Roger Ebert's Great Movies

When I was growing up "Siskel and Ebert"(the show as well as the critics) were very much in their heyday and I always found them fascinating. It seems to defy all logic that I did. I went to the movies maybe 2 or 3 times per year and there was a strict rule about only seeing movies rated G or PG. So why would a TV show where two guys discuss movies - movies that I hadn't seen and couldn't see - be interesting?

I'm not sure. I could analyze it but it's easier just to say I find movie discussion inherently interesting. Why did I love watching Bob Ross when I was never going to paint?

Roger Ebert came back to my consciousness again when I was going through the IMDB 250 list. I found some movies on the list to be absolutely unwatchable and devoid of anything worth celebrating. "How could people actually like this?", I'd wonder. But the IMDB 250 is a system of votes, not a person, you can't just ask unless you want to post that question on a forum and be dismissed as a "troll".

But I found Roger Ebert's "Great Movie" reviews online and they were the key. Even if I disagreed, even if I was absolutely unchangeable in my hatred for a particular movie, Roger Ebert usually had an essay that explained what people saw in a particular movie, what was unique about it, how it changed the history of film. Like "Siskel and Ebert", whether we agree or disagree, the discussion is still interesting.

Last May I decided to watch every movie in Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" collection and read every review. There are about 372 entries and slightly more movies in the list. There's an inexact correlation between essays and movies because one entry might be a trilogy, one essay might be about the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, one entry, "The Decalogue" is really 10 movies, and so forth. But it's around 372 and as of tonight I've finished watching every movie and reading every essay.

Now that the list is completed, I'll continue missing Roger Ebert's film reviews... and Siskel's for that matter. It's strange how they could be so successful and yet no one has come along to replace them. Perhaps the modern world is happy using review aggregators, just skip the opinion and arrive at a number. One of the knocks on film critics is that people simply don't like to be told what to watch and what not to watch. I think that misses the point. The child version of me certainly didn't see it that way watching "Siskel and Ebert" on television and I don't see it that way now.

The different reactions that movies elicit reveal the differences in the people watching them. A movie watched alone is fine but how much richer is a movie watched, discussed and contemplated with others. Yes, watch any movie you want to see and avoid any movie you don't want to see, but read the review of someone you respect, regardless. The purpose of a worthwhile review is not to tell you what to do. The purpose is simply start the conversation.