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Post by sgev1977 on Dec 21, 2017 12:20:45 GMT
I have seen short videos of their show and I saw very late ones when Siskel wasn’t around anymore and Ebert invited people like A.O. Scott and others but I can’t say I’m really familiar with them. I read him so I knew him for his writing work.
The documentary was very interesting because Siskel and him weren’t friends just colleagues and the “fights” on screen weren’t exactly acted. There were a lot of real passion involve in those shows.
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Post by mllemass on Dec 21, 2017 12:31:29 GMT
When they became more famous, they would go on talk shows like The Tonight Show together. It was usually around Oscar time. You could tell they didn't really like each other and were kind of stuck doing these interviews. I think there was even some competition over which one got to sit in the chair across from Johnny Carson, and which one had to sit on the couch. I think they took turns and kept track of whose turn it was!
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Post by sgev1977 on Dec 21, 2017 12:41:48 GMT
The sincerity of their profiles was in part what did that documentary so endearing. They didn’t like each other, it explained how their personalities were so different but respected both of them. Neither was the villain or was wrong. Just two very different human beings who disliked each other but were a very successful team, too. Also the way they dealt with their deaths. Siskel was discreet and wanted privacy meanwhile Ebert was very open. Again no one was wrong just different personalities.
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Post by queenzod on Dec 21, 2017 13:33:04 GMT
I saw Roger Ebert once, in the audience in a play in London. I think it was Judy Dench. Anyway, he was sitting at the other end of our row, the second row. There was no one between us and him, the entire row had emptied out for the interval. My mother, who was sitting next to me, said in a loud voice, “he’s fatter in real life!” I was appalled. His head whipped around and I knew he’d heard her. It was so embarrassing. I wanted to go over and apologize, but didn’t. Actually, I wanted my mom to go over and apologize, but everyone just acted like it hadn’t happened. You know, how people do.
Years later, when I heard he was dying, I wrote him an email. I related the story to him, and told him it had bothered me so much over the years, that even though my mom was gone I wanted to write to him and apologize. I said I heard he’d been having a rough go of things (he’d lost the ability to speak by then), and I just wanted to know how much joy he’d brought me over the years, and how he really taught me how to watch a movie and analyze it.
He wrote me back! He graciously said he didn’t remember the incident but that it was thoughtful of me to write him. He thanked me for my note, and said a few more things. I was so impressed. I’m pretty sure it was him and not some secretary answering his email. He was a good guy with a deep love of film and movies.
I just looked up the date. The play was Filumena, in 1998.
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Post by sgev1977 on Dec 21, 2017 13:39:56 GMT
That's a lovely story! I remember that in Life Itself, the documentary, he is seen on his hospital bed with a laptop, writing. He didn't stop writing until the end so I'm sure it was him!
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Post by roverpup on Dec 21, 2017 16:19:17 GMT
What a great story QZ!! Thanks for telling it here!
:-))
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Post by sgev1977 on Jan 12, 2018 0:36:22 GMT
That’s what I meant when I posted about Rex Reed:
I really dislike him. Always do but using his age and asking for his job is hypocritical and vile, especially because the thing they are criticizing has always been his style and,
It seems it still works so maybe he is not from another time at all! Now if “young critics” really want to finish him maybe they should stop publishing articles about his silly antics in their own clickbaity sites and don’t give the guy more traffic!
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Post by igs on Jan 12, 2018 5:43:59 GMT
I don't care if Rex Reed is old. But if he can't even get the names of the people whose works he is reviewing right then at least someone should proof-read him before they let his stuff go online. I mean "Benecio del Toro's The Shape of Water"? Why isn't the Observer embarrassed about having sloppy, inaccurate reviews posted under their name? I don't care what "young critics" whine about, whining for the wrong reasons doesn't mean they don't have a point.
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Post by sgev1977 on Jan 12, 2018 12:01:26 GMT
The point is his work is not film criticism. He has always been more a gossip columnist than a film critic. His work is make fun of people and make people angry. It’s to cause polemic and even when he is really old he is doing it in a big time!
Twitter critics and young critics from the “woke” school are angry at him in big part because his discriminatory comments but at the same time their criticism to him is reduced to make vile comments about his age. They are hypocrites!
Also the Benicio/Guillermo Del Toro error was more a editorial error. I mean he is awful and commits huge errors describing plots, criticizes things he hasn’t watched complete and yes,is very offensive but if I remember well, he called Guillermo Del Toro, Guillermo the actual text (although he said he was from Spain! that was an error which I remember The Radio Time also committed years ago and never corrected, by te way) the error was in a box with the credits and on a tweet by the newspaper, I think. I always thought that maybe it wasn’t necessarily him but still it helped with the clicks! Sadly that’s how Internet works.
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Post by sgev1977 on Feb 24, 2018 13:05:24 GMT
www.worldofreel.com/2018/02/black-panther-doesnt-live-up-to-hype.htmlI haven’t watched the movie but I saw a few tweets by Argentine critics talking about how it’s not considered right to say Black Panther is not a great movie even when it’s not (and that’s “not good” to say something positive about Woody Allen films neither!). And they aren’t even Americans! Black Panther is a phenomenon. That’s for sure! But this kind of behavior by movie critics is worrying! I can’t forget how one of those profesional Twitter critics was “happy” after the Nate Parker’s scandal because he finally could publicly say he hated his UNTIL then acclaimed movie The Birth of a Nation!!! He is a black director directing a film about an important real life black figure after the #OscarsoWhite campaign: he is great and deserves all the awards!!! Wait he and his scriptwriter raped a woman, who later committed suicide. Ok, I never liked his movie! It’s embarrassing! EDITED: Here is the review by the Argentine critic. It’s in Spanish but it also has very interesting points: www.micropsiacine.com/2018/02/estrenos-critica-pantera-negra-ryan-coogler/Again I haven’t watched it nor any movie with Black Panther in it but this critic is not the first person who I read saying the actor/character is not very charismatic (“the superhero with less grace in Marvel”) and that Michael B. Jordan as the villain is the real star.
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