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Do you remember what a movie should look like? Do you notice when one doesn't look right? Do you feel the vague sense that something is missing? I do. I know in my bones how a movie should look. I have been trained by the best projection in the world, at film festivals and in expert screening rooms. When I see a film that looks wrong, I want to get up and complain to the manager and ask that the projectionist be informed. But these days the projectionist is tending a dozen digital projectors, and I will be told, "That's...

"Death disports with writers more cruelly than with the rest of humankind," Cynthia Ozick wrote in a recent issue of The New Republic. "The grave can hardly make more mute those who were voiceless when alive--dust to dust, muteness to muteness. But the silence that dogs the established writer's noisy obituary, with its boisterous shock and busy regret, is more profound than any other. "Oblivion comes more cuttingly to the writer whose presence has been felt, argued over, championed, disparaged--the writer who is seen to be what Lionel Trilling calls a Figure. Lionel Trilling? "Consider: who at this hour (apart...

<p>I feel like my arm is all warmed up and I don’t have a game to pitch. I was primed to review "Atlas Shrugged." I figured it might provide a parable of Ayn Rand’s philosophy that I could discuss. For me, that philosophy reduces itself to: "I’m on board; pull up the lifeline." There are however people who take Ayn Rand even more seriously than comic-book fans take "Watchmen." I expect to receive learned and sarcastic lectures on the pathetic failings of my review.</p>

This weekend, American soldiers have once again stepped into harm’s way, as Operation Odyssey Dawn begins in Libya. Coincidentally, we’re also passing through a pop-culture moment of some significance, as a sizable portion of our cultural elite find themselves strongly at odds with audiences over an unexpectedly popular movie, Battle: Los Angeles. Pop-culture criticism can be a tricky affair. Critics often praise a film that audiences ignore, or vice versa. What’s interesting in this case is how profound the disconnect has become. Battle: LA passed the $60 million mark at the box office this weekend, but many critics don’t just...

It's been a while since Roger Ebert has caught our attention here at NewsReal Blog. For a while there, it seemed as though nary a week went by without him spouting off some unintelligible nonsense about the Gulf oil spill or the Ground Zero Mosque. Like many of the sanctimonious Hollywood egos whose work he critiques, Ebert has something of a bully pulpit as a result of being such an accomplished film critic. He can't help but take advantage of it to spout off on matters beyond his comprehension. I've highlighted before how horrible Ebert's writing is on any topic...

One would think that a fellow as ravaged by cancer as Roger Ebert would find his soul a bit less rancorous toward others. One would think that a man that has had such pain would not wish pain on others. But Roger Ebert is a liberal. Pain and hate is what they do. Proof of this is in the latest hatred that spewed from Roger Ebert's keyboard over the Thanksgiving holiday. While everyone else was enjoying family and thanking God for their bounty, this black-souled, venom-spitting, hatemonger was taking a little time out of his holiday to wish ill on...

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...

When you love a given film and the guy next to you doesn’t, what do you think? Who cares, right? After all, taste is subjective. Newsreal Blog managing editor David Swindle and I often discuss and debate films we’ve seen. Now, I’ve studied film formally for years. Does this make my opinion more important? Perhaps for some academics, but does this make Swindle’s opinion useless? Most certainly not. My view of film is often based in academia and film history while Swindle’s is based in the comparison to other contemporary films. Both views are justified and have their place. We...

If you would think that, after a lifetime of reviewing films, former Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert would have learned storytelling through osmosis, I'm afraid you would be wrong. In a recent Sun-Times blog post, responding to the British Petroleum oil spill, Ebert spins a disjointed yarn. Deftly channeling the psychotic nature of the environmental Left, he appears to long for human suffering. Ebert, an outspoken proponent of the Left's agenda, seems to echo President Obama's Tuesday night speech from the Oval Office. The world is addicted to oil, and getting our fix is killing the planet. The solution: turn back...

I had heard a great deal about Saul Alinsky's book Rules for Radicals, but had never read them. The Right has demonized Alinsky, linking him to Obama. Curious to know more, I went to Wikipedia and found the Rules themselves. As I read them, it occurred to me that these Rules are strategic, not ideological. Alinsky was of the Left, but the Rules have no party. As I look around America in 2010, it occurs to me that the group currently using these Rules most effectively is the Tea Party.

My guess is that the only pause Ebert gave this Tweet was to worry about whether it was insulting to the Commies to equate the American flag with theirs.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, for your amusement, film critic and liberal apologist Roger Ebert, in what I hope is an early April Fool's joke: "Since the invention of the teleprompter, no President has needed one less than Barack Obama." Has Ebert never heard of the infamous "corpseman" incident? Ebert tweeted the aforementioned during President Obama's March 30 joint press conference with President Nicolas Sarkozy, wherein, by the way, Obama mispronounced his French counterpart's name as "Nicolai."

...This has never been a children's story. There's even a little sadism embedded in Carroll's fantasy. It reminds me of uncles who tickle their nieces until they scream...

It has been nearly four years since Roger Ebert lost his lower jaw and his ability to speak. Now television's most famous movie critic is rarely seen and never heard, but his words have never stopped. ....................................................... Seven years ago, he recovered quickly from the surgery to cut out his cancerous thyroid and was soon back writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and appearing with Richard Roeper on At the Movies. A year later, in 2003, he returned to work after his salivary glands were partially removed, too, although that and a series of aggressive radiation treatments opened the first...

Have no doubt about it: Film critic Roger Ebert is no fan of Rush Limbaugh. The unabashed liberal reeled off a series of one-liners on Twitter against the radio talk show host over the weekend, in the wake of Limbaugh's hospital visit due to chest pains. A sampling: "Rush: Hawaii is the only country where the Hawaiian shirts come in S, M, L, XL, Rush, and Sumo." "Rush: Nurse at snack time: 'You have nuts?' 'No!' 'You have dates?' 'Hey, if I had nuts, I'd have dates!' Ah...Har! Har! Har!" "Rush: Stuck in this hospital room watching TV, I really...

In August 1979, I took my last drink. It was about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the hot sun streaming through the windows of my little carriage house on Dickens. I put a glass of scotch and soda down on the living room table, went to bed, and pulled the blankets over my head. I couldn't take it any more. On Monday I went to visit wise old Dr. Jakob Schlichter. I had been seeing him for a year, telling him I thought I might be drinking too much. He agreed, and advised me to go to "A.A.A," which...

Having read through some 600 comments about universal health care, I now realize I took the wrong approach in my previous blog entry. I discussed the Obama health plan in political, literal, logical terms. Most of my readers replied in the same vein. The comments, as always, have been helpful, informative and for the most part civil. My mistake was writing from the pragmatic side. I should have followed my heart and gone with a more emotional approach. I believe universal health care is, quite simply, right.

"Death panels" is such an excellent term. You know exactly what it means, and therefore you know you're against them. Debate over. This term more than anything else seems to have unified the opposition to the Obama health care proposals. It fuels the anger that has essentially shut down "town hall" meetings intended for the discussion of the issues. Of course the term is inspired by a lie. There are no conceivable plans to form "death panels" or anything like them. The Obama plan, which has some bipartisan support, doesn't seek or desire to get involved in any decisions about...

Apparently unconnected items appeared within two days of each other in the Los Angeles Times, and together confirmed my fear that American movie-going is entering into a Dark Age. The first was in a blog by Patrick Goldstein, who said: "Film critics are in the same boat as evening news anchors -- their core audience is people 50 and over, and getting older by the day. You could hire Jessica Alba to read the evening news -- or review 'G.I. Joe' for that matter -- and younger audiences still wouldn't care." The other was in a report by John Horn...

Nixon And Ebert At The Movies By Ed Driscoll · December 13, 2008 As Christian Toto writes, while Roger Ebert has always been a man of the left, his BDS seems to be getting the better of him these days. In his otherwise appropriately middling review of the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, Ebert opines: The message of the 2008 version is that we should have voted for Al Gore. This didn't require Klaatu and Gort. That's what I'm here for. To which Christian replies: Really? I thought you were here to help the public...