(Author's Note: Mildly edited.)
If you read any of the reviews on the Ultra Hip Glorified Writer they often hint at a voice you may already know, and it's no accident.
Authors of any kind, the good ones at least, treasure above all else good writing. We take what we have heard or read and use it in our own ways, in all the words we put down. Mostly, my "voice" comes from people I admire. First and foremost my voice comes from my father, in writing and in real life but also, authors whose words I simply can't get out of my head: Bradbury, Ellison, Ginsberg and Thomas Hardy. But one voice, Roger Ebert, I usually reserve for my reviews. It is
me and yet it is
him and it has strengthened me as a writer and as a human being.
As a little boy, going to the movies was akin to going to Disneyland. I loved the heavy darkness, the scent of popcorn and sweets, the huge screen, artist pretending. It seemed odd to me as I got older, those people on the screen weren't there just for my own entertainment but the whole world. Call me a dense, stupid child if you want but I remember asking my father when the world turned to color. I had been so deeply influence by movies, and being very young, I thought everything on the screen or, on the TV, was totally, 100 % real. So if older movies were black and white I thought the "The World" was once black and white too. Movies were a very personal experience. It was magical and still is, and magic has never quite faded, even as I got older, even as I
get older. I've often thought, during those times, and after I discovered him, what would Mr. Roger Ebert think about this or that film. His opinion to me mattered even though I would watch anything: the good, the bad, the really bad and the astonishing ugly. I wanted to know if my opinion matched that of whom I consider, and probably always will, The Parton Saint of the Movies.
I never met Roger Ebert. I watched his TV program for years when he hosted with another Film Legend Gene Siskel, because, quite frankly, I had never see two adults so passionate anything, let alone movies. They were like me, a child, who loves for cinema was simple: if its good, they love it like nothing else in the universe, if it was bad, they ripped it a new one but the passion was still there.
Gene and Roger were two of my heroes. They got paid to do what I can only dream about: watching movies and writing about film. Both taught me through their distinct styles of criticism to always be honest to yourself about what you feel during a movie, not always what you see and hear. If you feel nothing then really the movie is nothing. If it's a bad film, making you feel awful, say so and still be honest. And the good films, the ones that break your heart, bring about great joy and make you see the world through new eyes, those are the most special of all, and still, be honest.
Honesty is what these two men were about. Honesty to your readers and honesty to yourself. Never have I read more truth in Roger and Gene's work then anyone else. They were deeply sincere about their professions and who they were and they never feared not being "in the crowd" if it meant saying a film was God's Awful or God-like.
But Roger, Mr. Ebert, he was the one I took after the most, even though I thought the world of Gene, who was equal in dedication and love for films as Mr. Ebert.
Reading a new review from Mr. Ebert was like opening up a present on your birthday or Christmas. The movies he reviewed might not always be good but his writing and how he always approached each film was special and true. Case & point, one of the worst films ever made but one of the best reviewed movies of all time, because Roger was so good at writing it:
Highlander 2: The Quickening.
This review was funny as hell, better then the actual film he was criticizing. I MUST read it twenty or thirty times a year because it makes laugh every, single, time.
Highlander 2 is stupid...no, more then stupid: there is not a single braincell or even the slightest of pleasant mediocrity in the whole damn film. Yet, here was someone who took a terrible source material and made joke after joke that even some comedians can't get that many laughs from. Still, the review was informative, insightful and filled with - even though the film is quite bad - a love for movies. It is my favorite of all Ebert reviews.
Everytime I write about a film, book, TV show, even video games - which Mr. Ebert mildly detested in life and said so - my very structure comes from Roger Ebert. Every time I wonder how deep I should go into the heart of any medium, Ebert was my compass. I hope one day to even write as well as Roger Ebert because he really is what every critic should strive to be and not just film criticism either, but all criticism.
I'm praying the movies will still be same without Roger Ebert but for me, when I walk out of the theater, then ask myself what would Mr. Ebert think of this film and wonder if he has a review of me to read online, and then have it hit me square in the face that he will never review a new film again...I really don't know how I will react. But there is still, and always will be, the films he loved and the already written reviews he loved to create.
To Roger Ebert's family and friends, his love is still here, for movies and for all of you.
