A Brief by Doug Draper
If you love going to movies like I love going to movies, you might also enjoy reading about them by great movie reviewers.
Roger Ebert at right with his best movie-loving buddy Gene Siskel. About the last of the best in the movie review/critic genre.
And few movie reviewers were better over the past 30 or 40 years than Roger Ebert, who died, at age 70, after a long battle with cancer this April 4.
Roger Ebert was a great movie lover and reviewer from Chicago, and he was also a great friend of what has become a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF for short) that might not have grown, around the world, as successfully as it has without the endorsement of such a high-profile film reviewer as Roger Ebert.
Roger Ebert died this April 4th and with him dies a good deal of what is left of any kind of thoughtful writing about movies. As someone who studied and did my best to practice good journalism back into the 1970s, 80s and for a few more years beyond that before the serpents of capitalism slithered under the tent, he was one of the last individuals left who had the integrity to tell it like it was about film and whatever movie was released at the time.
Now, movie coverage is more often about how many millions of dollars the latest ‘blockbuster’ made at the box office this week. Most broadcast or newspaper corporate chains would not dare to have someone like Ebert do an honest review on a movie that might, by the way, be produced by one of their corporate affiliates, for fear that a poor review might offend their corporate masters.
Roger Ebert was one of the last of the movie reviewers from the good old days when the best of people like him could give you and I the real goods on whether or not a film was worth a couple of hours of our lives’
No one is replacing him and it is a God-damn shame. His last words in a movie column as recently as a few days ago were; ‘See you at the movies.’
Next time I am in a movie theatre, will see you there in soul and spirit Roger. You and your old buddy Gene Siskel, who died about 20 years ago from cancer, were among the best in delivering the honest goods on movies.
And by the way, the loss of columnists like Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel falls in tandem with the loss of other journalists for national and local papers across the United States and Canada. The corporations that rule over most newspapers today could not give a fig if they have a Roger Ebert on staff.
That leaves us with a mission, if we care enough to clime on borad, to generate new voices – free from fear or favour – on independent, online sites like this and others to replace them.
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the They NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)
Niagara At Large 
I have to agree with all points. There are millions of Siskels and Ebert’s in the world online now, though many may not be of the same calibre. The internet has opened up the world for every individual to express their views for all to see, as well as real stories as they happen. We are all documenters, photographers, and writers among the professional and the amateur who are all given equal voice, but only if we use them. Once upon a time, the chant was “the world is watching”. That’s even more true, and easier, now more than ever.
James Takeo
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Climbing on Board. I will miss this man, and his courage, for a long time. Grew up with him on PBS in Boston. Honed any movies review skills I had, at his feet, so to speak.
As for the loss of other good journalists, well, what can one say? All have been pitched by their corporate overseers, as you well know. There is no longer any real trust in objectivity among journalists; Ebert was one of a kind. Spoke the truth as he knew and felt it. Read his latest book. Blessings, Ebert.
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I too always enjoyed reading and hearing Siskel & Ebert movie reviews – the two of them together on TV and their individual newspaper columns.
Unlike Doug, I seldom go to the theatre these days … I buy movies when they come out on DVD/BluRay – current count in my collection is approaching the 2,100 mark. (and no, I don’t download them!)
As Doug points out in his commentary above, not many newspapers will do true movie reviews these days. There is far too much cross-ownership in the media throughout the world.
One can fervently hope that Gene and Roger are now sitting together, side-by-side, with a big bag of popcorn in the great movie theatre in the sky!
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When Roger Ebert lost most of his lower jaw to cancer, he didn’t let that defeat him — he found many new things to write about, and an entirely new raison d’être. He was unafraid to reach out to new audiences, speaking with a computer-generated voice. Here’s a memorable quote:
“Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out. ~Roger Ebert, 1942-2013 (via Jeff Brown)
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