Matt writes: At the end of a year overwhelmed with loss, it was devastating to lose two of the brightest stars in the Hollywood galaxy, a mother and daughter duo for the ages. Debbie Reynolds and her daughter, Carrie Fisher, each achieved stardom at age 19—the former in 1952’s “Singin’ in the Rain,” the latter in 1977’s “Star Wars.” These pictures will forever stand as two of the all-time greatest entertainments, and Roger Ebert penned Great Movies essays on both of them, claiming that “there is no movie musical more fun” than “Singin’ in the Rain,” while hailing “Star Wars” as a masterpiece that “melded a new generation of special effects with the high-energy action picture.”

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Matt writes: With New Year's Eve quickly approaching, movie buffs are already setting their DVRs to record annual broadcasts of Michael Curtiz's 1942 classic, "Yankee Doodle Dandy," featuring its Oscar-winning performance from James Cagney as George M. Cohan. In his Great Movies essay on the film, Roger Ebert reflected on just how large of a departure this role was for the actor.

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Matt writes: At RogerEbert.com, we recently published a thoughtful essay by Pete Croatto in which he makes his case for "why film critics should see bad movies." Of course, how can one judge what is good if they ignore what is bad? Many of Roger Ebert's most entertaining reviews were the ones where he eviscerated a bad movie with his scathing wit and unbridled love for the oft-squandered potential of the art form. Three books have been devoted to compiling the best of Roger's negative reviews, and they were recently paid tribute by critic Brent Northup in his review of "Shut In" for Helenair.com. My personal favorite of Roger's bad movie takedowns was his half-star review of 1997's disastrous live-action comedy, "Mr. Magoo."

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