Roger Ebert is a condescending cunt. He could take his pulitzer prize and shove it in his artificial jaw.
Roger Ebert is a condescending cunt. He could take his pulitzer prize and shove it in his artificial jaw.
yeah but hes a funny condescending cunt. completely wrong on video games though.
He's wrong on a lot of things and not just video games. Lest we forget this is the same bubble dick that gave Die Hard a 2 star review back in the day.
I'm not a fan of his "just because I've been writing about film for 30 yrs it makes me an authority and you're not" stance. It's one thing to have a differing opinion RE: his negative review for The Raid as opposed to every other big time reviewers praise of the same movie.
It's another to try to paint everybody who loved that movie with one brush as shallow people with the attention span of a house pet. While never realizing that just because he didn't find character moments in there and things of that sort it doesn't mean that they weren't there. Like he also did in said review.
He claims to love silent cinema so much yet couldn't grasp that alot of the emoting in this movie was done through pure physicality like characters conveying pure fear or concern for others with their eyes and not just dialogue like in silent pictures.
It's the same thing with the first Burton Batman movie and something Siskel always pulled his card on regarding that movie since a lot of Bruce Wayne's pain and conflict and obsession was displayed through Keaton's physicality in and out of the suit.
Not through unnecessary exposition like in the Nolan movies like he loves and claims he always wanted. Cause cinema is a visual art form first and foremost and it's key rule is "Show don't tell". It's a deliberate stylistic choice made by Burton as an homage to silent films and a the reason he picked Keaton was BECAUSE of the eyes for that reason. I can't see how a "film expert" could not even grasp that as it's a very obvious thing to anybody who understands the cinematic language.
I can't name one person who weren't charmed by a few of the character moments in The Raid because of how well executed and logical they actually were. Just type "Raid Mad Dog" in google search for example and you'll see cult like admiration of a VILLAIN in a movie because of his damn principles. Nor anybody who doesn't understand which character the tacked on Redemption subtitle could be referring to when there are 2 possible choices by the film's end.
Then he makes a follow up post to people who pointed stuff like this out and how he's also praised movies for having the exact sames flaws he found in the movie (Ie: Speed 2 amongst countless others like Bayformers) still insisiting that his view is the only valid one while contradicting many of his past points in older reviews in one fell swoop proving his detractors right all due to stubborness that his massive ego can't let go of.
I can't take people like that seriously. I don't give a fuck what they won or how well respected in their profession they are cause that shit is not professional behavior. It's the type of shit that could only be countered with "get over yourself dude cause at the end of the day I didn't write Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."
Last edited by Broddie; 04-06-2012 at 01:27 AM.
I knew you were going to bring up his review of The Raid, lol. I don't agree with Ebert half the time but the man is the last great writer in the ever-expanding bubble of amateur bloggers posing as professional reviewers. And it's not just Burton's Batman, Broddie, Ebert pretty much disliked all of Burton's early work despite them all largely being considered classic cinema now.
my dad summed up roger ebert pretty good one time.
"When he says a movie's good, 90% of the time it is. When he says a movie's bad, 75% of the time it's not."
Outside of that period after his near fatal surgery where he would give shit smeared across a film roll four stars, this is pretty much spot-on.Originally Posted by Earth-2 Superman
I'd say that's a very gross overestimation but then I assume your father is nowhere near the movie geek that I am either. Not to say that I never agreed with the guy either (even when he panned something I really liked) but it's more like 70% (and even that is being generous). Let's look at action/sci-fi for example; for every Dark City there is a Chronicle, I am Legend , Minority Report or The Matrix Reloaded in his review bank. If I only went to the movies based off his reviews I'd be pissed at the amount of money that I've wasted over the years. He's pretty damn unreliable for my tastes
I actually think certain bloggers have gotten better with their writing than he is right now (Ie: Drew McWeeny). The man is a shell of what he was during his prime (the 80's) in terms of his writing. No more different with certain pretenses and biased condescension than many of the amateur blogger/arm chair critics that you find today. It seems like the more he writes the less subjective he's become and the more it comes across as "I'm right and you're wrong dear reader so eat a dick."
u know, south park make be a little esoteric to some people now that theres not as many jokes about slutty moms and singing turds, but its still smarter and funnier than most other shows on TV.
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