If you’re like me, then for the past year you’ve probably spent a lot of time thinking, “I wish I knew what Roger Ebert thought about this movie.” Roger has been fighting complications from mouth cancer, and as a result has been absent from his show, and for the better part of the year absent from writing reviews in print as well. The show continues to struggle onward without him, using a rotating plate of fill-in guest hosts like Dallas’s own Robert Wilonski and Cinema Blend friend/nemesis Kevin Smith, but there’s just no substitute for the real deal. Even when he’s wrong, even when he’s completely insane, he’s still Roger Ebert. America’s film critic of record. The rest of us can only hope to fill in around the edges.
Well Roger has been back for a few weeks now, in print if not on television. He’s returned to writing reviews for the Chicago Sun Times as well as on his website. That’s great, it’s wonderful to see him doing what he loves again in some capacity, but it’s not much help for those of us who’ve been wondering what Roger would think of movies like The Fountain or Ratatouille. Well Ebert feels our pain.
He’s recently started going back, reviewing some of the movies he missed during his convalescence. In his review of The Fountain Ebert claims to have the whole movie figured out, and gives it a woefully underrated 2 and a half stars. He’s wrong, but it’s great to read what he’s thinking on Aronofsky’s ambitious mind-bender. He also loved Ratatouille, says The Prestige is missing the prestige (wrong again Roger), and doesn’t find Fincher’s Zodiac as boring as everyone else did.
If you’re a fan of Roger, then take a minute to click over to his review page and follow along as he doubles back to play catch up.
