Roger Ebert was hilarious.

Looking at some of his movie reviews, I must confess that I was in hysterics. Talk about having a way with words. This Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic (the first glorified movie geek to be awarded such an accolade) could sum up his disgust at bad cinema like no other.

He was often ‘wrong’ when it came to his dismissal of what I would call some great movies, but he always gave reasons as to why he disliked a picture. Some of his reviews traumatised filmmakers. The director/producer team of Godzilla (1998) even bizarrely used a likeness of Ebert and his At the Movies co-host Gene Siskel as characters (Ebert as the bungling ‘Mayor Ebert’) in the film as some desperate form of revenge for their slating of Independence Day (1996). It’s all here: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998

There are so many hoots to choose from, but my personal favourite of his scathing reviews is his takedown of one of those depressingly soulless Transformers movies, this abomination a certain Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).

‘If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.’

Wow.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76485/35-movies-roger-ebert-really-hated

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2 thoughts on “Roger Ebert was hilarious.

  1. I’ve got a volume or two of his prose; must dig them up. As I get older, I dig his relaxed, avuncular style, which lacks the pretentions of many of his now-forgotten competitors…

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