Roger Ebert

Russ Meyer (left) and Roger Ebert, (1970)

Roger Joseph Ebert (born June 18, 1942) is an Emmy Award-nominated American television personality, author, and film critic who began writing for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967. His movie reviews are syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. He is also the co-host of a syndicated television program featuring his film criticism, first for 23 years with Gene Siskel and, since Siskel's death, with Richard Roeper on Ebert & Roeper. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive the honor.

He has written more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. In 1975, he became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Ebert has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In February 1995, a section of Chicago's Erie Street was given the honorary name Siskel & Ebert Way, near the CBS Studios. Through his newspaper reviews, books, television shows, and lectures, he has contributed considerably to the appreciation of film among members of the public. He also runs a special section of his website RogerEbert.com devoted to what he deems to be great films.

Since 1999 Ebert has hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois.

Early Life

Ebert was born in Urbana, Illinois. His interest in journalism began as a student at Urbana High School, where he was a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, although he began his writing career with letters of comment to the science fiction fanzines of the era [1]. In his senior year he was co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo.

In 1958, Ebert won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in Radio Speaking, an event that simulates radio newscasts.

Ebert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was editor of The Daily Illini and member of the Phi Delta Theta Fraternity. One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961.

Ebert did graduate study in English at the University of Cape Town under a Rotary International Fellowship. He was a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Chicago when the film critic's position was offered to him at the Sun-Times.

Career as a critic

Ebert began his film critic career in 1967, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times.

In 1969, his review of Night of the Living Dead was published in Reader's Digest.

In 1976 he and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune began co-hosting a weekly movie review television show, Sneak Previews, produced by the Chicago public broadcasting station WTTW. The show was picked up by PBS in 1978 for national distribution. In 1982, the critics moved to a syndicated commercial television show named At the Movies, and later, Siskel & Ebert & The Movies, where they were known for their "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries.

When Siskel died in 1999, the producers retitled the show Roger Ebert & the Movies with rotating co-hosts. In September of 2000, fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed Ebert & Roeper.

Ebert has also done DVD audio-commentaries for several films including Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Dark City, Floating Weeds, Crumb, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (in which he also wrote the screenplay based on a story that he co-wrote with Russ Meyer).

On the day that ABC television network carries the Academy Awards show, Ebert, with partner Roeper, annually appear on the live pre-awards show, An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals prior to the awards ceremony show featuring red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. They also appear on the post awards show entitled An Evening at the Academy Awards: the Winners. Both shows are produced by ABC's Los Angeles station KABC-TV, and are simulcast on ABC's Chicago station WLS-TV and several other ABC affiliates.

Other career highlights

As a teenager, Ebert was involved in science fiction fandom, writing articles for fanzines, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero. In 1958, he won the Illinois high school championship in radio speaking, a speech event.

Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for the 1970 cult film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, directed by Russ Meyer, and likes to joke about being responsible for the poorly received film. Ebert and Meyer also made Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi?

Style of Criticism

Ebert has described his critical approach to films as "relative, not absolute"; he reviews a film for what he feels will be its prospective audience, but always with at least some consideration as to its value towards film as a whole.

When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then (The United States of) Leland clocks in at about two.

Ebert has emphasized that his star ratings have little meaning if not considered in the context of the review itself. Occasionally (as in his review of Basic Instinct 2), Ebert's star rating may seem at odds with his written opinion. Ebert has acknowledged such cases, stating "I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's God-awful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie? God-awful and boring, that would be a reason." In his review of The Manson Family, he gave the film three stars for achieving what it set out to do, but admitted that didn't count as a recommendation per se.

Like Pauline Kael, he has occasionally accused some films of having an unwholesome political agenda, and the word 'fascist' accompanied more than one of Ebert's reviews of the law-and-order films of the 1970s (such as Dirty Harry). He is also suspicious of films which appear to have hypocritical agendas -- i.e., a confrontational film that is passed off as art, but is merely lurid and sensational (The Night Porter; Blue Velvet).

Ebert's reviews regularly clash with the overall reception of movies, as evidenced by his negative review of the 1988 Bruce Willis action film Die Hard. Ebert often makes heavy use of mocking sarcasm, especially when reviewing movies he considers bad. Nonetheless he is often direct, famously in his review of the 1994 Rob Reiner comedy North, which he concluded by writing that:

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

His reviews are also often characterized by dry wit, and a marked distaste for films that feature violence in support of authority. Ebert has also been known to occasionally review movies in the forms of stories, poems, songs, scripts, or imagined conversations. Ebert has written many essays and articles exploring in-depth the concept of film criticism.

Public policy

Ebert is an outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system (he often uses the negative epithet "flywheels" to describe their arbitrary nature), and has repeatedly criticized their decisions regarding which movies are "suitable for children"—for example, Whale Rider and School of Rock, which he thought both should be PG instead of PG-13. In his review of The Exorcist, Ebert expressed shock that the film received a rating of "R" from the MPAA instead of an "X" (he said it was "stupefying" that it managed to receive the lighter rating). He also frequently laments that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes", making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most moviegoers. He is a strong advocate for Maxivision 48, in which the movie projector runs at 48 frames per second, as compared to the usual 24 frames per second. He is opposed to the practice whereby theatres lower the intensity of their projector bulbs in order to extend the life of the bulb, arguing that this has no effect other than to make the film harder to see. [2]

Personal life

File:O'TooleEbertPatrik.jpg

Roger Ebert, Peter O'Toole, and Jason Patric at the 2004 Savannah Film Festival

Since the 1970s he has worked for the University of Chicago as a guest lecturer, teaching a night class on film. His fall 2005 class was on the works of the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

He married trial attorney Chaz Hammelsmith on July 18, 1993 and has a step-daughter and two step-grandchildren. He has been friends with, and at one time dated, Oprah Winfrey, who credits him with encouraging her to go into syndication. He is also good friends with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin, and considers the book Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide to be the standard of film guide books.

A supporter of the Democratic Party , Ebert publicly urged left-wing activist and film-maker Michael Moore to give a politically-charged acceptance speech at the Academy Awards: "I'd like to see Michael Moore get up there and let 'em have it with both barrels and really let loose and give them a real rabble-rousing speech."

A lifelong Catholic, Ebert has also been critical of films he believes are grossly ignorant or insulting of Catholicism (such as Stigmata or Priest), though he gave a favorable reviews of The Passion of the Christ, Martin Scorsese's controversial The Last Temptation of Christ (which many Catholics denounced), and to Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma.

Battle with cancer

In 2002, Ebert suffered a bout of papillary thyroid cancer. He underwent surgery in February 2002, which successfully removed the cancer. He later underwent surgery in 2003 for cancer in his salivary gland. In December 2003, he underwent a four-week course of radiation treatment as a followup to the surgery on his salivary gland, which altered his voice slightly. He continued to review movies, not missing a single opening while undergoing treatment.

He underwent further surgery Friday, June 16, 2006, just two days before his 64th birthday, to remove cancer near his right jaw, including a section of jaw bone.

On July 1, Ebert was hospitalized in serious condition after an artery burst near the surgery site; he later discovered that the burst was likely a side-effect of his treatment, which involved neutron beam radiation. He was subsequently kept bed-ridden whilst a means was sought to prevent future arterial problems.

Ebert filmed enough TV programs with his co-host, Richard Roeper, to keep him on the air for several weeks. However, his extended convalescence has necessitated a series of "guest critics" to co-host with Roeper, including Jay Leno (a good friend to both Ebert and Roeper), Kevin Smith, John Ridley, Toni Senecal, Michael Phillips, Aisha Tyler, Fred Willard, Anne Thompson, and A.O. Scott.

An update from Ebert on October 11 confirmed his bleeding problems have been resolved. He is receiving rehabilitation care at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to regain his lost muscle strength.

Books written by Ebert

Each year, Ebert publishes Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook, a book containing all his movie reviews from the last three years, as well as essays and other writings. He has also authored the following books:

• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert (ISBN-10 0-226-18200-2) — a collection of essays from his forty years as a film critic, featuring interviews, profiles, essays, his initial reviews upon a film's release, as well as critical exchanges between the film critics Richard Corliss and Andrew Sarris
• Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary (ISBN 0-8362-8289-2) — a book of movie clichés
• The Great Movies (ISBN 0-7679-1038-9) and The Great Movies II (ISBN 0-7679-1950-5) — two books of essays about great films
• I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (ISBN 0-7407-0672-1) — a collection of reviews of films that received two and a half stars or less.
• Roger Ebert's Book of Film (ISBN 0-393-04000-3) — a Norton Anthology of a century of writing about the movies
• Questions For The Movie Answer Man (ISBN 0-8362-2894-4) — his responses to questions sent from his readers
• Behind the Phantom's Mask (ISBN 0-8362-8021-0) — his first attempt at fiction.
• An Illini Century (ASIN B0006OW26K) — the history of the first 100 years of the University of Illinois
• The Perfect London Walk (ISBN 0-8362-7929-8) — a tour of Ebert's favorite foreign city

See also

• Boulder Pledge, created by Ebert in 1996 in the hope of discouraging spam
• Top Ten Lists of Roger Ebert

External links

• Roger Ebert official website
• Ebert & Roeper official website
• Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival
• Roger Ebert at IMDb
• Template:Nndb name
• Template:Tvtome person
• Roger Ebert RSS Feed
• Political donations made by Ebert
• Sight and Sound poll on his top ten movies
• Progressive Magazine Transcript of Interview with Roger Ebert
• Front Page Magazine Article Critical of Ebert's Politics