Marval Movie

If there was a source of inspiration for this blog and the way that I write reviews, it would be Roger Ebert, undeniably one of the greatest film critics of all time. Roger Ebert was the film critic for The Chicago-Sun-Times and  the star of the hit movie review show Siskel & Ebert, which ended in 1999 with the tragic dead of his partner Gene Siskel, then it became Ebert & Roeper, which was then cancelled, a new show was then produced with Roger Ebert as producer entitled Ebert presents at the movies. Yesterday as it must come to all men, Roger Ebert died, at the age of seventy from over a decades long battle with cancer.

I dont remember how I first learned about Roger Ebert, I think maybe it was sometime when I was looking up some movie reviews on YouTube and I came across an old review of Siskel & Ebert and over the the coarse of me looking up movies, these guys kept popping up again and again.

 I have always loved movies and I have always been passionate about the movies, Roger Ebert showed me that I wasn't being stupid but what I was doing was important, because movies were important. I valued his opinion above just about everybody elses that I can think of and its because of him that I was introduced to so many great movies (e.g. The Third Man, Dark City, La Dolce Vita). More than once I saw Casablanca on the shelf in a DVD store, I could have bought it but I passed on the chance why? because that DVD was not the special edition of the movie, the special edition as you might have guessed had a lot of other special features but the one I was interested in was the Commentary track by Ebert himself and what do you know it was worth it.

Of all things beyond his great analysis of movies, he was a great human being. Roger Ebert was an internationalist and never tolerated any racism or sexism. Beyond his magnificent brain I have never seen a grater love for his fellow man than Roger Ebert, he did more than shine himself, he united people and made then shine together.

Roger Ebert's last post that he made on his blog, it was titled "A Leave of Presence". You may think that reading it after his death it was a post about him knowing that the end was coming, far from it. That post was about how he needed to go into radiation treatment for his cancers return but still he had plans, he had plans to write more movie reviews, more great movie reviews, to start a new website, a Kickstarter campaign to get funding for a new "At the Movies" show and probably more things that I cant remember off the top of my head. Even at the ripe old age of seventy he still had no plans of stetting down into retirement.

Roger Ebert was married to Chaz and from the point of a humble observer, he couldn't have found a better woman to be by his side throughout his life. When I saw them together I saw that perfect piece of happiness that so many people strive for and yet so few ever achieve. My best wishes go out to Chaz at this time.

Roger Ebert's last movie review was The Host (god that's depressing), his last post on his Twitter page was a link too his "A Leave of Presence" blog post and as you'd expect his last blog post was also "A Leave of Presence".

Most of my icons are either old men or dead. Sadly that now means Roger Ebert is another one of those great people that I will never get the chance to meet. But the reason I bring that up is because they usually tell you to never meet your heroes, because they'll disappoint you. I dont think I would have been disappointed by meeting Roger Ebert because what I wanted too meet was an incredibly intelligent humble man.

What does this mean for me? This means I will still see movies, I will still review movies and to the very end I'll enjoy a good movie and be disappointed with a bad ones. But it will be strange when a big and/or beautiful movie comes out and I wont be able too look up what Ebert thought and felt about the movie.

Tilda Swinton once said about Roger Ebert "they say you are an international treasure Roger, I disagree. You are a cosmic treasure". Truer words were never spoken.

Roger Ebert 1942-2013

Note: since this post came out a new review by Roger Ebert has been posted on his website. Ebert's last movie review was in fact the Terrance Malick movie To The Wonder, this is a lot more pleasing to know that a great movie reviewer went out writing about a much more deserving movie.