Elvis Mitchell
Born	1958 Detroit, Michigan, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	film critic

Elvis Mitchell (born 1958) is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University.^[1] He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times. In the summer of 2011, he was appointed as curator of LACMA 's new film series, Film Independent at LACMA.

Life and career[link]

Mitchell was born in Highland Park, Michigan. He graduated in 1980 from Wayne State University, where he majored in English. He was a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times.^[2]

In the late 1980s, Mitchell was part of a short-lived PBS show called The Edge.^{[citation needed]} On the series, he provided film commentary and general criticism. In one segment, Mitchell offered a quick run-down of all of director Oliver Stone's tropes, including "always keep that camera moving," which he said while moving a camcorder over a model of a Vietnamese jungle and prison camp set up on a table.

Mitchell produced The Black List in 2008, with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, a documentary film about race, culture and the seeds of success. The film includes Toni Morrison, Chris Rock and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among others. A follow-up film, The Black List Part 2, was filmed in the same style with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. The second film features Angela Davis, Tyler Perry and RZA.

Since 1996, Mitchell has been the host of Santa Monica, California, public radio station KCRW's pop culture and film interview program The Treatment, which is nationally distributed and podcast. He served for a number of years as a pop culture commentator for Weekend Edition on NPR. In 2008, Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence began airing on Turner Classic Movies. On the program Mitchell interviews actors and directors about their favorite classic films.

Elvis Mitchell is featured in the 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism discussing how he was championed as a young writer by Pauline Kael, and the impact on him as an adolescent of the Herschell Gordon Lewis film, Two Thousand Maniacs!.^[3]

On September 10, 2010, famed film critic Roger Ebert announced that he is returning to television on a movie review show that he is producing for public television. He also announced that Mitchell along with film critic Christy Lemire of The Associated Press will be featured on the new program reviewing the new films released. ^[4] On December 14, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Mitchell would not be appearing on the new show.^[5] In January 2011 it was announced that Mitchell had joined the Movieline as chief film critic, along with Stephanie Zacharek.^[6] Penske Media Corp has terminated Elvis Mitchell after more than 3 months as Movieline.com's chief film critic. ^[7]

Mitchell has been hired by the LACMA in partnership with Film Independent as curator of a new film series, Film Independent at LACMA. It was announced on June 16, 2011 that Mitchell will start at his new job on the weekly film series this July. The series will launch on October 13th, 2011 with the world premiere of "The Rum Diary", an adaptation of Hunter Thompson's novel, by director Bruce Robinson, starring Johnny Depp.^{[citation needed]}

Style[link]

In his reviews, Mitchell takes on a freewheeling, somewhat stream of consciousness approach, and threads a good deal of intertextuality into his work by referencing other films.

In popular culture[link]

In 2007, Mitchell appeared in an episode of the HBO series Entourage, playing himself.

On April 27, 2008, Mitchell was returning from Toronto to Detroit when border guards found Cuban cigars and $12,000 in cash on him.^[8]

References[link]

External links[link]

• KCRW's The Treatment
• Movies reviewed for the New York Times
• New York Magazine article on Mitchell's departure from the New York Times
• TCM's Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence Dead link

Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2009
Born	Quentin Jerome Tarantino (1963-03-27) March 27, 1963 (age 49) Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.
Occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, actor
Years active	1988–present
Notable work(s)	Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds
Influenced by	Sergio Leone, Brian De Palma, Howard Hawks, John Woo, Jim Jarmusch, Jean-Luc Godard, Elmore Leonard, Samuel Fuller, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Sam Peckinpah, Jack Hill, Douglas Sirk, Jean-Pierre Melville, Enzo G. Castellari, Sergio Corbucci[1]

Quentin Jerome Tarantino^[2] (pronunciation: /ˌtærənˈtiːnoʊ/; born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. He has received many industry awards, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA and the Palme d'Or and had been nominated for an Emmy and Grammy.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tarantino was an avid film fan. His career began in the late 1980's, when he wrote and directed My Best Friend's Birthday. Its screenplay would form the basis for True Romance. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence. His films include Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill (2003, 2004), Death Proof (2007), and Inglourious Basterds (2009).

His movies are generally characterized by stylistic influences from grindhouse, kung fu, and spaghetti western films. Tarantino also frequently collaborates with his friend and fellow filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

Early life[link]

Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the son of Tony Tarantino, an actor and amateur musician who was born in Queens, New York, and Connie McHugh, a nurse.^[3] Tarantino's father is of Italian descent and his mother is of Irish and Cherokee ancestry.^[4][5][6] He was raised by his mother, as his parents separated before his birth.^[7] When he was two years old, he moved to Torrance, California and later to the Harbor City neighborhood where he went to Fleming Junior High School in Lomita and took drama classes.^[7] He attended Narbonne High School in Harbor City for his freshman year before dropping out of school at age 15, to attend an acting class full time at the James Best Theater Company in Toluca Lake.^[8] Quentin grew bored with the James Best Acting School and quit after two years, although he made a point of keeping in touch with all his acting friends. Then he landed a job which threatened to interfere with his long-term acting ambitions. ^[9]

As an employee of the Video Archives, a now-defunct video rental store in Manhattan Beach, he and fellow movie enthusiasts, including Roger Avary, discussed cinema and customer video recommendations at length. He paid close attention to the types of films people liked to rent and has cited that experience as inspiration for his directorial career.^[10] Tarantino has been quoted as saying, "When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, 'no, I went to films.'"^[4]

Film career[link]

After Tarantino met Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party, Bender encouraged him to write a screenplay. Tarantino directed and co-wrote a movie called My Best Friend's Birthday in 1987. The final reel of the film was almost fully destroyed in a lab fire that occurred during editing but its screenplay would form the basis for True Romance. In January 1992, Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs screened at the Sundance Film Festival and was an immediate hit. The film garnered critical acclaim. Reservoir Dogs was a dialogue-driven heist movie that set the tone for his later films. Tarantino wrote the script in three and a half weeks and Bender forwarded it to director Monte Hellman. Hellman helped Tarantino to secure funding from Richard Gladstein at Live Entertainment (which later became Artisan). Harvey Keitel read the script and also contributed to funding, taking a co-producer role, and a part in the movie.^[11]

Tarantino has had a number of collaborations with director Robert Rodriguez.

Tarantino's screenplay True Romance was optioned and eventually released in 1993. The second script that Tarantino sold was Natural Born Killers, which was revised by Dave Veloz, Richard Rutowski and director Oliver Stone. Tarantino was given story credit, and wished the film well.^[12] Following the success of Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino was approached by Hollywood and offered numerous projects, including Speed and Men in Black. He instead retreated to Amsterdam to work on his script for Pulp Fiction. After Pulp Fiction was completed, he then directed Episode Four of Four Rooms, "The Man from Hollywood", a tribute to the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode that starred Steve McQueen. Four Rooms was a collaborative effort with filmmakers Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, and Robert Rodriguez. The film was very poorly received by critics. He appeared in and wrote the script for Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn, which saw mixed reviews from the critics yet led to two sequels, for which Tarantino and Rodriguez would only serve as executive producers.

Tarantino's third feature film was Jackie Brown (1997), an adaptation of Rum Punch, a novel by Elmore Leonard. A homage to blaxploitation films, it starred Pam Grier, who starred in many of that genre's films of the 1970s. He had then planned to make the war film provisionally titled Inglourious Bastards, but postponed it to write and direct Kill Bill (released as two films, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2), a highly stylized "revenge flick" in the cinematic traditions of Wuxia (Chinese martial arts), Jidaigeki (Japanese period cinema), Spaghetti Westerns and Italian horror. It was based on a character (The Bride) and a plot that he and Kill Bill's lead actress, Uma Thurman, had developed during the making of Pulp Fiction. In 2004, Tarantino returned to Cannes, where he served as President of the Jury. Although Kill Bill was not in competition, Vol. 2 had an evening screening, while it was also shown on the morning of the final day in its original 3-hour-plus version with Quentin himself attending the full screening. Tarantino then went on to be credited as "Special Guest Director" in Robert Rodriguez's 2005 neo-noir film Sin City for his work directing the car sequence featuring Clive Owen and Benicio del Toro.

The next film project was Grindhouse, which he co-directed with Rodriguez. Released in theaters on April 6, 2007, Tarantino's contribution to the Grindhouse project was titled Death Proof. It began as a take on 1970s slasher films,^[13] but evolved dramatically as the project unfolded. Ticket sales were low despite mostly positive reviews.

Among his producing credits are the horror flick Hostel (which included numerous references to his own Pulp Fiction), the adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Killshot (for which Tarantino was credited as an executive producer although Tarantino was no longer associated with the film after its 2009 release.)^[14] and Hell Ride (written and directed by Larry Bishop, who appeared in Kill Bill Vol. 2).

Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds is the story of a group of guerrilla U.S. soldiers in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Filming began in October 2008.^[15] The film opened on August 21, 2009 to very positive reviews^[16] and the #1 spot at the box office worldwide.^[17] It went on to become Tarantino's highest grossing film, both in the United States and worldwide.^[18]

In 2011, production began on Django Unchained, about the revenge of a slave on his former master. The film stemmed from Tarantino's desire to produce a spaghetti western set in America's Deep South; Tarantino has called the proposed style "a southern",^[19] stating that he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery and stuff but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies. I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to".^[19] Tarantino finished the script on April 26, 2011, and handed in the final draft to The Weinstein Company.^[20] Agency William Morris Endeavor reported Christoph Waltz was cast to play a German bounty hunter,^[21] with Stacey Sher, Pilar Savone, and Reginald Hudlin producing. Although Will Smith and Idris Elba were heavily rumored to be up for the title role, Jamie Foxx has since been confirmed to play Django.^[22] Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson will play Stephen, a house slave. Leonardo DiCaprio has also been officially cast in the role of Calvin Candie, the primary antagonist in the film. Kevin Costner had been cast as Ace Woody, a "vile and sadistic trainer of slaves who are forced to fight in death matches for a plantation owner (DiCaprio)" before he later dropped out due to scheduling conflicts, and has been replaced by Kurt Russell.^[23] Kerry Washington has been cast as Broomhilda, the "long-suffering slave wife of Django."^[24] Other cast members include Dennis Christopher as Candie family lawyer Leonide 'Leo' Moguy, Laura Cayouette as Candie's sister, Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly, M.C. Gainey and Tom Savini as Big John and Ellis Brittle, two of the slave owners who separate Django and Broomhilda, Anthony LaPaglia and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Australian brothers, Jano and an unnamed character, respectively,^[25] who encounter Django while escorting slaves to a fight.^[26][27] However, Gordon-Levitt has not fully committed to the film, due to possible scheduling issues,^{[28][29][30][31]} and Gerald McRaney and Michael K. Williams in unknown roles. Tarantino-collaborator RZA was cast as a slave named Thadeus. According to ReservoirWatchDogs.com, Sacha Baron Cohen was cast in the role as gambler Scotty Harmony who wishes to purchase Django's wife from Calvin Candie.^[32] Reportedly, Tarantino is also interested in including Lady Gaga in the film to some degree.^[33] The film is said to be inspired by the 1966 film Django, directed by Sergio Corbucci. James Remar is also involved in the film. The film is scheduled to be released on December 25, 2012.

Producer[link]

In recent years, Tarantino has used his Hollywood power to give smaller and foreign films more attention than they might have received otherwise. These films are usually labeled "Presented by Quentin Tarantino" or "Quentin Tarantino Presents". The first of these productions was in 2001 with the Hong Kong martial arts film Iron Monkey which made over $14 million in the United States, seven times its budget. In 2004 he brought the Chinese martial arts film Hero to U.S. shores. It ended up having a #1 opening at the box office and making $53.5 million. In 2006, the latest "Quentin Tarantino presents" production, Hostel, opened at #1 at the box office with a $20.1 million opening weekend, good for 8th all time in January. He presented 2006's The Protector, and is a producer of the (2007) film Hostel: Part II. in 2008 he produced the Larry Bishop helmed Hell Ride, a revenge biker film.^[34]

In addition, in 1995 Tarantino formed Rolling Thunder Pictures with Miramax as a vehicle to release or re-release several independent and foreign features. By 1997, Miramax shut down the company due to "lack of interest" in the pictures released. The following films were released by Rolling Thunder Pictures: Chungking Express (1994, dir. Wong Kar-wai), Switchblade Sisters (1975, dir. Jack Hill), Sonatine (1993, dir. Takeshi Kitano), Hard Core Logo (1996, dir. Bruce McDonald), The Mighty Peking Man (1977, dir. Ho Meng-Hua), Detroit 9000 (1973, dir. Arthur Marks), The Beyond (1981, dir. Lucio Fulci) and Curdled (1996, dir. Reb Braddock).

Other potential projects[link]

Before Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino had considered making The Vega Brothers. The film would have starred Michael Madsen and John Travolta reprising their roles of Vic (Mr. Blonde) from Reservoir Dogs and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. However in 2007, because of the age of the actors and the onscreen deaths of both characters, he claimed that the project (which he intended to call Double V Vega) is "kind of unlikely now".^[35]

In 2009, in an interview for Italian TV, after being asked about the success of the two Kill Bill films, Tarantino said "You haven't asked me about the third one", and implied that he would be making a third Kill Bill film with the words "The Bride will fight again!"^[36] Later that year, at the Morelia International Film Festival,^[37] Tarantino announced that he would like to film Kill Bill: Vol. 3. He explained that he wanted ten years to pass between The Bride's last conflict, in order to give her and her daughter a period of peace.^[38]

Personal life[link]

Tarantino has been romantically linked with American actress Mira Sorvino,^[39] directors Allison Anders and Sofia Coppola, actresses Julie Dreyfus and comedians Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho.^[40] There have also been rumors about his relationship with Uma Thurman, whom he has referred to as his "muse".^[41] However, Tarantino has stated that their relationship is strictly platonic.^[42] Tarantino stated "I'm not saying that I'll never get married or have a kid before I'm 60. But I've made a choice, so far, to go on this road alone. Because this is my time to make movies."^[43] He also has said that he plans to retire from filmmaking at age 60, to focus on writing novels and film literature. He also is skeptical of the film industry going digital, saying, "If it actually gets to the place where you can't show 35 mm film in theatres anymore and everything is digital projection, I won't even make it to 60."^[44]

On February 18, 2010, it was announced that Tarantino had bought the New Beverly Cinema. Tarantino allowed the current owners to continue operating the theater, but he will be making programming suggestions from time to time. He was quoted as saying: "As long as I'm alive, and as long as I'm rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing films shot on 35mm."^[45]

Influences and style of filmmaking[link]

In an awards ceremony in the Critics Choice Awards celebrating Tarantino, he said he got his start in filmmaking in his 20s. Music is an important part of his filmmaking style. He said he would listen to music in his bedroom and create scenes that correlated to the music playing.^[46]

In the 2002 Sight & Sound Directors' poll, Tarantino revealed his top-twelve films: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Rio Bravo; Taxi Driver; His Girl Friday; Rolling Thunder; They All Laughed; The Great Escape; Carrie; Coffy; Dazed and Confused; Five Fingers of Death; and Hi Diddle Diddle.^[47] In 2009, he named Kinji Fukasaku's violent action film Battle Royale as his favorite film released since he became a director in 1992.^[48]

In August 2007, while teaching a four-hour film course during the 9th Cinemanila International Film Festival in Manila, Tarantino cited Filipino directors Cirio Santiago, Eddie Romero, and Gerardo de León as personal icons from the 1970s,^[49] citing De Leon's "soul-shattering, life-extinguishing" movies on vampires and female bondage, particularly Women in Cages. "It is just harsh, harsh, harsh," he said, and described the final shot as one of "devastating despair".^[49] Upon his arrival in the Philippines, Tarantino was quoted in the local newspaper as saying, 'I'm a big fan of RP [Republic of the Philippines] cinema.'

Actor Steve Buscemi has described Tarantino's different style of film making as "bursting with energy" and "focused,"^[50] a style that has earned him many accolades worldwide. According to Tarantino, a recurring hallmark in all his movies is that there is a different sense of humour in all his movies, which gets the audience to laugh at things that aren't funny.^[51] Michael Winner, whilst appearing on an episode of Piers Morgan's Life Stories (an ITV production), stated that Quentin Tarantino was a "big fan" of Death Wish.

Racial epithets in Tarantino's work[link]

Spike Lee questioned Tarantino's use of racial epithets in his films, particularly the racially offensive epithet, "nigger". In a Variety interview discussing Jackie Brown, Lee said: "I'm not against the word... and I use it, but Quentin is infatuated with the word. What does he want? To be made an honorary black man?"^[52] Tarantino responded on Charlie Rose by stating:

As a writer, I demand the right to write any character in the world that I want to write. I demand the right to be them, I demand the right to think them and I demand the right to tell the truth as I see they are, all right? And to say that I can't do that because I'm white, but the Hughes brothers can do that because they're black, that is racist. That is the heart of racism, all right. And I do not accept that ... That is how a segment of the black community that lives in Compton, lives in Inglewood, where Jackie Brown takes place, that lives in Carson, that is how they talk. I'm telling the truth. It would not be questioned if I was black, and I resent the question because I'm white. I have the right to tell the truth. I do not have the right to lie.^[53]

In addition, Tarantino retaliated on The Howard Stern Show by stating Lee would have to "stand on a chair to kiss my ass."^[54] Samuel L. Jackson, who has appeared in both directors' films, defended Tarantino's use of the word. At the Berlin Film Festival, where Jackie Brown was being screened, Jackson responded to Lee's criticism by saying:

I don't think the word is offensive in the context of this film ... Black artists think they are the only ones allowed to use the word. Well, that's bull. Jackie Brown is a wonderful homage to black exploitation films. This is a good film, and Spike hasn't made one of those in a few years.^[55]

Tarantino has defended his use of the word, arguing that black audiences have an appreciation of his blaxploitation-influenced films that eludes some of his critics, and, indeed, that Jackie Brown, another oft-cited example, was primarily made for "black audiences".^[56]

According to a 1995 Premiere magazine article, actor Denzel Washington also confronted Tarantino on his usage of racial slurs in his pictures, but mentioned that Tarantino was a "fine artist."^[57]

Recurring collaborators[link]

Actor	Reservoir Dogs	Pulp Fiction	Four Rooms	Jackie Brown	Kill Bill	Death Proof	Inglourious Basterds	Django Unchained
Michael Bacall						N	N	N
Zoe Bell					N	N	N
Michael Bowen				N	N
Steve Buscemi	N	N
Paul Calderón		N	N
Laura Cayouette					N			N
Omar Doom						N	N
Julie Dreyfus					N		N
Kathy Griffin		N	N
Sid Haig				N	N
Samuel L. Jackson		N		N	N		N	N
Harvey Keitel	N	N					N
Jonathan Loughran					N	N
Michael Madsen	N				N
James Parks					N	N		N
Michael Parks					N	N
Tina Rodriguez						N	N
Eli Roth						N	N
Tim Roth	N	N	N
David Steen	N							N
Bo Svenson					N		N
Uma Thurman		N			N
Christoph Waltz							N	N
Bruce Willis		N	N

Awards[link]

Tarantino in Paris at the César Awards 2011.

• Reservoir Dogs was given the Critic's Award at the 4th Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in 1993.^[58]

• Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.^[59] The film was nominated for seven Oscars, winning one for Best Original Screenplay, which was shared jointly by Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary.

• In 1996, Tarantino was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor in From Dusk till Dawn, but lost against Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau.

• In 2005, Quentin Tarantino won the Icon of the Decade Award at the 10th Empire Awards.

• On August 15, 2007, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presented Tarantino with a lifetime achievement award at the Malacañang Palace in Manila.^[60]

• In 2009, his film Inglourious Basterds was nominated for eight Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, winning one for Best Supporting Actor.

• In March 2010, Tarantino was awarded the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic along with Lucy Liu and Andy Vajna for producing the 2006 movie Freedom's Fury.^[61]

• In February 2011, Tarantino received an honorary César from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma.^[62]

Filmography[link]

Reception[link]

Critical[link]

See also[link]

• Quentin Tarantino Film Festival, a film festival in Austin, Texas hosted by Tarantino.

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Greene, Richard; Mohammad, K. Silem, eds. (2007). Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court Books. ISBN 0-8126-9634-4 .
• Waxman, Sharon, ed. (2005). Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System. HarperEntertainment .

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (August 2011)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Quentin Tarantino

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Quentin Tarantino

Main reference sites[link]

• Quentin Tarantino at the Internet Movie Database
• Quentin Tarantino at Rotten Tomatoes
• ReservoirWatchDogs.com Quentin Tarantino news blog / fan community
• Quentin Tarantino discography at Discogs
• Quentin Tarantino at Last.fm
• Quentin Tarantino on AnyClip

Interviews and essays[link]

• Collection of Quentin Tarantino interviews on YouTube at ReservoirWatchDogs.com
• Anatomy of a Tarantino Film at BrokenProjector
• FilmFocus Interview
• "I call the shots here" by Quentin Tarantino, March 4, 2007
• Remaking History: An Interview with Quentin Tarantino by Rene Rodriguez, August 18, 2009
• Quentin Tarantino: A Life in Pictures, filmed career retrospective by BAFTA, January 11, 2010
• Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez discuss their double feature, "Grindhouse", on Charlie Rose April 5, 2007
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being Cool: Appropriation and Prospects of Subversion in the Works of Quentin Tarantino
• 7 Stylistic Trademarks by Quentin Tarantino Thorough essay on the essential stylistic trademarks in each of Quentin Tarantino's films

Roger Ebert
Ebert and his wife Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert (left) give the thumbs up to Nancy Kwan (right) at the Hawaii International Film Festival on October 20, 2010.
Born	Roger Joseph Ebert (1942-06-18) June 18, 1942 (age 70) Urbana, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Author, journalist, film historian, film critic, screenwriter
Language	English
Nationality	American
Education	Urbana High School, Illinois High School Association
Alma mater	University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Period	1967–present
Subjects	Film
Notable work(s)	The Great Movies; The Great Movies II; Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Notable award(s)	Pulitzer Prize for film criticism
Spouse(s)	Chaz Hammelsmith (July 18, 1992 – present)
Influenced A. O. Scott[1] Richard Corliss[2] James Berardinelli[3] Michael Phillips[4] Will Leitch[5] Harry Knowles[6] David Bordwell[7]
www.rogerebert.com

Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online)^[8] and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008,^[9] but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show.^[10] Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".^[11]

He has written more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook which is predominantly a collection of his reviews of that year. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize.^[12] His television programs have been widely syndicated and have been nominated for Emmy awards. In February 1995, a section of Chicago's Erie Street near the CBS Studios was renamed Siskel & Ebert Way. In June 2005, Ebert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was the first professional film critic to receive such an award. He has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the AFI Conservatory, and in 2007 the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America".^[13] As of 2010, Ebert's movie reviews are syndicated in more than 200 newspapers in the United States and worldwide by Universal Press Syndicate.

Since 1996, he has written a Great Movies series of individual reviews of what he deems to be the most important films of all time. This list and his associated reviews have now expanded to include over 300 movies. Since 1999, he has hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois.

Early life and education[link]

Roger Joseph Ebert^[14] was born in Urbana, Illinois, the son of Walter H. Ebert,^[15] an electrician,^[16] and Annabel Ebert.^[15] His paternal grandparents were German immigrants^[17] and his maternal ancestry is Dutch and Irish.^[18] Ebert's interest in journalism began as a student at Urbana High School, where he was a sports writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois; however, he began his writing career with letters of comment to the science fiction fanzines of the era.^[8] He became involved in science fiction fandom,^[19] writing articles for fanzines, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero. In his senior year, he was co-editor of his high school newspaper, The Echo. In 1958, Ebert won the Illinois High School Association state speech championship in Radio Speaking, an event that simulates radio newscasts.^[20]

Regarding his early influences in film critiquing, Ebert wrote in the 1998 parody collection Mad About the Movies:

"I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine... Mad's parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin—of the way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe. Pauline Kael lost it at the movies; I lost it at Mad magazine."^[21]

After briefly attending the University of Chicago, Ebert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was editor of The Daily Illini^[22] and member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. One of the first movie reviews he ever wrote was a review of La Dolce Vita, published in The Daily Illini in October 1961.^[23] After Ebert wrote an article on the death of writer Brendan Behan for Chicago Daily News editor Herman Kogan, Ebert was given a job as a reporter and feature writer at the Sun-Times in 1966. After movie critic Eleanor Keane left the paper, editor Robert Zonk gave the job to Ebert.^[22]

Career[link]

Ebert began his professional critic career in 1967, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times. That same year, Ebert's first book, a history of the University of Illinois titled Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life was published by the University's press.

In 1969, his review of Night of the Living Dead^[24] was published in Reader's Digest.

Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for the 1970 Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and likes to joke about being responsible for the film, which was poorly received on its release but is now regarded as a cult classic.^{[citation needed]} Ebert and Meyer also made Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Up!, and others, and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi? In April 2010, Ebert posted his screenplay of "Who Killed Bambi?" aka "Anarchy in the UK" on his blog.^[25]

Roger Ebert (right) with Russ Meyer in 1970.

Since the 1970s, Ebert has worked for the University of Chicago as a guest lecturer, teaching a night class on film. His fall 2005 class was on the works of the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

In 1975, Ebert and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune began co-hosting a weekly film review television show, Sneak Previews, which was locally produced by the Chicago public broadcasting station WTTW. The show was picked up by PBS in 1978 for national distribution. In 1982, the critics moved to a syndicated commercial television show named At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and in 1986 they left to create Siskel & Ebert & The Movies with Buena Vista Television (part of the Walt Disney Company). The duo was known for their "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries. When Siskel died in 1999, the producers retitled the show Roger Ebert & the Movies with rotating co-hosts. In September 2000, fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper.

On January 31, 2009, Ebert was made an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America during the group's annual awards ceremony.^[26]

Ebert ended his association with Disney in July 2008, after the studio indicated they wished to take At the Movies in a new direction. He and Gene Siskel's widow, Marlene Iglitzen Siskel,^[27] still own the trademark phrase "Two Thumbs Up."^[9] On February 18, 2009, Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie review program.^[10] Ebert reiterated this plan after Disney announced the last episode of the program would air in August 2010.^[28]

Ebert stated in his August 18, 2010 "Answer Man" column that he was writing his memoirs.^[29]

Style of critique and personal tastes[link]

This section relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (December 2010)

Ebert has described his critical approach to films as "relative, not absolute"; he reviews a film for what he feels will be its prospective audience, yet always with at least some consideration as to its value as a whole. He awards four stars to films of the highest quality, and generally a half star to those of the lowest unless he considers the film to be "artistically inept" and/or "morally repugnant", in which case it will receive no stars.^[30]

When you ask a friend if Hellboy is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to Mystic River, you're asking if it's any good compared to The Punisher. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if Superman is four, then Hellboy is three and The Punisher is two. In the same way, if American Beauty gets four stars, then The United States of Leland clocks in at about two.^[31]

Ebert has emphasized that his star ratings have little meaning if not considered in the context of the review itself. Occasionally (as in his review of Basic Instinct 2), Ebert's star rating may seem at odds with his written opinion. Ebert has acknowledged such cases, stating, "I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's godawful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie? Godawful and boring, that would be a reason."^[32] In August 2004 Stephen King, in a column, criticized what he saw as a growing trend of leniency towards films from critics including Ebert. His main criticism was that films, citing Spider-Man 2 as an example, were constantly given four star ratings that they did not deserve.^[33] In his review of The Manson Family, Ebert gave the film three stars for achieving what it set out to do, but admitted that didn't count as a recommendation per se. He similarly gave the Adam Sandler-starring remake of The Longest Yard a positive rating of three stars, but in his review, which he wrote soon after attending the Cannes Film Festival, he recommended readers not see the film because they had access to more satisfying cinematic experiences.^[34] He declined to give a star rating to The Human Centipede, arguing that the rating system was "unsuited" to such a film: "Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine."^[35]

Ebert has reprinted his starred reviews in movie guides. In his appearances on The Howard Stern Show, he was frequently challenged to defend his ratings. Ebert stood by his opinions with one notable exception—when Stern pointed out that Ebert had given The Godfather Part II a three-star rating in 1974, but had subsequently given The Godfather Part III three and a half stars. Ebert later added The Godfather Part II to his "Great Movies" list in October 2008 stating that his original review has often been cited as proof of his "worthlessness" but he still hasn't changed his mind and wouldn't change a word of his original review.^[36]

Ebert has occasionally accused some films of having an unwholesome political agenda, and the word "fascist" accompanied more than one of Ebert's reviews of the law-and-order films of the 1970s such as Dirty Harry. He is also suspicious of films that are passed off as art, but which he sees as merely lurid and sensational. Ebert has leveled this charge against such films as The Night Porter.^[37]

Ebert's reviews can clash with the overall reception of movies, as evidenced by his one-star review of the celebrated 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet ("marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots... in a way, [director Lynch's] behavior is more sadistic than the Hopper character").^[38] He was dismissive of the popular 1988 Bruce Willis action film Die Hard ("inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot"),^[39] while his positive review of 1997's Speed 2: Cruise Control ("Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure")^[40] is the only one accounting for that film's 2% approval rating on the Rotten Tomatoes critical website.^[41]

Ebert often makes heavy use of mocking sarcasm, especially when reviewing movies he considers bad. At other times he is direct, famously in his review of the 1994 Rob Reiner comedy North, which he concluded by writing that:

I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.^[42]

Ebert's reviews are also often characterized by dry wit.^[43] In January 2005, when Rob Schneider insulted Los Angeles Times movie critic Patrick Goldstein, who panned his movie Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, by commenting that the critic was unqualified because he had never won the Pulitzer Prize, Ebert intervened by stating that, as a Pulitzer winner, he was qualified to review the film, and bluntly told Schneider, "Your movie sucks."^[44] Ebert and Schneider would later mend fences regarding this.^[2][45][46]

Ebert has been known to comment on films using his own Roman Catholic upbringing^[47] as a point of reference, and has been critical of films he believes are grossly ignorant of or insulting to Catholicism, such as Stigmata^[48] and Priest,^[49] though he has given favorable reviews of controversial films with themes or references to Jesus and Catholicism, including The Passion of the Christ,^[50] The Last Temptation of Christ, and to Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma.^[51] However, Ebert identifies himself today as an agnostic.^[47]

He often includes personal anecdotes in his reviews when he considers them relevant. He has occasionally written reviews in the forms of stories, poems, songs,^[52] scripts, open letters,^[53][54] or imagined conversations.^[55][56] He has written many essays and articles exploring the field of film criticism in depth.

Ebert has been accused by some horror movie fans of bourgeois elitism in his dismissal of what he calls "Dead Teenager Movies". Ebert has clarified that he does not disparage horror movies as a whole, but that he draws a distinction between films like Nosferatu and The Silence of the Lambs, which he regards as "masterpieces", and films which he feels consist of nothing more than groups of teenagers being killed off with the exception of one survivor to populate a sequel.^[57]

Ebert has indicated that his favorite film is Citizen Kane, joking, "That's the official answer," although he prefers to emphasize it as "the most important" film. He has insinuated that his true favorite film is La Dolce Vita.^[58] His favorite actor is Robert Mitchum, and his favorite actress is Ingrid Bergman.^[59] Ebert has expressed his general distaste for "top ten" lists, and all movie lists in general,^[58] but due to his participation in the 2002 Sight and Sound Directors' poll, he has revealed his top ten films (alphabetically): Aguirre, the Wrath of God; Apocalypse Now; Citizen Kane; Dekalog; La Dolce Vita; The General; Raging Bull; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Tokyo Story; and Vertigo.^[60]

Nevertheless, Ebert has compiled "best of the year" movie lists since the 1960s, which have helped to provide an overview of his critical preferences.^[61] His top choices have been:

Ebert revisits and sometimes revises his opinions. After ranking E.T. The Extra Terrestrial third on his 1982 list, it was the only movie from that year to appear on his later "Best Films of the 1980s" list (where it also ranked third). He made similar revaluations of 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, and 1985's Ran. The Three Colors Trilogy (Blue, White, and Red), and Pulp Fiction originally ranked second and third on Ebert's 1994 list; both were included on his "Best Films of the 1990s" list, but their order had reversed.^[62]

From 1969 until Siskel's death in early 1999, the two critics were in agreement on nine top selections: Z, The Godfather, Nashville, The Right Stuff, Do the Right Thing, GoodFellas, Schindler's List, Hoop Dreams, and Fargo. There would have been a tenth, but Ebert declined to rank the Holocaust documentary "Shoah" as 1985's best film only because he felt it was inappropriate to compare it to the rest of the year's candidates; his on-air partner Gene Siskel did choose Shoah in his top slot. Seven times, Siskel's #1 choice did not appear on Ebert's top ten list at all: Straight Time, Ragtime, Once Upon a Time in America, The Last Emperor, The Last Temptation of Christ, Hearts of Darkness, and The Ice Storm. Seven times, Ebert's top selection did not appear on Siskel's; these films were Small Change, Three Women, An Unmarried Woman, Apocalypse Now, Sophie's Choice, Mississippi Burning, and Dark City.

Ebert has long been an admirer of director Werner Herzog, whom he supported through many years when Herzog's popularity had been eclipsed. He conducted an onstage public "conversation" with Herzog at the Telluride Film Festival in 2004, after a screening of Herzog's film Invincible at the Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. Herzog dedicated his 2008 film Encounters at the End of the World to Ebert, and Ebert responded with a heartfelt public letter of gratitude.^[63]

In 2005, Ebert opined that video games are not art, and are inferior to media created through authorial control, such as film and literature, stating, "video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful", but "the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art".^[64] This resulted in negative reaction from video game enthusiasts,^[65] such as writer Clive Barker, who defended video games as an art form, stating that they have the power to move people, that the views of book or film critics are less important than those of the consumers experiencing them, and that Ebert's were prejudiced. Ebert responded that the charge of prejudice was merely a euphemism for disagreement, that merely being moved by an experience does not denote it as artistic, and that critics are also consumers.^[66] Ebert later defended his position in April 2010, saying, "No video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form."^[67] He also stated that he has never found a video game "worthy of (his) time", and thus has never played one. Cracked.com writer Robert Brockway responded by opining that this made Ebert unqualified to judge video games, and that debating Ebert on such a topic was comparable to "a structured philosophical debate on the importance of pacifism and restraint with a rabid badger: Your opponent is not only unqualified from the start, but it's obviously just out to attack you."^[68]

In a July 1, 2010, blog entry, Ebert maintained his skepticism that video games cannot ever be art in principle, but conceded that he should not have expressed this opinion without being more familiar with the actual experience of playing them. He reflected on the reaction to his blog entry, gamers' attempts to recommend to him games such as Shadow of the Colossus, and his reluctance to play games due to his lack of interest in the medium.^[69]

Views on the film industry[link]

Ebert is an outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system. He has repeatedly criticized their decisions regarding which movies are "suitable for children." For example, Whale Rider^[70] and School of Rock^[71] were both rated PG-13 (not recommended for children under the age of 13), while he thought both were inoffensive enough for schoolchildren and contained positive messages for that age group. In his review of The Exorcist, Ebert said it was "stupefying" that the film received a rating of "R" from the MPAA instead of an "X" (suitable only for adults). He has frequently argued that the MPAA is more likely to give an "R" rating for mild sexual content than for highly violent content. In his review of The Passion of the Christ, he was quoted as saying: "I said the film is the most violent I have ever seen. The MPAA's R rating is definitive proof that the organization either will never give the NC-17 rating for violence alone, or was intimidated by the subject matter. If it had been anyone other than Jesus up on that cross, I have a feeling that NC-17 would have been automatic."^[50]

He also frequently laments that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes", making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most American moviegoers.^[72]

Ebert is a strong advocate for Maxivision 48, in which the movie projector runs at 48 frames per second, as compared to the usual 24 frames per second. He is opposed to the practice whereby theatres lower the intensity of their projector bulbs in order to extend the life of the bulb, arguing that this has little effect other than to make the film harder to see.^[73] Ebert has been skeptical of the recent resurgence of 3D effects in film, which he has found unrealistic and distracting.^[74]

Film and TV appearances[link]

Ebert is one of the principal critics featured in Gerald Peary's 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. He is shown discussing the dynamics of appearing with Gene Siskel on the 1970s show Coming to a Theatre Near You, which was the predecessor of Sneak Previews on Chicago PBS station WTTW. He also expresses his approval of the proliferation of young people writing film reviews today on the Internet.^[75]

Ebert has provided DVD audio commentaries for several films, including Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Dark City, Floating Weeds, Crumb, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (for which Ebert also wrote the screenplay, based on a story that he co-wrote with Russ Meyer). Ebert was also interviewed by Central Park Media for an extra feature on the DVD release of the anime film Grave of the Fireflies.

On the day of the Academy Award ceremony, Ebert and Roeper typically appear on the live pre-awards show, An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals. This airs prior to the awards ceremony show, which also features red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. They also appear on the post-awards show entitled An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Winners. Both shows are produced and aired by the ABC-owned KABC-TV in Los Angeles. This program also airs on WLS-TV in Chicago, as well as the network's other owned-and-operated stations, along with being syndicated to several ABC affiliates and other broadcasters outside the country. Ebert did not appear on the 2007 show for medical reasons.

In 1995, Ebert, along with colleague Gene Siskel, guest starred on an episode of the animated TV series The Critic. In the episode, Siskel and Ebert split and each wants Jay as his new partner. The episode is a parody of the film Sleepless in Seattle.^[76]

In 1996, Ebert appeared in Pitch, a documentary by Canadian film makers Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz.

In 2003, Ebert had a cameo appearance in the film Abby Singer, in which he recited the white parasol monologue from Citizen Kane.

Roger Ebert founded his own film festival, Ebertfest, in his home town of Champaign, Illinois and is also a regular fixture at the Hawaii International Film Festival.

On May 4, 2010, Ebert was announced by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as the Webby Person of the Year having taken to the Internet following his battle with cancer.^[77]

On October 22, 2010, Ebert appeared on camera with Robert Osborne on the Turner Classic Movies network during the network's "The Essentials" series. Ebert chose the film Sweet Smell of Success to be shown.

Personal life[link]

Ebert is married to trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammel-Smith.^[47] Chaz Ebert is now vice president of the Ebert Company and has emceed Ebertfest.^[78][79]

Roger Ebert suffered from alcoholism and quit drinking in 1979. He is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and has written some blog entries on the subject.^[80] He has been friends with, and at one time dated, Oprah Winfrey, who credits him with encouraging her to go into syndication.^[81] He is also good friends with film historian and critic Leonard Maltin and considers the book Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide to be the standard of film guide books.

A supporter of the Democratic Party,^[82] Ebert publicly urged liberal filmmaker Michael Moore to give a politically charged acceptance speech at the Academy Awards: "I'd like to see Michael Moore get up there and let 'em have it with both barrels and really let loose and give them a real rabble-rousing speech."^[83] During a 2004 visit to The Howard Stern Show, Ebert predicted that the then-junior Illinois senator Barack Obama would be very important to the future of the country.^[84] During a 1996 panel at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Conference on World Affairs, Ebert coined The Boulder Pledge, by which he vowed never to purchase anything offered through the result of an unsolicited email message, or to forward chain emails or mass emails to others.^[85]

He is critical of the Intelligent Design movement.^[86] He has also stated that people who believe in either creationism or New Age beliefs such as crystal healing or astrology are not qualified to be President.^[87] Regarding his belief system, he doesn't "want to provide a category for people to apply to [him]" because he "would not want [his] convictions reduced to a word" and states, "I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist—which I am".^[88] Ebert has also expressed disbelief in pseudoscientific or supernatural claims in general, calling them "woo-woo".^[89]

On April 25, 2011, he achieved one of his long-time goals: winning one of the weekly caption contests in The New Yorker magazine after more than 100 attempts.^[90]

Health[link]

Thyroid cancer[link]

Ebert (right) at the Conference on World Affairs in September 2002, shortly after his cancer diagnosis

In early 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer. In February of that year, surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital were able to successfully remove the cancer with clean margins. He later underwent surgery in 2003 for cancer in his salivary gland, and in December of that year, underwent a four-week follow-up course of radiation to his salivary glands, which altered his voice slightly. As he battled the illness, Ebert continued to be a dedicated critic of film, not missing a single opening while undergoing treatment.

Ebert underwent further surgery on June 16, 2006, just two days before his 64th birthday, to remove additional cancerous tissue near his right jaw, which included removing a section of jaw bone.^[91] On July 1, Ebert was hospitalized in serious condition after his carotid artery burst near the surgery site and he "came within a breath of death".^[92] He later learned that the burst was likely a side effect of his treatment, which involved neutron beam radiation. He was subsequently kept bedridden to prevent further damage to the scarred vessels in his neck while he slowly recovered from multiple surgeries and the rigorous treatment. At one point, his status was so precarious that Ebert had a tracheotomy performed on his neck to reduce the effort of breathing while he recovered.^[91]

Ebert had pre-taped enough TV programs with his co-host Richard Roeper to keep him on the air for a few weeks; however, his extended convalescence necessitated a series of "guest critics" to co-host with Roeper: Jay Leno (a good friend to both Ebert and Roeper), Kevin Smith, John Ridley, Toni Senecal, Christy Lemire, Michael Phillips, Aisha Tyler, Fred Willard, Anne Thompson, A.O. Scott, Mario Van Peebles, George Pennacchio, Brad Silberling, and John Mellencamp. Michael Phillips later became Ebert's replacement for the remainder of Roeper's time on At the Movies, until mid-2008, when Roeper did not extend his contract with ABC.

In October 2006, Ebert confirmed his bleeding problems had been resolved. He was undergoing rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago due to lost muscle mass, and later underwent further rehabilitation at the Pritikin Center in Florida."^[93] After a three-month absence, the first movie he reviewed was The Queen. Ebert made his first public appearance since the summer of 2006 at Ebertfest on April 25, 2007. He was unable to speak but communicated through his wife, Chaz, through the use of written notes. His opening words to the crowd of devout fans at the festival were a quote from the film he co-wrote with Russ Meyer, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: "It's my happening and it freaks me out."^[94] Also in April 2007, in an interview with WLS-TV in Chicago, he said, "I was told photos of me in this condition would attract the gossip papers — so what?" On April 23, the Sun-Times reported that, when asked about his decision to return to the limelight, Ebert remarked, "We spend too much time hiding illness."^[95]

Recovery[link]

Ebert returned to reviewing on May 18, 2007, when three of his reviews were published by the Chicago Sun-Times, and he returned to his website, a role that his editor had shouldered during the critic's illness.^[96] Thereafter, he slowly worked back to his previous output of 5–6 reviews a week plus a "Great Movies" review. He also resumed his "Answer Man" column. In a July 21, 2007, commentary on a rebuttal to Clive Barker, he revealed that he had lost the ability to speak, but not to write.^[97] He also lost the ability to eat or drink, and uses a feeding tube.^[98] He posted reviews of the 2006 film Casino Royale and the 2007 films Zodiac and Ratatouille with a note that he was in the process of going back and reviewing some of the movies that were released during his absence.^[99] He attended the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, while awaiting surgery that was hoped to restore his voice.^[100] Ebert adopted a computerized voice system to communicate. He initially chose to use a voice with a British accent that he named "Lawrence",^[101] but then switched to a high quality voice with an American accent included with Mac OS X named "Alex".^[102] According to Ebert, he does not miss the activity of eating or drinking so much as the camaraderie of dining with friends.^[98]

Ebert underwent further surgery on January 24, 2008, this time in Houston, to address the complications from his previous surgeries. A statement from Ebert and his wife indicated that "the surgery went well, and the Eberts look forward to giving you more good news..."^[103][104] but on April 1, his 41st anniversary as a film critic at the Sun-Times, Ebert announced that there had been further complications and his speech had not been restored. He wrote, "I am still cancer-free, and not ready to think about more surgery at this time. I should be content with the abundance I have." His columns resumed shortly after the April 23 opening of his annual film festival at the University of Illinois.^[105] During his various surgeries, doctors carved bone, tissue and skin from his back, arm, and legs, and transplanted them in an attempt to reconstruct his jaw and throat, though these transplants would each be unsuccessful, and eventually removed. As a result of these procedures, his right shoulder is visibly smaller than his left, and his legs have been scarred and weakened.^[79] On April 18, 2008, it was announced that Ebert had fractured his hip in a fall,^[106] a result of the weakening of his body following the unsuccessful tissue transplants,^[79] and had undergone surgery to repair it.^[106]

Current health[link]

As of February 2010^[update], Ebert has a full-time, live-in nurse to attend to him when needed. Although doctors have asked him to allow them to make one more attempt to restore his voice, Ebert has refused, indicating that he is done with surgery, and will likely decline significant intervention even if his cancer returns, as he feels that the last procedure he underwent did more harm than good. Regarding his death one day, he has written:

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.^[79]

Ebert employed a Scottish company called CereProc, which custom-tailors text-to-speech software for voiceless customers who record their voices at length before losing them, and mined tapes and DVD commentaries featuring Ebert to create a voice that sounds more like his own voice.^[79] He used the voice they devised for him in his March 2, 2010, appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show,^[107] in which he discussed his methods of coping with the loss of his voice and his other post-surgical difficulties.^[108] By January 2011, Ebert had been given a prosthesis for his chin created by University of Illinois craniofacial doctors and other specialists. The prosthesis, which took two years to fabricate, is worn by Ebert on Ebert Presents: At the Movies, in a medium shot of him that is used for the "Roger's Office" segment.^[109]

See also[link]

• Ebert test, a test to gauge the humanness of computer-synthesized speech.

Bibliography[link]

Each year since 1999, except in 2008, Ebert has published Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook, a collection of all of his movie reviews from the previous two and a half years (for example, the 2011 edition, ISBN 978-0-7407-9769-9, covers January 2008 – July 2010), as well as essays and other writings. He has also written the following books:

• Scorsese by Ebert (ISBN 978-0-226-18202-5) (Excerpted Introduction)
• Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert (ISBN 0-226-18200-2) – a collection of essays from his 40 years as a film critic, featuring interviews, profiles, essays, his initial reviews upon a film's release, as well as critical exchanges between the film critics Richard Corliss and Andrew Sarris
• Ebert's "Bigger" Little Movie Glossary (ISBN 0-8362-8289-2) – a book of movie clichés
• The Great Movies (ISBN 0-7679-1038-9), The Great Movies II (ISBN 0-7679-1950-5), and The Great Movies III (ISBN 9780226182087) – three books of essays about great films
• I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (ISBN 0-7407-0672-1) – a collection of reviews of films that received two stars or fewer. (Title comes from his review of North.)
• Roger Ebert's Book of Film (ISBN 0-393-04000-3) – a Norton Anthology of a century of writing about the movies
• Questions For The Movie Answer Man (ISBN 0-8362-2894-4) – his responses to questions sent from his readers
• Behind the Phantom's Mask (ISBN 0-8362-8021-0) – his first attempt at fiction.
• The Perfect London Walk (ISBN 0-8362-7929-8) – a tour of Ebert's favorite foreign city
• Your Movie Sucks (ISBN 0-7407-6366-0) – a new collection of less-than-two-star reviews. (Title comes from his review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.)
• Roger Ebert's Four-Star Reviews 1967–2007 (ISBN 0-7407-7179-5)
• An Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life (no ISBN) – the history of the first 100 years of the University of Illinois, edited by Ebert in 1967
• Roger Ebert (2010). The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker. Andrews McMeel Publishing. ISBN 0-7407-9142-7. OCLC 449846539. ^[110]
• Life Itself: A Memoir (ISBN 0-4465-8497-5)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Roger Ebert

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Roger Ebert

• Official website
• Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival
• Archive of American Television interview
• Roger Ebert at the Internet Movie Database
• Siskel & Ebert's classic shows (1975–1999)
• Speech: Remaking My Voice (2011)

Stanley Kubrick
Kubrick filming Barry Lyndon (1975)
Born	(1928-07-26)July 26, 1928 Manhattan, New York, United States
Died	March 7, 1999(1999-03-07) (aged 70) Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom
Cause of death	Heart attack
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Jewish
Occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor
Years active	1951–1999
Notable work(s)	2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket
Influenced by	Max Ophüls · Sergei Eisenstein · Elia Kazan · Fritz Lang · G. W. Pabst · Vsevolod Pudovkin · Orson Welles
Influenced	Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Woody Allen, Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Guillermo del Toro, David Lynch, Lars von Trier, Michael Mann, George A. Romero, Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Gaspar Noé, Michael Moore, Tim Burton, P.T. Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Matt Groening, Frank Darabont, Peter Jackson, Joss Whedon
Spouse	Toba Etta Metz (1948–51; divorced) Ruth Sobotka (1954–57; divorced) Christiane Harlan (1958–99; his death)

Stanley Kubrick (/ˈkuːbrɪk/; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor. He is regarded as having been one of America's greatest filmmakers. His films, typically adaptations of novels or short stories, were noted for their "dazzling"^[1] and unique cinematography, attention to details to achieve realism and an inspired use of music scores. Kubrick's films covered a variety of genres, including war, black comedy, horror and science fiction. Kubrick was also noted for being a perfectionist, using painstaking care with scene staging and working closely with his actors.