MW Critic Review: Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert's website can be found here.
I don't really like Roger Ebert.
Not that I think he's that bad at reviewing movies -- honestly, he's probably the only critic I can reliably turn to for an even-handed assessment of a film without too many over-enthusiastic exclamations that are in there for the sake of being quoted in the commercial. (Even though the guy's thumb is in every movie commercial that can shove it in there. Really, it's the most whorish thumb in all of criticdom.)
No, here's the thing about old Roger. He forefeited his critic pass about 35 years ago, when he started writing screenplays for noted boobie movie maven Russ Meyer. Don't believe me? Here are the IMDb entries.
Now, don't get me wrong here. There's nothing wrong with boobie movies. There's certainly a place for them, and in many cases I endorse them wholeheartedly. Because... I mean, boobies.
However, once you've been credited as a screenwriter for a boobie movie, I'm not really sure I can believe you when you tell me that "Basic Instinct 2" is godawful. Of course, I'm sure the movie is altogether vomitous, but that's irrelevant here. It doesn't change the fact that you wrote a movie called "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens," which, social satire or not, was still made exclusively for the sake of filming lots and lots of titties (but, granted, much more attractive ones than Sharon Stone's now-geriatric mammaries).
I mean, come on, thst's no different from me trying to pass off a legitimately critical review of, say, "Silent Hill" after shopping around my unsold screenplays for "The Story of Creepy Town: Shit, What a Creepy Town" and "Monsters Having Really Distgusting Sex with Each Other 11." (Studio executives, take note.)
If Roger Ebert were just the guy who wrote reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times, I really wouldn't have any issue with the guy. His reviews are generally well-informed and relatively on-point, though he does miss one every once in a while (I'm still holding a minor grudge about the first "Spider-Man"). But he's not just that guy. There's also boobie movie Ebert, and then there's TV Ebert, who just annoys and annoys and annoys with his constant up-or-down thumbery and constant bickering with the late Gene Siskel or whatever new schmuck is sitting beside him at any given moment.
It's the unyielding plight of every newspaper writer who goes into television. At some point, they forget that they went into print for a reason, and that often that reason is that, while their writing is genuinely very enlightening and charismatic, in person, they're actually sort of grating. Probably the best example of this phenomenon is just about every sports columnist who shows up on ESPN on those afternoon "let's shout at each other" shows. And Ebert's a little guilty of it too.
Also, he had his picture taken with Joan and Melissa Rivers. That's got to dock the guy a few points. So, Ebert, you'd better be glad your print reviews are so good, or else you wouldn't be earning the strictly middle-of-the-road...
SALMON
--------