The Rises and Falls of Roger Ebert
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Thu, 08/28/2003 - 11:16
Tags:
- Best Ebert Reviews
- American Pie (3 stars) - "Its characters are sort of sweet and lovable. As I swim through the summer tide of vulgarity, I find that's what I'm looking for: Movies that at least feel affection for their characters. Raunchy is OK. Cruel is not." Amen to that, Rog. Some people would only see the raunchiness.
- As Good As it Gets (3 stars) - His review makes a very good point about the end of the film. It caused me to change my mind about how much I liked it. Ebert is right: there's no real sense of resolution in the ending, though the film tries to make you think there is.
- Cinema Paradiso (3 and 1/2 stars) - "At first Alfredo tries to chase Salvatore away, but eventually he accepts his presence in the booth and thinks of him almost as his child. Salvatore certainly considers the old man his father, and (this is the whole point) the movies as his mother." Good point, big guy.
- Daylight (2 stars) - "Daylight is the cinematic equivalent of a golden oldies station, where you never encounter anything you haven't grown to love over the years." He then proceeds to make fun of the movie's cliches, and the result is hilarious.
- Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (0 stars) - Man, I love it when Roger Ebert uses the word "sucks."
- A Fish Called Wanda (4 stars) - I don't like the movie as much as he did, but he does make some good points about the essence of humor, gives a brief list of the comedies he laughed at the most, and defended the movie against accusations of cruelty to dogs.
- The Hudsucker Proxy (2 stars) - His angel / devil dialogue is hilarious, and he does make some good points about this movie. I liked it more than he did though.
- Reign of Fire (1 star) - His commentary pointing out the sheer idiocy of the movie is both funny and true. (thanks, Jim)
- 13 Conversations About One Thing (4 stars) - His interpretation, as well as his comments on happiness, are very interesting.
- Worst Ebert Reviews
- Brazil (2 stars) - His main criticisms are that the movie is (1) hard to follow and (2) obsessed with ducts. I often fail to pay attention to complex movies, but I didn't think "Brazil" was hard to follow at all. As for obsessed with ducts... well, whatever you say, big guy.
- Bringing Down the House (2 stars) - His review completely spoils the ending of the film and criticizes it for NOT sticking to formulas.
- Death to Smoochy (1/2 star) - His negative review spend most of its criticizing time (i.e., non-plot-summarizing time) talking about how much he hates clowns.
- Fight Club (2 stars) - He mainly says that the movie's message will be lost on the audience. So he's criticizing the movie because he thinks audiences are stupid. Oookay.
- Gigli (2 and 1/2 stars) - Now the second-worst-rated movie on IMDB, Ebert was criticized for giving the movie too high a rating in his negative review. He proceeded to actually defend the movie as an "honorable failure" in his Answer Man column.
- Good Boy! (1 star) - This is a movie about a boy who adopts a dog named Hubble. Hubble eventually starts talking in plain English and tells the boy that dogs came to Earth long ago in an attempt to colonize the planet, and is disgusted to find that dogs have become pets for humans. From what I hear, it's absolutely awful, and it could've been a good movie to really make fun of. Ebert gave it a bad review - a good start - but he spends most of his review making vague negative statements about the film, rarely discussing its flaws. Worse, when he does discuss the flaws, his main point is that the premise is illogical. I mean, listen to this: "The movie asks us to consider a race of superior beings who are built a few feet off the ground, lack opposable thumbs and walk around nude all the time." Well, yes, that is true, but can't you suspend your disbelief longer than that, Rog? You've certainly liked films with unrealistic premises before...
- Funny Farm (3 and 1/2 stars) - The title is misleading; this movie is many things, but it is not funny. Ebert's high review for it makes me question his sanity.
- Junior (3 and 1/2 stars) - Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes the world's first pregnant man.
- Masked and Anonymous (1/2 star) - Ebert criticizes Bob Dylan's music (as being too esotetic) more than the movie.
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (0 stars) - Ebert's mantra is something to the effect that a movie is good based on "not what it is about, but how it is about it." But check out this review, where he says, "the problem is that this material was never meant to be a film, and can hardly work as a film." Huh?!?
Author Comments:
At times, Roger Ebert can write a hilarious or insightful movie review. Other times, he really coasts, and his opinions don't make much sense. Here are some of his best reviews and some of his most embarrassing. All of these reviews can be found by doing a search at his site.
By the way, I have excluded his "Great Movies" reviews, most of which are excellent.
Great idea for a list, AJ. He does hit some highs and lows, doesn't he? I thought his Reign of Fire review was a hoot.
Thank you. Good suggestion, too. I'll add it.
How come you don't link to the review you are critiquing?
Sorry, but I'm way too lazy to create all of those links. If you're motivated, however, just go to the link I created in the comments, click on search, and just type in the movie's title.
It looks to me like linking to a specific Ebert review wouldn't work anyway. The above link for Reign of Fire defaulted to his current page.
Oh, that's only because the link was created before the new site came up, and now when you try to access his old site, it sends you to rogerebert.com. The Reign of Fire review is now here.
Thank you. That is indeed a funny review. I've read it a couple of times, so now, I don't need to see the movie. Thanks, Mr. Ebert.
ha! excellent list. Though Daylight is one of my all time favourites
Never seen it.