I’ve been reading Roger Ebert just about every Friday (except when he was ill) for 11 years now. I love his reviews not because I always agree with them, but because I love his reviews. There is a joy of film, and a joy of writing that shines through.
Here are a few of my favorite passages from his writings. These are not his “best” in any literary sense, but they come to mind when talking or thinking about movies. And for anyone who’s read his work, you know he’s at his best when reviewing the worst movies:
I have here a heartfelt message from a reader who urges me not to be so hard on stupid films, because they are “plenty smart enough for the average moviegoer.” Yes, but one hopes being an average moviegoer is not the end of the road: that one starts as a below-average filmgoer, passes through average, and, guided by the labors of America’s hard-working film critics, arrives in triumph at above-average.
So, anyway, younger girls won’t like this movie, unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won’t like it because the only thing that’s possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there’s a lot going on up there, and we can’t even define precisely what a soliton is.
This all began for me in about 1969, when I started teaching a film class in the University of Chicago’s Fine Arts program. I knew a Chicago film critic, teacher and booker named John West, who lived in a wondrous apartment filled with film prints, projectors, books, posters and stills. “You know how football coaches use a stop-action 16mm projector to study game films?” he asked me. “You can use that approach to study films. Just pause the film and think about what you see. You ought to try it with your film class.”
On “Tru Loved“, this is the reveal at the end of his review that he only watched eight minutes of it:
Full disclosure. I lifted the words “San Francisco to conservative suburbia with her lesbian mothers” straight from the plot summary on IMDb.com, because I stopped watching the movie at the 00:08.05 point. IMDb is also where I found out about Bruce Vilanch’s dual role. I never did see the lesbian mothers or my friend Bruce. For “Tru Loved,” the handwriting was on the wall. The returns were in. The case was closed. You know I’m right. Or tell me I’m wrong.
Q. How can you give a one-star rating to a movie you didn’t sit through?
A. The rating only applies to the first eight minutes. After that, you’re on your own.
On Universal Health Care:
I was informed that my entry was “typical liberalism.” This is correct. I am a liberal. If you are a conservative, this appears to be a difference between us: I think you should have guaranteed health insurance.
The director, whose name is “Pitof,” was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project.—Catwoman
I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.—Response to Vincent Gallo’s hex to give me colon cancer
I am informed that 5,000 cockroaches were used in the filming of “Joe’s Apartment.” That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of them were harmed during the production.
These days he’s on a roll on Twitter and on his journal, day and night. It’s like he never sleeps.
Fantasy fiction superstar Neil Gaiman and Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer got engaged a few months ago. It’s the geek version of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
But a few years before Neil popped the question (right here in Boston, no less), he wrote these words:
I Google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends
I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you dance
And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one
Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is an extraordinary film. It is Hitchcock, classic noir, Dr. Moreau all at once. But does it cheat?
It’s a question that comes up many times in movies that provide an elaborate twist at the end that makes you rethink the entire movie. Like, say, The Sixth Sense (does not cheat), The Usual Suspects (one big cheat), The Sting (cheats).
What I mean by cheating is this—were there scenes in the movie which were solely meant to mislead the viewer? Or did they serve a purpose in the plot?
Of course, all movies cheat through editing; through what they do not show. But what they do show shouldn’t be a lie.
Well, I’ve only watched it once, but I believe Shutter Island does not cheat.
World War Z is a book written by Max Brooks, on behalf of the United Nations. It is a series of interviews, presented as an oral history of the zombie apocalypse. No, the zombie apocalypse has not actually happened.
The book tells of an alternate present, where an outbreak of rising dead turns in to a world-wide epidemic. The story doesn’t unfold as classical horror, but as a look at geopolitical implications, military strategy, and individual survival instincts in the face of an unprecedented, global threat.
It deals with the big questions—wouldn’t Israel deal with such a threat in a fundamentally different way than say South Africa or Russia, because of their history? How would our military machinery work against an enemy who does not work under the traditional parameters—has no emotions, no family, no expenses, and can only be downed by decapitation? And for every one soldier you lose, they gain one.
As I said, the story is told as a series of interviews, a few years after the war is over—an interview of a doctor who saw the first cases in China, an Israeli intelligence agent who was among the first to take the threat seriously, of US military personnel, a South African politician, and of so many individuals from across the globe. While the climax is told from an American perspective, this is a global story and that is what really makes it special—the plausible military, social and political implications.
∞
The audiobook makes this book even better. Here’s part of the cast: Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, John Turturro, Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, and Jürgen Prochnow. Since each chapter is an interview with a different person, this format works really well.
Considering the talent involved, this should have been a much better movie—Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (Superbad), Eric Bana (Hulk, Black Hawk Down), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation), Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation). Written and directed by Judd Apatow. This should have been so much better.
It’s the story of a comic (Sandler) who learns that he may not have very long to live. He takes a struggling comedian (Rogen) under his wing. This is Sandler giving his second-best performance of all time (the best is here) and I really wanted to like it. The first hour was fantastic, but it just falls apart after that.
This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time.
A few weeks ago I did a post about As Good As It Gets—how so many lines from that movie are the voices in my head. Well, that’s not the only movie that provides color commentary to the events in my life. Another one is Fight Club
Keep in mind that this movie came out when I was 19, when it was easier to be glib about nihilism. This is not to say that Fight Club lacks intellectual depth—it’s just that I hadn’t been through enough to make up my own mind about it.
There is a gallery of celebrity pictures from that trip below. (You can see who is in the pictures by holding your mouse pointer over the photo, or by clicking on it for more details. I have a complete gallery of all the fan photos and the celeb photos on my Star Wars site)
I’ll do another one at some point in the future with all the fans/events. That was really what made the event special—hanging out with hundreds of other people who shared my obsessions. There were lines for so many events, but the lines were where you found the most unlikely of comrades. This was the one place where you didn’t have to hide your crazy; you could wear it as a badge of honor. You could cheer along with the late-night screenings of the films, reciting the dialogue and laughing at inside jokes. And you wouldn’t even be close to the weirdest person there.
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.—Jonathan Swift
Those are the opening lines of one of the best books I’ve read in a while—John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, a grand tale of eccentrics and borderline loony characters in ‘60s New Orleans.
Toole wrote it in the ‘60s and then promptly killed himself. A decade later, his mother sent a smeared carbon copy of the novel to Walker Percy (author of that other New Orleans tale, the story of my life, The Moviegoer). His mother insisted it was a masterpiece. Percy read it on a whim, and agreed. It was a masterpiece.
My name is Devanshu Mehta. This blog is a place for me to put all the things that I don't get paid to do. The blog is named after my favorite poem. (more)
Considering the talent involved, this should have been a much better movie—Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen (Knocked Up), Jonah Hill (Superbad), Eric Bana (Hulk, Black Hawk Down), Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore), Aziz Ansari (Parks & Recreation), Aubrey Plaza (Parks & Recreation). Written and directed by 
