In the 90's, before I turned 10, there were only two ways that I knew about mainstream cinema. The most prominent way was the Academy Awards in which I would blindly guess which movie really was the Best Production Design. The other was a way that I would see more frequently year round during commercial breaks for the Simpsons and the occasional full page newspaper ad. It would almost ring in my head and became just as critical to my 90's upbringing as Bill Clinton. It may seem like a gag, but I did hear the phrase "Siskel and Ebert Give It Two Thumbs Up!" a lot. In a sense, Roger Ebert was my mentor.
I never met or knew Ebert, but he was almost always there. I unfortunately was too young to remember At the Movies when Gene Siskel was involved. Probably the biggest influence he had on me was post-millennial when I was a child. I didn't read comics or do anything that is traditionally associative of nerd culture. What I did do was read newspapers with movie reviews and clip box office reports. I was obsessed with that culture from a fairly young age. As a result, Sunday night was a time when I sat down, turned on ABC, and watched the familiar name review the movies of the week with Richard Roeper.
It was how I discovered cinema. I didn't watch a lot besides traditional kids fare when I was 10, but hearing these two men talk about film fascinated me. Even if I never heard of the film again, I was excited to know that there was something else out there. Of course, I really was excited for those weeks that a movie I wanted to see came out. What would Ebert and Roeper think? I seriously must know! Even if they didn't agree (which happened a lot), I loved hearing them because they sounded professional and could tell me why.
All of this happened six years before I ever considered film criticism as a hobby. Every Sunday I would watch At the Movies. Sometimes a new recommendation would slip through, and those were the moments you live for. I watched on and on as the show lost Ebert and featured an array of guest hosts before landing on Michael Phillips before ditching them and going to the infamous Ben duo: Lyons and Mankiewicz. By this point, I was beginning to look at film more from a critical angle.
True, I was still into bad Adam Sandler comedies, but one thing was becoming clear: I had a passion for movies. Having grown up a writer, it only seemed logical to blend the two and start a career. If Ebert hadn't convinced me that talking about movies wasn't socially barbaric, maybe my life would look differently right now. I am not claiming that he is the sole reason for my lifelong endeavor (Rolling Stone Magazine's Peter Travers can be blamed as well), but from that early age in the 90's where I knew his catchphrase, he has been in my life.
Upon graduating high school, numerous friends etched farewell messages into the pages of my yearbook. More than a few noted my obsession with film, choosing to use "I hope you become the next Ebert" as a phrase of hope. It still seems silly because admittedly, my tastes before 2007 are very juvenile and my early film reviews were probably snarky and grammatically a mess. It wasn't until college, when I took film classes, that I saw film as something more. Even then, to call me the next Ebert is somewhat of an insult, because as good as I write, it is too egotistical to ever compare me to a behemoth.
I'll admit that Ebert has rarely been my sole critic outside of that period where I watched At the Movies. While the comparisons remain sporadic, I think I see him more in reverence now. Outside of his criticisms, I don't really care to know a lot about him. What I do care about is how he possibly influenced the people that influenced me. A generation that grew up in the 90's and probably heard that "Two Thumbs Up" slogan a million times as well. People like David Chen or Katey Rich. After all, he almost served as the sole reason that there's an entire channel dedicated to film criticism called Reelz.
I suppose he serves almost as the literary hero of the modern critic. Watching old videos to prepare for this piece, I noticed one thing that was consistent: passion. He talked to people like Siskel and Roeper with ease and often humor. No matter how much they disagreed on a movie, it wasn't insulting and usually just became a long running joke among those who flocked to these people's reviews week to week.
I still occasionally popped in to read his work, if just to see where he stands. Don't get me wrong, I trust podcasts like /Filmcast and Operation Kino with more frequency, but I just love hearing anyone's opinions, notably if they are informed. At the Movies is probably a big reason for that. I even own a book of his reviews from 1990 back that I found in my garage. If one source should be held as mandatory reading, it is an early collection of Ebert. His reviews weren't usually long, but they were full of substance and often empathy and passion. I still remember his thoughts on History of the World Part 1 simply because he was great with words by comparing Mel Brooks to a frat party.
I wish that I could say something more insightful about Ebert, but I feel like just continuing to fight the good fight to post good reviews is a strong enough tribute. For the man who influenced me to hear every side of the argument, he probably helped to shape me more than I give him credit for. Maybe I look up to others more passionately, but Ebert always held a reverence in my heart just because he was more famous to me than Mel Gibson or Brad Pitt growing up. Now that is some odd juxtaposition.
If you want to see great film criticism, and not just boring old analytic talk, here is a collection of videos, as compiled on /Film by Editor-in-Chief Peter Sciretta:
It will be odd to live in a world without Ebert, especially as he was only 70. Still, his legacy lives on in a culture that benefited from his ability to turn film into a modicum of conversation. He wasn't always right, but he was passionate enough to make this career more respectable. I am sure that even months from now, I probably will still visit his site and just know that his reviews were just as entertaining as the films themselves.
It was a sad day for all movie lovers.
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