The New Yorker pays tribute to Roger Ebert in “Postscript: Roger Ebert, 1942-2013.” The article states:
Ebert writes, in the introduction to his 2006 anthology of his work, “Awake in the Dark,” of seeing “three movies during a routine workday,” and, according to Douglas Martin’s obituary in the Times, Ebert “said he saw 500 films a year and reviewed half of them.” Some movies elicit passionate exultation; others, passionate revulsion. Those movies that repel you are the hardest to write about, and, for many critics, that’s the majority of movies. That’s where Ebert’s unique temperament, his humanistic world view, comes into play.
For many of us, Ebert’s essays and film reviews influenced how we watched movies as well as what movies were worth watching. Ebert’s “Two Thumbs Up” could send us rushing to the theater while a film marked thumbs down could probably wait to be seen on DVD.
Thank you Roger Ebert for your countless contributions to cinema. You will be missed.
