The New York Times recently ran a nice piece describing the impact Roger Ebert has had on the world of movie critique (the thumbs up/down rating system included), which had previously been relegated to newspapers and magazines. The show Siskel and Ebert became famous for the on-air debates they brought to American living rooms, making film criticism fun to watch and accessible to the regular moviegoer.
Unfortunately, Ebert recently wrote that due to surgical complications, he will no longer be able to do the TV show and will return to only doing written reviews. This makes me sadly nostalgic for the way he used to duke it out with his co-hosts over whether or not a movie is worth our while.
What about you? Will you miss Ebert's recommendations on TV?
I love Roger Ebert and am so sad about his illness and that he can no longer do the show — in addition to the impact he's had on film critique, he's amazingly intelligent and thoughtful. Even his most straightforward movie reviews were well thought out.
At the very least, I'm glad he's still able to write, as his written reviews for the Sun-Times used to be the first thing I looked up online after I saw a movie!
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