Popular reviews

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  Review by Will Sloan 8

  Roger Ebert has been on my mind because it only recently occurred to me that there is now an entire generation of young cinephiles with no living memory of the many years he occupied the absolute centre of film discourse. When he died I remember a lot of people wondering what would happen to film culture without his presence as an ambassador of cinema to the layman. Who would fight back against corporate PR and introduce ordinary people to "The Great Movies"? Well here we are seven years later, and I'm still not sure.

  Ebert consciously sought to be America's Film Critic - the middle of the middle of the middle. But when Martin Scorsese says in this documentary “He…

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  Review by Adam Kempenaar ★★★★ 5

  Director Steve James came to one of my U. of Chicago cinéma vérité classes for a Q&A, and Filmspotting donated money to the Indiegogo campaign to complete this doc. You'll find the show name listed in the credits, amongst a multitude of other eager contributors.

  So there are my disclosures -- though unlike most Chicago critics whose comments you might read or hear, I don't have to bother disclosing a personal connection to the subject. I never met Roger Ebert. As I mentioned during our tribute to him last April, he responded to an email I sent him once, disputing something he said in his review of Woody Allen's SWEET AND LOWDOWN... And I sat in front of him at…

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★

  I haven’t watched this movie since it first came out — frankly, because I find parts of it painful. I’m watching a man I basically considered my hero die. Powerful, yes. Fun, no.

  I look back at my first Letterboxd review of Life Itself, and see that I described it as “a bit of a ‘And then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened...’ documentary.” On this viewing, I found more nuance. In a way that’s both fitting and poignant for a story about a man who lost his voice, Life Itself contains many voices. It includes many different narrators: Steve James, Ebert’s words spoken by computerized dictation, and a soundalike reading from Ebert’s memoir, among others.…

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★★

  LIFE ITSELF opens with Roger Ebert's famous quote about cinema as an empathy machine, and in its best moments Steve James' documentary about Ebert's life embodies that philosophy in a way few films do.

  My admiration for (and, in later years, acquaintance with) the subject means my opinion should be taken with at least a couple grains of salt. In some ways, though, I might be a tougher audience for the film than most. After all, I know a lot about this guy's life already, and it's conceivable that one could make a version of this doc that would bore me with platitudes and familiar stories. Thankfully, James mixes Ebert's more famous escapades with more unexpected anecdotes and touches. And…

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  Review by Aaron ★★★★ 11

  “The purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy.”

  I have no way of reviewing Life Itself objectively. Not as I wipe the tears from my eyes.

  Roger Ebert did not make me love the movies. But he helped me appreciate them in ways deeper and broader than I otherwise would have known possible. Reading his reviews, with their impeccable balance of the conversational and the insightful, the welcoming and the sophisticated, I became aware of how much the movies could say. How much they could show. How they could teach you and inspire you and…

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  Review by Lucy ★★★½

  movies are magical. roger knew it, and i can relate. as corny as it may sound, watching this only solidifies my deep passion and love for movies, and i hope to revolve my life around them in the years to come, truly.

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½ 1

  beautiful, and maybe the only movie I've seen that's made me breathlessly excited to get home and write about a different one. admittedly tough to suss through its merits, at least at the moment.

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 6

  For a long time I heard about this documentary, and I finally watched it and boy was it good.

  I've never seen any of the Siskel and Ebert episodes, but as a cinephile, I was always aware of them, and Ebert is certainly an idol to which any film critic and even amateur reviewer on a social platform like this should aspire. His commitment to this craft, even at its darkest hours, is equally admirable.

  I would have liked to learn more about his upbringing and his passion for movies, however I believe the documentary fell short. I won't deny that his appearance caught me off guard, not knowing the whole surgery with the cancer, but it was fantastic to…

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  Review by kevintporter ★★★½

  Two decades ago, before Film Twitter and Letterboxd and The Discourse could take root to rot my thoughts, I only wanted to know what one other person had to say about the movies I was watching.

  My mom bought me the 2003 Roger Ebert movie yearbook (back when printing out a small portion of the internet was a viable business model). I checked his website religiously and stayed up very late to watch Ebert and Roeper in late night syndication on the Houston affiliate. Back in 2001, if I wanted to see clips of movies it was that or waiting for the Oscars to come back.

  Before I had the faculty to articulate my own opinions, I lived vicariously through…

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  Review by Michael Offerosky ★★★★★

  I remember growing up and always watching SISKEL & EBERT. They helped foster my love of movies. Then, of course, Siskel died of brain cancer but Ebert remained. I read his reviews online pretty religiously and did not always agree but I knew that the man had put thought and care into what he had written. One particular review that always annoyed me was his pan of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Word has it that it was his wife, Chaz's favorite movie so I wonder if they ever had any discussion about that. Another review that stuck in many readers craw was his violent rebuke of BLUE VELVET both in writing and on his show. This review gets briefly talked about in…

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★½

  66/100

  Weirdly, the most affecting moment for me was the revelation that this film's primary marketing image—Ebert sitting alone in a movie theater, gazing avidly up at the screen (see the current poster here)—is cropped from a photo that originally included Gene Siskel right next to him. Not to diminish Ebert's considerable solo achievements, but his relationship with Siskel really deserved a more substantial film of its own, as their love-hate relationship is the sole element here that transcends conventional bio-doc hagiography. I found myself constantly wishing for more Gene, and grateful whenever that wish was granted, e.g. Ebert's transparency regarding his cancer being characterized as a refutation of Siskel's secrecy about his brain tumor. (It's also exceedingly weird that Richard…

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  Review by Esteban Gonzalez ★★★★ 3

  “Look at a movie that a lot of people love and you'll find something profound no matter how silly the film may seem.”

  Life Itself is a touching documentary directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters) about the life of the beloved film critic, Roger Ebert. The documentary is based on Ebert’s 2011 memoir of the same name, Life Itself, and it follows his journey as a young boy growing up in a small Illinois town, his education and early success as a print journalist, his struggle with alcoholism, his achievements at the Sun-Times as a film critic which garnered him a Pulitzer Prize, his marriage to Chaz, his collaboration with Siskel on their national televised show At…