Roger Ebert died today. It's kind of weird when you think about it. Sometimes we get so used to certain people being around it's so damn... strange when they no longer inhabit our plane of existence. I had the same feeling after James Brown died... I suddenly lived in a world without James Brown, and that seemed both bizarre and unacceptable at the same time. But, you say, James Brown was a creator, an inventor - he basically invented funk music, he was the Godfather of Soul, he influenced whole musical genres in addition to artists with his music. Roger Ebert was a film critic, his whole job was just to analyze what other people created and tell an audience whether he thought they should see it or not. How can he be considered special?
Well, Roger Ebert actually worked on a couple of movies himself. No he wasn't a director or actor but he was a (surprise) writer, writing a couple of movies for Russ Meyer in the 70s, one of which being the infamous Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. Both of these movies were very, very bad (but in a laughable, fun kinda way). But the point is, Ebert *did it*. He actually participated in filmmaking, understood the process. When Roger Ebert criticized some movie for being bad, he would know because he wrote some bad movies himself. This is more than most movie critics could and can do. Nowadays your average film critic is just some hack who took writing and film courses in college and thinks that they know more than you will ever know about film just because they studied it in school. The sad truth is that anyone who can pick up a book and read or sit still enough to watch a movie for a couple of hours can write a half-intelligent movie review. But few can write movies reviews well and with true knowledge of the craft, and Ebert was one of them.
Even when he was wrong. I remember reading a negative review of his on the original 1954 Godzilla. I was nearly foaming at the mouth and proclaiming that Ebert wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit him in the ass. But you know what? I had that reaction because his opinion *mattered*... because he wrote well. Most other reviewers (few can actually be called true critics) don't get that kind of response out of me. I read their shit and say, "Hmm", and forget about it a minute later, even if I find their viewpoint contentious. Ebert made you care with his opinion, and that is rare in modern film criticism, where most writers are just trying to impress you with their writing "talent."
I actually have no pretenses to Mr. Ebert's job. I am not a film critic. I am simply some dude on the internet ejaculating forth his opinions because it gives him an excuse to write, to hone his composition skills. If someone comes along and engages me on something I wrote, that's great but it's not my purpose. The point to all this is, Roger Ebert was a true film critic and I am not, but I'm writing this tribute anyway because... I want to. It's not some gushing from one professional to another but some honest thoughts from someone who enjoyed reading his stuff. Even if no one else sees this I want to write how much his film reviews and writing in general meant to me. Even if he was dead wrong sometimes.
And that was the fun part.
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