Ebert had some weird interests. Like big boobs. I don't agree with him all the time, but man did he write some things that I did agree with.
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22 movies Ebert really hated
- Thread starter Vanillalite
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Ebert had some weird interests. Like big boobs. I don't agree with him all the time, but man did he write some things that I did agree with.
Extra Sauce
Member
The Usual Suspects is basically a bunch of bullshit spewed by a character for two hours.
Spiritwalker
Member
armageddon is fun though
Imp the Dimp
Member
I wish video gaming will get to the point where we'll have one or multiple great writers who will just 2/10 slam a successful ass game and back it up with their points so well that gamers on the net won't sense a conspiracy but simply realize that opinions can differ.
Ebert was truly outstanding.
Ebert was truly outstanding.
Spiritwalker
Member
he sure wasn't
AngmarsKing701
Member
I love Armageddon. That film is so over the top.
GabeTheGrouch76
Member
It's great, but his explicit refusal to give stars to The Human Centipede is even better.
Good lord lmao.
Mister Wilhelm
Member
He was dead on about the Usual Suspects, though he was sometimes was fucking off the mark.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
I respect Ebert a great deal, but he was wrong about games, and in my opinion wrong on Tommy Boy.
Usual Suspects is hardly "universally reviled" but good try
Kor of Memory
Member
This kills me, as a few lines were said pretty regularly said by me, my extended family, and most of my classmates when I was still in elementary school when it came out.
"Holy Shnikies."
"Shut up Richard."
"Fat guy in little coat."
"If you want me to take a dumb in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I've got spare time."
"Housekeeping..."
"Him too afwaid... Him just a wittle guy."
We would even occasionally slip in a Niner when we could if it fit into conversation.
JinjoUnchained
Member
Yeah, Love Guru is horrible. The one part I like us how he uses the name Mariska Hargitay as a would-be Sanskrit greeting. It's fun to do with superficial suburbanites that try to co-opt Indian culture. You know the type, guys named Larry that greet you with "namaste" and insist you call them by their spiritual name. "Mariska Hargitay!"
I still slip some of those lines in from time to time. Especially with family and the Housekeeping scene if we have to knock.
TheWorthyEdge
Member
Tommy Boy and Usual Suspects are outstanding movies
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Which is basically the premise of all movies. I'm actually surprised that he didn't like that part of it.
Reading his review, it sounds like he watched it the first time under poor circumstances and this colored his opinion. Also, he actually did not understand some of the movie, Hockney states that he stole the truck that had them in the line-up, and more importantly it should be obvious that Soze orchestrated the line-up so as to put his team together for the final job.
Lan Dong Mik
And why would I want them?
No he wasn't, unless he's only speaking for himself. I'm a huge Ebert fan too. I firmly believe art is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think a girl dumping a can of spaghettio's all over herself while 20 people watch is art, but some of those people may see it that way. I do however consider a lot of games to be very artful, games like journey, firewatch, even the new Doom and Uncharted games. I love the art design of those games, so I consider them artistic. I'm cool with people not agreeing with me though, because it just comes down to how the individual views it.
Cymbal Head
Banned
I think you need the full context of the Schneider Pulitzer own to really appreciate it:
Ebert said:
You must have stopped watching Shyamalan movies after that, because believe me, he has topped himself since then.
I honestly can't stand film critique in general and all the arcane jargon they love to use, but I always enjoyed Roger Ebert's insights. I kind of went on a Siskel & Ebert binge last year watching clips of the show throughout the decades. It was fascinating going through all the different fads of the film industry that hardly anyone even remembers today, like all the quick knockoffs in the wake of Beetlejuice's success.
There's this weird fixation on him because gaming culture as a whole has this ridiculous perpetual inferiority complex, desperately searching for validation from "higher" mediums, and Ebert's status as a film critic came to symbolize that.
There's this weird fixation on him because gaming culture as a whole has this ridiculous perpetual inferiority complex, desperately searching for validation from "higher" mediums, and Ebert's status as a film critic came to symbolize that.
CoffeeJanitor
Member
Skiptastic
Member
You need to see a lot more movies lol. The Village isn't anywhere near the worst movie of all time.
PetriP-TNT
Member
Stop posting already. I easily got past the other posts but STOP POSTING.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
I agree with pretty much all of the list, except for The Usual Suspects, which I think is a really good movie.
Okay, now that is just a ridiculous statement. You might not like Die Hard, but your feelings don't change the fact that it's still even today one of the best action films ever made. Your opinion sucks dude!
Okay, now that is just a ridiculous statement. You might not like Die Hard, but your feelings don't change the fact that it's still even today one of the best action films ever made. Your opinion sucks dude!
Yep. That was amazing. You can't go toe to toe with Ebert. You just cant. Well, except Siskel.
One of my favorite slams is when Ebert and Siskel slammed Color of Money. Not because it's a bad film, but a bad film for Martin Scorsese. Basically saying he's too good for this material.
Don't forget Siskel and Ebert created a retrospective for Scorsese because he lost his way and was a mess on booze and coke in the early 80s. They basically said get your shit together.
Extra Sauce
Member
How so?
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Ive never really liked Armageddon. At its root there is a good story there with great characters, but I just cant stand the way its directed and filmed. It gives me a headache. Its like two hours of 1.5 second short clips were just spliced together to make one long running shaky cam montage with lots of loudness and noise.
Rabbi_Vole
Banned
Since when is the appreciation of ample bosom a "weird interest?"
Rabbi_Vole
Banned
Black sheep had the stuck on the side of a plane gag.. Later stolen by Tom Cruise in MI.
deadscreensky
Member
Unless you're watching a particularly accurate documentary, any film you watch is basically going to be ~2 hours of characters saying bullshit. It's fictional, that's the point, and as a general rule people don't complain when fiction is being fiction.
EDIT: I don't want to come across as hating on Ebert, because like most I also found him an interesting writer and critic. Doesn't mean we can't radically disagree with him on some of his perspectives, obviously.
I remember when Ebert first questioned (by denying) "games as art", someone (might have been Ebert) mentioned that we need to be mindful of the distinction between games being art and games having art in them.
Jack and Rich from RedLetterMedia recently called out third person shooters as the current refuge of game designers who have cinematic-style artistic aspirations, but can't come up with game design creativity to match. They're a great example of games that have art in them.
Personally, I believe that games can be (and sometimes are) art. I think something like Tetris (when it came out) is gameplay art by itself. I haven't played the new Doom, but I've heard how it discourages the style of gameplay that's common in modern shooters, and incentivizes fast gameplay. That's videogame art, IMO. And it doesn't hurt that Doom (unlike Tetris) is immersed in other kinds of art.
But back to the subject of Ebert, he slammed videogames as art, but he also backed up and supported his arguments to an amazing degree (he said some pretty advanced stuff that I had trouble following). Even though I don't agree, I've gotta respect his opinion.
YesManKablaam
Neo Member
It's cyclical, look at early film criticism and the exact same pattern is present, seeking validation by drawing comparison to older, more established mediums. Ebert was a trailblazer in celebrating the new American cinema of the time that was heavily influenced by the likes of the Nouvelle Vague, Italian Neorealism and other prominent European film movements.
If anything I was majorly disappointed when he put forward his views on videogames as an artistic medium. Here's a man who made his name championing the new generation of filmmakers that were going against the established formula (which he himself as a critic did as well), and somewhere down the line he then becomes the old guard. In those last few years I lost interest in his work as he slowly became irrelevant in the modern climate. Quite sad, really.
D
Deleted member 102362
Unconfirmed Member
It's poetry, from start to finish.
wow at the Spice Girls burn.
Also, his reaction to North is hilarious.
Freddy Got Fingered should have been awarded negative stars, i mean i guess his barrel metaphor does grades it in negatives, but he should have made it official, that movie is so bad that it basically upgrades every other movie ever one full star.
Also, his reaction to North is hilarious.
Freddy Got Fingered should have been awarded negative stars, i mean i guess his barrel metaphor does grades it in negatives, but he should have made it official, that movie is so bad that it basically upgrades every other movie ever one full star.
SolidChamp
Banned
Yeah. I love Ebert, may he rest in peace, but I found that unnecessarily harsh.
freenudemacusers
Member
Art needs good criticism and critical language. Games lack this hilariously.
Pain and Gain?
D
Deleted member 102362
Unconfirmed Member
The reason I was so drawn to him years ago wasn't if I agreed with him or not (more often than not I did) but because his writing was amazing. This, augmented with his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, make him one of the greatest critics who's ever lived.
Robert Eger?
Robert Eger?
Risible
Member
This guy gets it. You don't have to agree with his opinions, just recognize he was a great and entertaining writer.
Bitanator
Member
yeah but he said there were no memorable lines, which is false
Ebert was the perfect balance of film lover, being critical and being able to speak with a measured voice about film to an audience. He had passion that never really rolled into hyperbole. I don't know if many other critics, particularly when it comes to reviews, strike that as well as he did. There are others I enjoy reading but you could tell immediately something that Ebert wrote.
He wrote in that "speaking voice" as though he's communicating directly to you without sacrificing the points and analysis with it. His "Great Movies" essays are some of the best write-ups on film out there. I always got the sense he could write pages and pages more on one film but forced himself to limit it. There's a lot of critics and film scholars out there that can write a ton about a film but I don't think anyone conveyed it as eloquently as Ebert could.
He wrote in that "speaking voice" as though he's communicating directly to you without sacrificing the points and analysis with it. His "Great Movies" essays are some of the best write-ups on film out there. I always got the sense he could write pages and pages more on one film but forced himself to limit it. There's a lot of critics and film scholars out there that can write a ton about a film but I don't think anyone conveyed it as eloquently as Ebert could.
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