Roger Ebert: King of the Reviews

Roger Ebert recently held court at his movie festival in Champaign, Illinois. It's now called "Ebertfest" which is appropriate because, well, he started the entire thing. It used to be his Overlooked Festival which captures the festival's flavor better but anyone who reads Mr. Ebert on a routine basis will know what its purpose is--to screen films which have been passed over by the great, ignorant masses of filmgoers. Which sounds elitist. Which Mr. Ebert isn't. Not in the least.
Roger holding court at a film festival named after him may seem obvious but not if you know that he has been battling serious illnesess for several years now. If you go to his website, and I highly recommend you do, you can find a slide show of the festival and you will see that Mr. Ebert looks like he's been through a lot. And he has. Throat surgery, for cancer. But, true to form, he has refused to back down or disappear. While he hasn't been able to appear on his show (thus all the guest reviewers) he has recently been writing as much as he can and while he cannot give speeches, his appearance alone at the festival drew exclamatory cheers from his well wishers. I wish I had been there.
I don't know if I could have gotten through the past 365 days without him. I have read no fewer than five books by him in that time. Maybe more. I lose count. My fiancee thinks I am absolultely crazy for sitting and reading book after book of his movie reviews and maybe you do too. My advice to you? Read him.
I don't know what your local movie reviewers are like but here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota they are awful. I try not to read them unless I am truly bored or if I know I will not be seeing the movie anyway. My local reviewers are typical, I fear, of what many papers expect these days: They are abrupt--typically encapsulating the plot in one or two paragraphs, offer one relevant quote from the entire movie, they list the actors and director and then, nine times out of ten, rip it to shreds.
Read Mr. Ebert's reviews. Get one of his yearbooks. Pick a year you really enjoyed going to the movies and just read, read, read.
His reviews are very often, a leisurely stroll through the plot, the actors, the director, perhaps the writer, perhaps he'll tell you what he had for lunch. And you may think--why would he write about his lunch in a movie review? But by the end of the review you'll understand. He'll take his time getting to the end though. And he won't give away key details of the plot. And if he's going to, he will make sure to give you a spoiler warning. He doesn't want to ruin the movie for you. No, he wants you to love movies as much as he does, which may very well be impossible.
He loves movies enough to appreciate that they don't all need to be Citizen Kane. He knows that there are times when all you really want to do is escape into the incomprehensibly impossible action of a film such as Lethal Weapon. And, unlike many critics, he doesn't have a problem with it. Movies have many purposes but one of their original ones, and one of their most popular ones still, is to provide us with an escape. If a movie provides that, Roger will tell you.
He will tell you many things you did not know. And he will tell you if a movie is jolly. He uses the word "jolly" more than Santa Claus. Which I think is a key to his success and to the effectiveness of his writing. You see, he adores movies. He takes pleasure in educating us about directors and their stars and the kind of film they used and what three films they made before their current one. Oh, he will tear a movie apart if it's warranted (just ask Rob Schneider!) and he express doubts if he feels a movie missed its intended mark. He will steer you to movies you have never heard of and you will be glad to have watched them. His "Answer Man" sections are often hilarious and his reports from places such as Cannes or the Toronto Film Festival will give you the heads up on what everybody will (or should) be watching in six months.
One of my favorite aspects of Mr. Ebert's reviews is that he strives to judge each film on its own intentions. Jaws did not have the same goal as Driving Miss Daisy so why judge them the same way? It makes sense. Roger's a very sensible guy.
Which is kind of remarkable since he's been hanging around directors and movie stars and in Cannes for about forty years. But he still writes to write. In one of his introductions he writes about how much he still loves the act of writing, of crafting a review for others to gain insight and information from. And Roger will meander. But, if you love movies, and if you come to appreciate his manners and habits, you will come to love the meandering because you will come to understand that this is a man who knows an awful lot about movies. And life. And sometimes, you need to write about one in order to better understand the other.

Best wishes Mr. Ebert. Thank you.