There's no replacement. I honestly can't see myself reading movie reviews ever again.

Yes, Ebert was the only critic who could tell you how to improve as a film maker. His integrity was incorruptible. He knew things about film that none of the critics around today seem to know: a complete knowledge of films of the past, what it takes to make a film since he did one himself in the 60s, and how to make a film better. He will be terribly missed.

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#64

Post by afreak »

It's really sad to see him go. There are very few movie critics out there left who have an objective point of view rather than those who are just doing it because the seat needed to be filled and luxurious tickets were passed to the publisher.

I also will have to say the best portrayal of him was in Jon Lovitz "The Critic", where Siskel and Ebert were having a feud and it was up to Mr. Jay Sherman to reunite them.

Animaniacs did a good portrayal of them too.

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#65

Post by jmj42 »

3am wrote: post #54

I am maybe a little older than some of the readers here, pushing on the lower end of middle age, ie, I had to memorize phone numbers/rotary phone at home when I was very young, I had a Walkman, MTV had only one station and it played music, etc. Perhaps I could have said Gen-X and saved some time. Anyway, I remember Siskel and Ebert on television before there was much of an internet to speak of. Now if you look out ov…

...and get up to change the TV channel

In 1990, I was in high school. We moved to a small town near Urbana, IL. I was impressed then, and continue to be today, that Ebert would return to Urbana, Ebert's home town, every year in April (health permitting) to headline Ebertfest. Ebertfest is a local film festival held to honor him.

With Ebertfest only 2 weeks away, it will be truly sad knowing that the world has lost a great man.

http://www.ebertfest.com/

edit: Link to Eberfest

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#66

Post by bcgraham »

webwanderings wrote: post #56

I was bowled over by Ebert's fascination with Dark City and I really liked it the first time I watched. However, many years later, I watched it again and it left me bewildered as to why I liked this movie in the first. As much as I like and respect Roger Ebert, I think he was dead wrong on his fascination with this movie. Great movies do not fall off of the imaginative pedestal, only the bad one does. As a profession…

>As a professional movie critic, he earned respect through his craft, but I think world of cinema is better off without any movie critic.

Totally disagree - the critic, at his best, spotlights movies you would have missed, unlocks movies you would have found confusing, and rescues movies you would have hated. They facilitate love of cinema.

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#67

Post by username3 »

tptacek wrote: post #13

Fitzgerald said "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Ebert seemed to have a knack for thinking all the thoughts simultaneously, and then getting their product onto a page: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.... http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/03/how_i_am_a_roman_cat... One of t…

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.... doesn't read like he could hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time.

Re: Roger Ebert dies at 70 after battle with cancer

#69

Post by tomjen3 »

jpxxx wrote: post #25
suyash wrote: post #15

Someone needs to find 100% cure against this deadly disease. So much money is spent on cancer research every year and what are the results..almost zero.

Wrong, stop, I can personally name forty people working on it right now. Cancer is not a single thing, and progress is made on every front, every day.

I won't challenge you for their names, but if so many people are working on the issue, why don't we see any progress?

Sure we have 30 ways to cure cancer in rats, but the best we can do for humans is either to poison them with chemicals (some of them radioactive, no less) or laser beams that are only slightly less likely to kill normal cells than cancer cells.

Meanwhile we throw a fortune at the problem and throw a fortune at ever more expensive treatments -- for what?

The only recent success I know of is against prostate cancer but that was only because some ex-con got rich and started to found actual, aggressive, of the beaten path research - and that is still not a cure and only against one form of cancer.

So since you know these people, what do they need to get some useful research out there? Money and fame upon success is a given (Jonas Salk comes to mind) but what stops them?

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