Roger Ebert

Ebert Presents at the Movies

Roger Ebert

Christy Lemire of The Associated Press and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of Mubi.com will be the co-hosts of “Ebert Presents at the Movies.” The two experienced and respected critics will also introduce special segments featuring other contributors and the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert.

The new weekly program debuts Jan. 21 on public television stations in 48 of the top 50 markets, representing more than 90% national coverage. It will be produced in Chicago at WTTW, where Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert began taping “Sneak Previews” some 35 years ago.

Trying to get a word in edgewise

Roger Ebert

I would fantasize about being blind or deaf. As a child or four or five I went through a weird stage where while lying in bed at night I would pretend I was paralyzed and imagine people coming to admire the brave little saint. I smiled and told them to pray the rosary. It never occurred to me that I might lose my voice. People on the street would try to sell those little cards showing a few symbols of sign language, and I assumed they were con artists.

On campus, some group had a day every year where their members walked around blindfolded to raise money for charity. They depended on the kindness of strangers. They said they were “finding out what it’s like to be blind.” They weren’t doing any such thing. They were finding out what it’s like to be blindfolded for a day. Someone who doesn’t speak for a day has no idea what it’s like to not speak at all. If you’re in a country where no one understands you — that’s not the same, because you can speak.

On the Origin of Transformers

Roger Ebert

As a admirer of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, I have become fascinated by Transformers. These are the grotesque pinheaded robots named Autobots, who pound the hell out of each other in Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” a film setting box office records.

They’re arguably the least interesting aliens in the history of science fiction, but how much can you expect from an intelligent race that began as a line of Hasbro toys? They have come a long way given their meager beginnings.

Finding my own voice

Roger Ebert

Computers can do just about everything these days, from running airplanes to carrying out labyrinthine mathematical calculations. It would seem to be such a simple thing I am asking. I would like a computer to provide me with my own voice. Many people have suggested this: “Why don’t you get someone to take tapes of your speaking voice and create a voice you can use with your computer?” They make it sound so simple. They look like they’ve had a brilliant idea. But it is not so simple.

Two years ago, I was told by helpful computer wizards at the National Center for Supercomputer Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana that such a thing was possible. There is even a company in Urbana that creates computer voices. But it appears it might cost me a small fortune to have one custom-created for me. Wouldn’t you think the same technology could be applied to create many voices? Apparently that’s not so easy.

Soon after my second surgery, when it became apparent I wouldn’t be able to speak, I of course started writing notes. This got the message across, but was too time-consuming for communications of any length. And notes were unbearably frustrating for a facile speaker like me, accustomed to dancing with the flow of the conversation. There is a point when a zinger is perfectly timed, and a point when it is pointless.

The quest for frisson

Roger Ebert

The French word frisson describes something English has no better word for: a brief intense reaction, usually a feeling of excitement, recognition, or terror. It’s often accompanied by a physical shudder, but not so much when you’re web surfing.

You know how it happens. You’re clicking here or clicking there, and suddenly you have the OMG moment. In recent days, for example, I felt frissons when learning that Gary Coleman had died, that most of the spilled oil was underwater, that Joe McGinness had moved in next to the Palins, that a group of priests’ mistresses had started their own Facebook group, and that Bill Nye the Science Guy says “to prevent Computer Vision Syndrome, every 20 minutes, spend 20 seconds looking 20 feet away.”

Grandpa Joe and Secretariat: A Christmas story

Roger Ebert

This is a story from Rachel Estrada Ryan. It tells of the love over many years that her grandfather, Joseph Triano, has held for Secretariat. And how before he died he hoped to see the movie about the great horse. I haven’t changed a word of her writing.

There’s one thing I want to say. Rachel pays me compliments. The fact is, I only did one thing to help Grandpa Joe achieve his dream. I forwarded her e-mail to my old college friend Bill Nack, who is Secretariat’s biographer. The movie is based on his book.

The movie named “f-word”

Roger Ebert

I will be using a word generally considered offensive a little later in this blog entry, so it’s only prudent to tell you now. It is not an uncommon word, and I imagine every single one of my readers if quite familiar with it but nevertheless it’s one of the new words that still possesses the power to offend.

Goodbye to all that

Roger Ebert

I sent an e-mail the other day that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to write. It was to Jim Palmer and Maura Clare at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder. I told them I wouldn’t be coming back this spring. I sent it, and stared into space, and was flooded with sadness.

I don’t intend to write here about the Conference, which has allowed me to live more than nine months of my life in Boulder, one week at a time. I wrote about CWA in a 2009 blog entry titled the Leisure of the Theory Class. I need not tell you again about Howard Higman or Daddy Bruce Jr.

Mary we crown thee with blossoms today!

Roger Ebert

My grade school couldn’t get state approval today. The teachers were unpaid and lived communally. Two grades were taught in one classroom. There were no resources for science, music, physical education, or foreign languages except the Latin of the Mass and hymns. No playground facilities. The younger students were picked up by the single school bus; as soon as we were old enough, we rode our bikes to school, even in winter.

A typical meal in the lunchroom might consist of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread, a dish of corn, a dish of fruit cocktail, and a carton of milk. On Fridays we had fish sticks or macaroni and cheese. On bad days we got chipped beef on toast, and that’s how I discovered that word. If you had a penny, you might buy a jawbreaker afterward.

I received a first-rate education. At St. Mary’s Grade School in Champaign, one block across Wright street from Urbana, were we taught by Dominican nuns who knew their subjects cold, gave us their full-time attention, were gifted teachers and commanded order and respect in the classroom. For eight years we were drilled on reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion. Periods were devoted to history, geography and science, taught from textbooks without visual aids or any other facilities. We learned how to write well, spell, and god knows we learned how to diagram a sentence. And we looped away at the Palmer Handwriting Method, neatly writing JMJ at the top of every page, for Jesus, Mary and Joseph, who would bless our lessons, but not always.

Putting a better face on things

Roger Ebert

Would I want to start over with a new face? Would I like to eat, drink, talk, and look like a normal person? Even if that person were a stranger? In theory, this is now possible. I’ve been thinking of it, on and off, for the last two weeks. I regularly visit several science websites, and from New Scientist, the invaluable British magazine, I happened upon this story:

“Yesterday it emerged that a farmer in his thirties in Spain who accidentally shot away the lower part of his face has become the first person to receive an entire face transplant. According to yesterday’s press conference, he is

The 10 best foreign films of 2010

Roger Ebert

“35 Shots of Rum”. Two couples live across the hall in the same Paris apartment building. Neither couple is “together.” Gabrielle and Noe have the vibes of roommates, but the way Lionel and Josephine love one another, it’s a small shock when she calls him “papa.” Lionel (Alex Descas) is a train engineer. Jo (Mati Diop) works in a music store. Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) drives her own taxi. Noe (Gregoire Colin) claims only his much-loved cat is preventing him from moving to Brazil.

Why are we cruel?

Roger Ebert

I was watching a movie this week, a very good one, that will open Friday here in Chicago. As sometimes happens, it led me into a realm of thinking that was not directly connected to it–or perhaps it was.

The movie is “The Mill and the Cross,” by the Polish director Lech Majewski. It literally enters into a famous painting, Bruegel’s “The Road to Calvary,” and walks around inside of it.

Think of me as the butler, Carson

Roger Ebert

For an hour before bedtime every night for a week, I’ve watched an episode of “Downton Abbey.” Last night the Earl of Grantham interrupted a garden party to announce the beginning of World War I, and I pulled up short. I was watching the first season via Netflix Instant, and inattentively failed to notice there were only seven episodes. I naturally expected ten.

Your new age, and mine

Roger Ebert

Most events called “psychic” do not take place at all, but only seem to. All the events we can perceive take place in a rational universe governed by physical laws. They can be explained by human thinking and do not require a supernatural loophole.

I’m drawn to this thinking by Clint Eastwood’s new film, “Hereafter.” You may have absorbed the idea that it’s about the afterlife. It would be fairer to say it’s about the common human need for there to be an afterlife.

When I write that I expect to experience no more after death than I experienced before birth, I receive comments from people who pity me. They wonder how I can possibly live with such a bleak prospect.