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The Roger Ebert Discussion Thread - Page 5

post #201 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:33am
Here's what rankles me: the arrogance. As Ebert has said many times, "You learn on the job." There's no academic "requirement" for being a film critic, although I do agree that having a good grasp of the English language and a love of film are two important steps. To sneer at Ebert because he didn't have "training" and then failing to specify what the hell that means is idiotic.

And forgive me for my "freak out". As I said, Ebert is one of my heroes, and this massively incorrect smear feels personal as a result. I don't really want Armond White to die, although I doubt I'll mourn his eventual death anyway.
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post #202 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:36am
Regarding negative reviews: I think they can certainly be instructive and helpful (as well as massively fun to read). But White's negative reviews are just angry diatribes, whereas with Ebert you have a real sense of his craft, humor and occasionally anger.
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post #203 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Spider View Post
Here's what rankles me: the arrogance. As Ebert has said many times, "You learn on the job." There's no academic "requirement" for being a film critic, although I do agree that having a good grasp of the English language and a love of film are two important steps. To sneer at Ebert because he didn't have "training" and then failing to specify what the hell that means is idiotic.
Besides, Ebert's on-the-job training came during one of the most vibrant periods in film history.
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post #204 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Spider View Post
Regarding negative reviews: I think they can certainly be instructive and helpful (as well as massively fun to read). But White's negative reviews are just angry diatribes, whereas with Ebert you have a real sense of his craft, humor and occasionally anger.
And it's not just that he gives negative reviews to movies that are widely considered to be good, he gives glowing reviews to films that are generally panned. I mean, Jonah Hex? Really?
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post #205 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:41am
Exactly. He also brings far too much politics into his reviews for my liking. While I think that a political viewpoint can be useful in film criticism, especially if the film itself is political in some way, White brings all these bizarre justifications and theories that often don't make any sense.
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post #206 of 229
7/22/10 at 11:42am
I haven't seen Inception yet.

But to claim that Michael Bay is a better filmmaker than Christopher Nolan is just madness.

That's what I mean... He's obviously trolling.
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post #207 of 229
7/22/10 at 12:14pm
To be fair, I'm not quite an unbiased observer, but holy shit, really?

To paraphrase another New Yorker, he can't be serious.
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post #208 of 229
7/22/10 at 1:10pm
What the fuck "training" is he even talking about? What, did he study film theory under Pai Mei?
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post #209 of 229
7/22/10 at 1:16pm
To me, White just strikes me as the intellectual type who's taken it WAY too far the other direction. Sitting back and going "aw man, kewl!" isn't great. But you can get so far up your own asshole that you start robbing the art-form of its joy. I think he gets off way, way too much on hearing himself jabber.


The good news is: this doesn't affect my love or enjoyment of the art-form in the slightest. The same should apply to you.
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post #210 of 229
7/22/10 at 3:28pm
I used to have a professor like him at SFSU. You'd turn in a paper expressing you opinion on a subject and he would grade you not on how well written or researched you paper was, but on if he agreed with your opinion. He didn't want to have a discussion on a topic, it always was his opinion is the only right one, everything else was a fail.

That was the only time I ever withdrew from a course.

At lease Ebert listens and addresses the points of his detractors.
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post #211 of 229
7/22/10 at 4:38pm
"Ignore the trolls" is what should be said about White. Who cares about him? I mean, I didn't know he was around for so long until just recently; I just thought he was a recent troll! Ignoring him would be the best option.

I thought there'd be discussion about Ebert giving Salt four stars. Salt! I love Roger as much as everyone else but it sounds like another case of him being smitten with a pretty girl and thus that impacts the rating. Of course I haven't seen the movie (I'm not interested in it) so maybe it is much better than the previews would suggest. But, my jaw hit the floor when I saw he gave that movie a perfect rating, especially considering the lower ratings he has given to action classics in the past.
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post #212 of 229
7/22/10 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sleeplesslumber View Post
I used to have a professor like him at SFSU. You'd turn in a paper expressing you opinion on a subject and he would grade you not on how well written or researched you paper was, but on if he agreed with your opinion. He didn't want to have a discussion on a topic, it always was his opinion is the only right one, everything else was a fail.

That was the only time I ever withdrew from a course.

At lease Ebert listens and addresses the points of his detractors.
I have to say though, White does seem the type who would grade you on how well written/argued your point was.

However, he's such a pretentious stick in the mud that I don't know that I'd trust his assessment of it. God forbid you didn't want to dive headlong into some very odd political/racial elements that really don't beg to be addressed when looking at a particular film.
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post #213 of 229
7/22/10 at 4:58pm
His former partner Richard Roeper, whose views and opinions I greatly admire, gave Salt a C-. But I'll probably go see it anyway.
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post #214 of 229
7/22/10 at 5:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Perfect Weapon View Post
I thought there'd be discussion about Ebert giving Salt four stars. Salt! I love Roger as much as everyone else but it sounds like another case of him being smitten with a pretty girl and thus that impacts the rating. Of course I haven't seen the movie (I'm not interested in it) so maybe it is much better than the previews would suggest. But, my jaw hit the floor when I saw he gave that movie a perfect rating, especially considering the lower ratings he has given to action classics in the past.
It's all about Jolie. She could star in a movie called Making A Ham Sandwich and Ebert would call it a four-star Warholian masterwork.
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post #215 of 229
7/22/10 at 5:05pm
Yeah, Ebert's had a not-so-subtle fascination with Jolie for years. I mean, he gave Cradle of Life a thumbs up, based largely around the fact that Jolie was in it and she looked hot.
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post #216 of 229
7/22/10 at 5:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sleeplesslumber View Post
I used to have a professor like him at SFSU. You'd turn in a paper expressing you opinion on a subject and he would grade you not on how well written or researched you paper was, but on if he agreed with your opinion. He didn't want to have a discussion on a topic, it always was his opinion is the only right one, everything else was a fail.
Every time I read something like this I'm thankful for the film studies teacher I had (for some reason one credit of film was required for my graphic design degree), who really just wanted to share with us, and was pretty much excited by anything we had to bring to the table. His favorite movie of all time was The Right Stuff, which was totally apt.
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post #217 of 229
7/22/10 at 6:50pm
Well, he hasn't made a full blog post on White's latest slander, but he did post this response to it in the comments of his latest blog entry after someone brought them up:

Quote:
"Nor do I have a "film education," or "training" in film criticism, whatever that is. But I do have an education, in English literature. I have been a critic 42 years, I taught a film class in the University of Chicago's Fine Arts Program for 35 years, wrote a major movie no matter what you thought of it, have been through films a shot at a time on six campuses between four and 12 times a year since 1970, have visited dozens of sets not for celeb interviews but for the purpose of watching directors work.
I know something about films. I feel trained. I'm pissed off that he says I'm not. If Armond White's training leads him to believe Michael Bay makes the best "canted tilt shits" ever--EVER--he needs to go back for some re-training. End of rant."
Hilarious and eloquent ownage. I think the misspelling of "shots" as "shits" was a Freduian slip, but even with it, the statement still makes sense.
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post #218 of 229
7/22/10 at 10:53pm
Ebert's hard-on for SALT is hardly (no pun intended) a revelation. He's always been on board when it comes to outrageous flicks with action-driven plots. The Jolie factor is just icing on the cake me thinks. Delectable, sensual, heavenly icing.
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post #219 of 229
7/22/10 at 10:59pm
Is anyone surprised that someone like Armond White thinks that the show that introduced "Thumbs Up" and "Thumbs Down" to the world is the worst thing to happen to film criticism? Obviously, reducing Ebert's career to that show is stupid, but I completely understand how someone can do that and come to the conclusion that Ebert has had a negative effect on "the art of film criticism".
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post #220 of 229
7/23/10 at 11:28am
Re: Ebert and Jolie

I'm not sure if I totally buy the argument that he likes everything she's in.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...310240301/1023
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...VIEWS/40920002
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...204260303/1023
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...VIEWS/41105003
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...911050301/1023
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...S/6090303/1023
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...901220304/1023
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...S/1140301/1023
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post #221 of 229
9/10/10 at 2:49pm
"Roger Ebert presents At the Movies"
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post #222 of 229
9/10/10 at 3:06pm
None of those people are Devin!
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post #223 of 229
9/10/10 at 6:20pm
What the hell is attacking Elvis Mitchell's scalp?
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post #224 of 229
9/10/10 at 6:41pm
Yeah, the broad is okay, but this dude is hard to take seriously with that hair.
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post #225 of 229
9/10/10 at 7:02pm
Hopefully, he'll maintain enough editorial control over the show for it to display some of his approach.
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post #226 of 229
9/10/10 at 7:05pm
I like Elvis's interviews on his radio show/podcast, I just didn't know he had that thing on top of him. And after only knowing him from that show, where he's all constructive, positive probing, it's weird to hear him being negative about films too.
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post #227 of 229
12/28/11 at 7:40pm

So... anyone read Life Itself, his memoir, yet? It's great stuff, taking some of the blog entries, a few interviews, and a ridiculous amount of new, fascinating material about Ebert's life. The chapter on how he met, fell in love with and married his wife Chaz is particularly great.

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post #228 of 229
1/29/12 at 10:47am

Life Itself is great, although it feels a bit familiar -- it's pretty clear he's repurposed and rewritten a lot of his blog posts for some of the more autobiographical stuff. The stuff about his drinking and his relationship with Siskel stood out in particular as being sort of cut-and-pasted. And while he gets a little too sharey at times -- teenage Ebert having orgasms is not something I ever needed to picture -- it's ultimately worth the price of admission.

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post #229 of 229
1/29/12 at 11:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonard View Post

Life Itself is great, although it feels a bit familiar -- it's pretty clear he's repurposed and rewritten a lot of his blog posts for some of the more autobiographical stuff. The stuff about his drinking and his relationship with Siskel stood out in particular as being sort of cut-and-pasted. And while he gets a little too sharey at times -- teenage Ebert having orgasms is not something I ever needed to picture -- it's ultimately worth the price of admission.


I honestly hadn't followed his blog THAT much, so a lot of it still felt fresh. And even the familiar stuff is still great.

 

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