U S Film Critic Roger Ebert Dead At 70

[webfact]

U.S. film critic Roger Ebert dead at 70

CHICAGO: -- According to the Chicago Sun Times Pulitzer-Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday two days after he said his cancer of 10 years ago had returned.

"It is with a heavy heart we report that legendary film critic Roger Ebert has passed away," the newspaper where Ebert worked for decades said on Twitter.

"There is a hole that can't be filled. One of the greats has left us. Roger Ebert has passed away at the age of 70," the Chicago Sun-Times said.

According to Reuters Ebert gained national prominence in the United States with fellow Chicago film critic Gene Siskel on the television show "At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert".

After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with critic Richard Roeper, but later quit for health reasons.

Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_05/U-S-film-critic-Roger-Ebert-dead-at-70-907/

-- THE VOICE OF RUSSIA 2013-04-05

[Suradit69]

Now I really feel ancient. He wrote for the Daily Illini, the student newspaper at the University of Illinois, when I was there as an undergraduate.

Sigh.

[HeavyDrinker]

Trink was better....

[Potosi]

That's a shame. I enjoyed his reviews and best of/worst of listings, and almost always agreed. Just this week I read up on him on Wikipedia, learned he had cancer, and couldn't speak anymore since 2006.

[Wombat6]

R.I.P. A critical death.

[NomadJoe]

sucks

[rotary]

Yea Trink was lots better

[Jingthing]

I watched the Siskel and Ebert show from the early days (as an ex-Chicagoan and Cubs fan). Then Siskel died of course. I think both were good reviewers.

The personal thing about Ebert that I truly admire is that he was indeed a film fanatic and even for many years after the disease processes that were obviously killing him were apparent he did not shy from the cameras and public arena in the film world, his world, as I think most less passionate public figures probably would have. To me, he was kind of a secular version of Pope John Paul. He let the world see him dying. I think there is a beauty in that and I think he was a great example to humanity that way.

Here's an obit which expands on this. Bottom line he was NOT just another film reviewer.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/obit/2013/04/roger_ebert_obituary_dana_stevens_on_the_great_chicago_film_critic.html

Actually I hadn't realized Ebert was so into food until I read this obit. Amazing. A cookbook written by someone who can't eat or talk!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/dining/01ebert.html?pagewanted=all

It was that Ebert somehow seemed more powerful and prolific in this
late incarnation than he had before, his already formidable life force
ever more focused on the urgent, everyday task of writing and joking and
arguing about the things that really matter in life. Movies, yes, still
and always movies, but also politics and music and friendship and love and addiction and even, incredibly, food—more than four years after the last bite of solid food had passed his lips, Ebert published a cookbook
about dishes that could be made in a rice cooker, the kind of dishes he
still enjoyed preparing for his wife of 20 years, Chaz, and their
friends.

Edited April 5, 2013 by Jingthing

[rijb]

Yea Trink was lots better

Never heard of him / her / it. S & E were the best. 2 thumbs up to them.

Edited April 5, 2013 by rijb

[Jingthing]

Yea Trink was lots better

Never heard of him / her / it. S & E were the best. 2 thumbs up to them.

Old Thailand hand (jobs?) know the Trink but really there is no need for a competition with Siskel and Ebert now.

[geriatrickid]

Roger Ebert was a gentleman. He was well respected by the industry.

His wife stood by him for some of his worst years of sickness and must be quite devastated.

70 years young.........

[annabel]

Yea Trink was lots better

Is there any point in saying this in view of this man's demise ... Get real will you !! and go and voice yourselves elsewhere with due respect..! Really !!

[Jingthing]

Some pictures:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/roger-ebert-1942-2013/2013/04/04/1748edf8-9d60-11e2-9a79-eb5280c81c63_gallery.html

[keemapoot]

Yeah, I grew up watching Siskel and Ebert, and only rarely glimpsed him in later life out of country. For sure, those two were the IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, of their time, and the best authority for what movies to go see that week. I rarely disagreed with Ebert after seeing the movies he recommended. IMO, Ebert was a combination of film historian and critic, and elevated the entire discussion with his articulateness. My only gripe was how all these guys worshiped Orson Wells and Citizen Kane to no end. He was a great actor, but he was no Marlon Brando.

* in fact, as I recall, Siskel used to offer the counter-point often to Ebert for argument sake and to make the show interesting to watch, but I always suspected that Siskel privately mostly agreed with Ebert's analyses, even when he stridently appeared to disagree.

Edited April 5, 2013 by keemapoot

[Potosi]

Citizen Kane and Orson Welles? Made me curious, and I looked up Ebert's review of 'The Third Man'. This one is rated higher in Europe than 'Citizen Kane', and still regularly shown on TV.