5 Cult Classics That Roger Ebert Thumbed Down!
Legendary Film buff Roger Ebert is a well regarded legend with his wealth in in-depth film reviews. However, there a number of times that I’ve felt that Mr. Ebert tragically missed the point.
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times Critic Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 — April 4, 2013) was a well respected man, a legend then, a legend now, with his wealth of writings and powerful spot-on film reviews. He was often referred as “the most powerful pundit in America” in the past but more commonly and more recently as “the best-known film Critic in America.”
There have been many film critics in the world, but no one seems as influential as Roger Ebert. If you check the wikipedia page of any movie, it’s very likely that, in the reception section, they would have mentioned “what was Roger Ebert’s reception to this movie”. If you just google any movie, on the right hand side of the page they show a brief snapshot, where again it is highly likely that you will see Roger Ebert’s score for the movie alongside Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb, Metacritic etc.
So Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Metacritic show aggregated results, but RogerEbert.com is just another website reviewing good or bad movies and Roger Ebert is just one man. What makes him so special?
Well, for starters, Roger Ebert was known for his no-nonsense style of writing. But his not so nonsensical style of reviews, mixed with razor sharp sarcasm and the use of creative and bizarre, but apt metaphors abled him to reach more movie fans than any other critic (via television and print). He became the first movie critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975. He was also the first film critic to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006.
Roger Joseph Ebert was more than just an American film Critic. He was “the Film Critic.” He was a historian, a journalist, a screenwriter, and a renowned author. Officially sanctioned, as the Film Critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013 (from cancer). He was the most successful movie critic in cinema history, when one thinks of his establishing a rapport with both serious cineastes and the movie-going public and reaching more movie fans via television and print than any other critic. It took 28 years for another film critic, Stephen Hunter, to win journalism’s top tchotchke, since Ebert won and became the first and only movie critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. His opinions likely were relied on by more moviegoers than any other critic in cinema history, making Roger Ebert the gold standard for film criticism.
“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” — Roger Ebert;
His reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the US and abroad. He teamed up with Gene Siskel, film critic for the Chicago Tribune (a fierce rival of the Sun-Times), to create the show “Sneak Previews” on public television. It was famous for the phrase “two thumbs up” which they trademarked. However they often disagreed on their opinion of a movie.
He co-wrote the screenplay for “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” and other films with Russ Meyer. He wrote more than 20 books, mostly collections of reviews, but also others, such as “Perfect London Walk”. He was the winner of several awards and was nominated for many more, including 10 Emmy Awards.
He estimated that he saw more than 10,000 films in his lifetime. So that’s gotta’ be something right?
For me, he’s everything I know about movies. His reviews were the best, and the most reliable ones to follow. Even when I’ve disagreed with one of his reviews, his well thought out and cleverly crafted piece still make powerful points. However, there a number of times that I’ve felt that Mr. Ebert tragically missed the point. So on this Hub right here, I’ll give you the top 5 classics that the late great Roger Ebert actually didn’t get.
The Five Films
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
(Dir. Bryan Singer, 1995) Rating: 1.5/4 — Review by Roger Ebert
“Once again, my comprehension began to slip, and finally I wrote down: ‘To the degree that I do understand, I don’t care.’ It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand. It was just that there was less to understand than the movie at first suggests.” — Roger Ebert.
Can this be right? Yep, he only rewards a movie that many friends, colleagues, and family have considered one of the best movies ever with one and a half stars. Can the late great Roger Ebert truly be among the out-of-it straight laced critics that horribly misjudged this undeniably influential beyond words cult classic? Nope! But what a shame.
It’s obvious that he had seen so many Plot twisting films already that the Usual Suspects didn’t seem all that entertaining to him even with that monstrous Plot twist at the end. (The plot twist was the crux point for this movie as well as lot of other films during the 90’s. For instance, the Sixth Sense wasn’t supposed to be such a hit and liked by so many people since it’s basically just a ghost story with a kid who ‘sees dead people’ and Bruce Willis a.k.a. John McClane, but that plot twist at the end makes it a noteworthy, and eventually gives it the ‘best picture’ Oscar nod. But without the plot twist it’s just a not-so-stupid ghost story, nothing more). So, It seems Mr. Ebert felt that the ending was somewhat anticlimactic, but he should’ve given it the genre-twisting credit that it deserved. Not that I’m a bitter fanboy or anything, but the film as a whole has plenty of merits. It is rated #22 with an 8.7 rating on IMDB. It is a very popular movie, loved my millions. I enjoyed it. I thought it was interesting and I am still surprised by it every time I see it. Was it hard to follow? Yes. But it was hard to follow in the same way that Memento was. It is actually fun to try and figure out what was actually going on. And of course, Kevin Spacey stole the show and eventually won an Oscar for it.
FIGHT CLUB
(Dir. Peter Fincher, 1999) Rating: 2/4 — Review by Roger Ebert
Two stars. Roger loves the first couple of acts but hates the concluding act. This is not from a guy who wouldn’t know the Pixies if they were stuck on the same elevator. But Mr. Ebert, didn’t like it overall even though it’s one of the most popular film of all time. I wish I could make him watch it again so he could tell me how ‘what is set up in the first third’ would work ‘better done another way’ and we would’ve been square.
BEETLEJUICE
(Dir. Tim Burton, 1988) Rating: 2/4 — Review by Roger Ebert
Again 2 stars. Where’s the love for Tim Burton’s maniacal masterpiece? It’s times like this that you just have to remember this is the guy who gave Cop And A HALF and HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE rave reviews.
HEATHERS
(Dir. Michael Lehmann, 1989) Rating: 2.5/4 — Review by Roger Ebert
Two and a half stars. I mean COME ON! This is a bonafide classic and Ebert’s baffled review is painful to read. He wrote “Is this a black comedy about murder or just a cynical morality play?” Jesus, Roger — if you have to ask…
DON’T LOOK BACK
(Dir. D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) Rating: 3/4 — Review by Roger Ebert
Okay, so he gave this rock doc three stars, but don’t let that fool you. He disses Bob Dylan to such a degree in his review that it’s hard to take. I mean, read this sample: “What a jerk Bob Dylan was in 1965. What an immature, self-important, inflated, cruel, shallow little creature, lacking in empathy and contemptuous of anyone who was not himself or his lackey. Did we actually once take this twirp as our folk god?” Can you believe that? Is Ebert, who wrote two separate reviews of this flick (first in ’68 on the movie’s original run and then again in ’98 on its re-release) that out of touch?
I thought it was pretty much accepted that Dylan was putting on those who were asking him square questions and having fun with the media juggernaut. I mean just a couple years before DON’T LOOK BACK was filmed (yes, I’m looking back) Newsweek wrongly accused him of plagiarizing his classic song “Blowing In The Wind,” and countless bandwagon jumpers had co-opted Bob’s simple plaintive messages for their own cynical purposes.
I can’t imagine Dylan at that age and time reacting any other way and I can’t quite process this judgement (or lack of). To Ebert’s credit he nailed Bob’s self indulgent MASKED AND ANONYMOUS monstrosity in a scathing 2003 review, but that doesn’t make right his insulting remarks about one of the most influential film portraits of an artist at his prime in existence.
A Formal Judgement On A Disputed Matter
(I’m dropping my ‘Office Etiquette’, for the following segments).
This isn’t something I just gobbled up due to a certain point of view. This is just a plain old criticism of the man who taught me everything about movies. But these five ratings never made sense for me. Although he was the same guy who had criticised The Godfather: Part II at one point of his life.
He finishes off by saying, “…Coppola is unable to draw all this together and make it work on the level of simple, absorbing narrative. The stunning text of ‘The Godfather’ is replaced in ‘Part II’ with prologues, epilogues, footnotes, and good intentions.”
Roger later added this to his Great Movies series, but in that review said, “Of all of the reviews I have ever written, my three-star review of ‘Part II’ has stirred the most disagreement. Sometimes it is simply cited as proof of my worthlessness. I’ve been told by many that “Part II” is a rare sequel that is better than the original. Have I changed my mind? No. I have read my review of ‘Part II’ and would not change a word.”
Roger only gave this great, great movie 3 stars in his original review, was way, way off. As he later said that he didn’t wanted to change any of those words, and he never did. But one can only imagine The Godfather: Part II getting a perfect score. Anything less than that is strictly absurd. Since fourteen critics and fifteen directors included this sequel in their list of the greatest movies of all time in the Sight and Sound Poll, I think they all probably thought the narrative was pretty absorbing.
Some other surprising films Ebert gave “Thumbs Down” to include: Die Hard, Unforgiven, The Untouchables, Full Metal Jacket, Blue Velvet, and even more shocking is to see A Clockwork Orange and To Kill a Mockingbird making the worst reviewed list as well.
While some surprising movies that scored his “Thumbs Up” include: Paul Blart: Mall Cop, “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan, Benji: The Hunted and Speed 2: Cruise Control.
Almost all the movies he reviewed over the years were great — others, not so much. Reading Roger’s passionate praise of exemplary filmmaking was a treat for readers, but his take-downs of the very worst of box offices provided another kind of joy.
Roger was also skeptical of the recent resurgence of 3D effects in film, which he said to have found unrealistic and distracting.
In Conclusion
Roger Ebert died on a Thursday, on April 3rd of 2013, at the age of 70 after a long battle with cancer, a shock to those of us who have loved and admired his work for so long. Just a week before that, he stepped down from his post as the lead film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, citing a “Leave of Presence.” He promised to still review films, focusing only on the ones he really wanted to cover. Roger Ebert wasn’t going away; he was just scaling back his work to focus on his health.
Even if we never got those promised extra years with Roger Ebert, his legacy lived on in the passion of his craft. Ebert lovers know that few reviews are quite as passionate as the films he despised, which he was famous for taking to task. Even when I didn’t agree with him, I always adored his inexhaustible wit. He wrote his reviews as he lived his life: Fearlessly!
Roger Ebert is and forever will be “the Greatest Movie Critic.” (R.I.P.)
© 2016 Asif Ahsan Khan; Originally published at hubpages.com.
