Talk:Roger Ebert

Annual ten best lists

Ebert wrote that "Movie critics are required by unwritten law to create a list of the best films of every year, and although I avoid 'best' lists whenever possible, this is a duty I fulfill." His website used to have his annual ten best lists, starting in 1967. Now when I look for it, I get an error message. It seems like it would be a useful thing to link to, especially since, as he wrote, "I find an occasional tendency to place what I now consider the year's best film in second place, perhaps because I was trying to make some kind of point with my top pick." At any rate, his annual ten best lists provide insight into his critical taste, and, as he notes, gathering a list of good films is useful.

Matt Zoller Seitz, editor of Rogerebert.com, might have the link to Ebert's annual ten best lists. Maybe we can contact him? Charlie Faust (talk) 16:43, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

"though he argued that reincarnation is possible from a 'scientific, rationalist point of view.'"

Reading what this is sourced to, this appears to be somewhat of a misrepresentation of his beliefs. He doesn't argue for reincarnation in the typical sense, but rather that"The dust we came from and the dust to which we return are not really there, but thinking makes it so...You assemble your bits, I assemble mine, and when we cease thinking they all fly back into the general pool of Everything, Everywhere. So you and I temporarily consist of ourselves, and someday may well consist of other selves. We will be back, but a precious lot of good it will do us, because we won't know it. So, yes, reincarnation is possible from a rationalist, scientific point of view. We have been and will be reincarnated as part of the vast store of everything there is. We will be suns, moon, stars, rain. Look for us in the weather reports." Which is to say (as I understand it), that our component bits are recycled, an idea that I don't think most people would call to mind when reincarnation is mentioned offhandedly. I'm not entirely sure how to sum up this belief, myself, and I'm not entirely certain how relevant it actually would be to the section AimlessNomad (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

The Advocate

We learn "Ebert was also an advocate and supporter of Asian-American cinema, famously coming to the defense of the cast and crew of Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) during a Sundance Film Festival screening when a white member of the audience asked how Asians could be portrayed in such a negative light and how a film so empty and amoral could be made for Asian-Americans and Americans. Ebert responded that 'What I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, ‘How could you do this to 'your people'?...Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to represent 'their people'!'"

That anecdote is absolutely worth noting, because of what it says about the limits of labels. Ebert understood that Better Luck Tomorrow is not "about" Asian-Americans, it's about people who happen to be Asian-American. He realized that the characters in the movie are characters in a movie and do not have to represent "their people". Does that make him "an advocate and supporter of Asian-American cinema"? He was an advocate and supporter of cinema, some of which was by or about Asian-Americans.

Other things seem worth noting, like his support for labor unions during the writers' strike. Per Laura Emerick, his Chicago Sun Times editor, “His union sympathies began at an early age. His father, Walter, worked as an electrician, and Roger remained a member of the Newspaper Guild throughout his career — though after he became an independent contractor, he probably could have opted out. He famously stood with the Guild in 2004, when he wrote to then publisher John Cruickshank that ‘it would be with a heavy heart that I would go on strike against my beloved Sun-Times, but strike I will if a strike is called.’”

Richard Corliss also recalls Ebert's union sympathies: "Mary’s layoff, and the closing of the Still Archive, became a cause celebre, and many film professionals rose to her defense; but the first one was Roger, who wrote an outraged letter to the New York Times the day after she was laid off. It was both a valued act of friendship and the declaration of a union man that the workers of the world had to stick together.

A few weeks later, on that year’s Floating Film Festival, he brought Mary into a Q&A on the book, again championing her cause (and on karaoke night sang 'The Union Maid' in her honor). He volunteered to testify for Mary in the National Labor Relations Board trial that followed; and when he was ready to issue a second volume of Great Movies, he asked Mary again to do the photo selection, though she was no longer in charge of a picture archive. It happens that, five years later, the Museum has reopened in much larger quarters, but its 4 million stills remain in cold storage in rural Pennsylvania, and Mary stills waits for both the Archive and her job to reopen." (That Corliss article is worth reading.) Charlie Faust (talk) 20:29, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Roger Ebert, Wikipedia Editor?

I was intrigued to find the following, from Guernica magazine: Roger Ebert, Wikipedia Editor.

The author doesn't know that Ebert was a Wikipedia editor, but there was an editor by the name of Rebert whose interest seemed to align pretty well with his. And people who knew him say they think it's plausible, including his wife, Chaz.

Anyone know if it was him? Charlie Faust (talk) 01:04, 22 October 2024 (UTC)