Apr 5, 2013

[Movies] Celebrating Roger Ebert (1942-2013)


Earlier today, the Chicago Sun-Times published a brilliant obituary for longtime movie critic Roger Ebert. He had died at the age of 70 and had been working with the paper for just over 46 years now. His last blog post, A Leave of Presence, published just a few days ago, already indicated that he needed more of his time and effort to focus on his on-going struggle with cancer.

I post movie reviews 2-3 times a week here on the Geeky Guide - the account for more than any other content that I post here. And while I've loved the movies most of my life, Roger Ebert helped me better appreciate good movies and acted as an inspiration for my own movie reviews. I'd go as far as saying that I actually calibrate my reviews with his from time to time just to see where our opinions would differ. I know that I will never become a writer quite as good as him, but I do try my best to do him justice.

More than just a critic, he was a man who genuinely loved movies and it showed in his writing. He has always had a rather savvy way of expressing himself whether in his reviews, his books or even his social media interactions (and he was quite active on the web). Heck, he would faithfully submit entry's to the New Yorker's cartoon caption of the week contest. I have never met him, but all signs point to him being quite the genuine individual and a newspaperman at heart. And that's pretty inspiring.

So today we celebrate all that was Roger Ebert and the impact he's had on the movie-watching world at large. Two thumbs up, sir! We'll see you at the movies.


A few links of interest:


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