Roger Ebert - Television Tropes & Idioms

"As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

— Roger Ebert on Deuce Bigalow European Gigolo

Roger Ebert

(born 1942) is film reviewer-in-chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, and has been since 1967. In itself, that would make him important as the elder statesman of film criticism.

In 1975, Ebert teamed up with Gene Siskel, reviewer-in-chief at the Chicago Tribune, to present a film review program called Sneak Previews on the local PBS station. The program went to national syndication in 1978; in 1982 Siskel And Ebert moved to a new network and a new but very similar program called At The Movies with Siskel and Ebert (or vice versa). Unexpectedly, this made him one of the two most important movie critics in America. Because the show was televised, many more Americans saw it than read the reviews in the newspapers; because Ebert and Siskel had credentials in real newspapers in a major city first, and didn't review every movie favorably, they could be taken more seriously than most other movie reviewers on television. Siskel and Ebert's passive-aggressive chemistry was the stuff of legend. It was often thought that due their occasionally hostile on-screen presence when they disagreed, that the two hated each other. However, both considered the other a close friend, even if their relationship was competitive by nature. In fact, on the tenth anniversary of Siskel's death in 2009, Ebert posted a touching remembrance

of his friend on his blog.

When Siskel died in 1999, Ebert kept on the show with guest hosts until it was settled that it would be At The Movies with Ebert and Roeper, with Richard Roeper, another Chicago Sun-Times critic. This made him the most important living movie critic in America. The show ended in 2008 partially because his throat cancer was preventing him from doing most of the episodes for over a year and a half. (To do film reviews on television, you have to be able to speak). Sadly, due to a few surgeries that successfully eradicated his cancer, Ebert has lost the ability to speak entirely and part of his lower jaw has been removed. Currently he "speaks" via handwritten notes and a computer text-to-speech program. In 2010, a Scottish company created a voice similar to Ebert's own for him to use as his new "voice", using his DVD commentaries (and not his tv show, since there was always background movie noise and Gene Siskel/Richard Roeper interrupting him) and other similar recordings. Furthermore, his last treatments were so tough going with so much physical cost, he has vowed that if the cancer reemerges, he will let it take its course unto death.

In 2011, to replace the new At the Movies which had been canceled by its distributor, Ebert and his wife Chaz started their own movie review show on PBS called Ebert Presents At The Movies hosted by Christy Lemire of the Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi, which follows largely the same format as Ebert's other shows. Ebert himself appears in a segment on the show called "Roger's Office" which features voice over narration (either with the help of either his new "voice", or a famous friend such as Werner Herzog or Bill Curtis) of one of his recent reviews or musings.

Ebert still writes weekly review columns as well as a daily blog and maintains a very active Twitter account, and every single one of his reviews are available on the Internet, where he is still an influential force in movie criticism's new dominant medium. In recent years, he has also picked up a reputation for being soft on movies; however, his wrath, when deployed, is legendary. I Hated, Hated, HATED This Movie! and Your Movie Sucks are two compilations of his two star and under reviews; a third, titled A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length, has been announced for spring 2012.

Roger Ebert has been printing compilations of his movie reviews every year on the year since The Eighties. The series is still going. Also Ebert has written three books of essays about his favorite movies entitled The Great Movies, with these essays also available on his website in a condensed form.

He has also written Ebert's Little Movie Glossary and Ebert's Bigger Little Movie Glossary, which are books of Film Tropes in The Devil's Dictionary form. (An even bigger movie glossary is on his web page.) They could be considered a proto-TV Tropes in a sense (and the Trope Namer for many).

Another column he keeps up with is The Movie Answer-Man, where he addresses various topics given to him by reader comments. Sometimes addressing fandom aspects like...

One reader comment said that a positive review of a certain film gave him Hype Backlashinvoked while a negative review of another film made him want to see it.invoked Ebert's reply was that a critic's job is not to pass judgement on a particular movie, but to give the reader an impression as to whether or not they would want to see it themselves.
Another review he addressed the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny where one comment said that Wolverine would beat Storm in a fight because he could heal, whereas Storm would die once stabbed by Wolverine. His reply was simply a question of how could someone whose power is healing be more powerful than someone who can control the elements.

He has also written many books on great films. He has been one of the great proponents of film preservation, letterboxing (back when most televisions were square and most movies in theaters weren't), and giving credit to directors and screenwriters; he probably helped make these issues important. He has also been a proponent of seeing films in theaters, but he's accepted modern viewing habits enough to write DVD reviews. He has done a few audio commentaries notably ones for two of his all time favorite films, Citizen Kane and Dark City, which have appeared on most releases of those films on DVD.

He was one of the major opponents to Colorization. He often likes Deliberately Monochrome films, and ones that were monochrome because of when they were made, because of the light and shadow effects. He has also protested censorship in the name of Avoid The Dreaded G-Rating or avoiding the dreaded X/NC-17 rating. While he advocated for years for a properly copyrighted A rating to replace X since that sound more respectable, he had hoped NC-17 would become a respectable alternative, and was disappointed when it didn't. He's critical of what he sees as an overuse of 3D technology in recent movies.

He was screenwriter for a notoriously bad film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Since that film was released in 1970, this hasn't affected his stature as a critic much. He makes fun of it himself, but says he's proud of it regardless.

Gained a bit of flak from the gamer community when he commented video games not being an art form

, but he eventually came around

and at least decided he's not in a position to judge them. Despite that episode, he is considered as the most One of Us of major critics, as he admires Japanese animated film and has an incredible knowledge of science fiction, which is among his favorite genres. While he claims ignorance to a lot of TV shows due to his heavy schedule of writing and watching films, he's found time to become a fan of the WWE, South Park, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Also a master at uncovering the Freeze Frame Bonus — for years, he would spend a week at the University of Colorado's World Affairs Conference dissecting a film frame-by-frame with an audience's help to reveal small details.

Now we have his great movies list and his list of his least favorite movies.

Incidentally, described several tropes decades before TV Tropes even came into existance

The website of his new show can be found here

and there's an archive of the old Siskel & Ebert episodes here