Thank You, Mr Ebert

I was in high school when I first started watching Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel on my local PBS station.  I was already crazy about movies, and had read movies critics before this, but these guys were on TV critiquing the films as we looked at them. Moreover they came off just like myself and my friends sitting around taking a movie apart.

Back in the day when I could walk into the bookstore and buy books as they came out I purchased a number of Roger’s film annuals and other books.  I learned so much about movies, and about writing about movies.

From Roger I learned that you could write lovingly of a film you were none the less critical of, and be critical of a film you loved.  Even when I didn’t agree with what he said about a film, I understood where he was coming from; and when we both liked, or hated, a film it often seemed to come from the same place.

Often he made observations about films that caused me to think about films I liked in new ways.  For example, he once observed that Silence of the Lambs works because Hannibal Lector is basically a good person victimized by uncontrollable urges. Another time he spent considerable time exploring Tom Hanks’ acting choices on a single line from Forest Gump: “I may not be smart, but I know what love is.” It caused me to view the film, and the actor in a completely different way, and every time I watch the film I notice how Hanks plays that moment.  Because of Roger Ebert.

And nobody could rip a bad movie like Roger Ebert.  One of my favorite Ebert books is I Hated, Hated, Hated that Movie. (He also wrote a sequel, Your Movie Sucks) It’s a collection of the films Roger lovingly skewered over the years.  A favorite example, from his review of Halloween H2O :“I happen to know that Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the smartest women in Hollywood.  I cannot wait to read the chapter on Horror films in her autobiography. "

Here are some other classics:

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica."

On Reality Bites: “the outcome will be a huge surprise to anyone who has never seen a movie before."

 Or how about this: "The only way to save this film would be to trim 86 minutes."

 His lexicon of film term gave names to such film concepts at The Fallacy of the Predictable Tree, which is that the villain will always pause under the tree the hero is hiding in.

Unlike a lot of critics, he always seemed to be on the side of the fans.  He wanted us to know if we would enjoy a movie and why.  He passionately defended letter boxing and condemned colorization of films, both for the same reason: that people watching at home should be seeing the film the director intended them to see.  

When throat cancer took his vocal chords he didn’t allow it to silence his voice. He became an early adopter of social media, a Twitter and later Facebook user, and also author of a web page of reviews and an entertaining and often thoughtful personal blog. He was in fact the first celebrity I ever followed on Twitter.  Because he had no other way to communicate with his readers in real time, he tweeted a lot, not only on movies but on all sorts of things going on in the world.  Whenever he posted a new review or blog entry I read it, and learned a great deal. He often promoted his fans own reviews and blogs.  Once, with great trepidation, I corrected a historical fact in a tweet, and was politely thanked. 

The very last words he wrote professionally were: I'll see you at the movies.

Those of us who love movies and who love reading about movies are forever in his debt.

When bad things happen...

I was going to write about the Soap Box Derby today, it being a big deal here in Northeastern Ohio, but I can't. Everything I  could have said has been completely driven out of my mind by the horrible events in Aurora,Co.  Although these tragedies shock and sadden us, they longer surprise us in the way they once did. Every time such things happen, I find myself juggling multiple reactions at once...reacting as a mom, and as a 911 operator, and also in some way to the setting where it occurs, be it a restaurant, a summer camp, a school or now at a movie theatre.

When something like this happens we are changed forever by how it happens and where it happens. We distrust people who fit our picture of what happens. (though we never seem to be as worried about white males with access to guns as statistics suggest we should be) The vary randomness of the circumstances disturb us. Its not like the victims were on the wrong side of town or engaged in illegal behavior. They were in a seemingly safe place, that suddenly became unsafe.

As a lover of films I find it especially jarring that this happened in a theatre. A place to have fun with friends, the escapism of a good film, the excitement of attending a premiere, all violated forever. Once something like this happens we can never completely dismiss it. Just I cannot to this day sit down and watch a Monday Night Football game without remembering the Monday night in December 1980 that Howard Cosell told us of John Lennon's murder; so I will not be able to go in a theatre or read anything about this movie without thinking at least momentarily about the tragedy.

As a 911 operator, I look on events from a more professional perspective as well. I have attended workshops on how to handle these sorts of incidents, have had to watch security tapes of shooting incidents to learn about how they evolve and how police officers and EMS personnel respond. Every time the media releases 911 calls I listen to them, marvelling at how well the call takers manage to handle the calls. (I marvel at callers too. Most do astounding jobs in the face of chaos conveying vital information.) Whenever these incidents occur, I find part of me remains apart from the emotional aspects of things, and totally drawn into the workings of the Police and Fire Departments.

Its our perspective  as parents that gets us where we live of course.  When children (especially) are harmed in a seemingly safe place it is the stuff of our nightmares. Although neither of my children are Batman fans, they have gone to midnight showings of other movies, and the daughter is already nagging me about the Breaking Dawn 2 premiere this fall. Of  course we read about these horrific things and picture our children involved. Of course we worry about what can go wrong the next time. Children have no idea what an act of courage it is on the part of their parents to ever let them out of the house. But of course we have to. They have to go out and have lives. We can minimize risks as much as possible, but can't eliminate them completely. They have to go out into the world.

A few years ago, some Boy Scouts were killed and others  injured when a tornado hit the camp they were taking a leadership training class at. The upside of the story is that the other boys immediately began rescuing and giving first aid to their friends. My son had taken the same training at our local camp and more than one person told me that when they heard the story they had thought of my son, that it was just the sort of activity he would be in attendance at, and didn't I worry something like this could happen. My response was always, yes I did, but I could only hope that if something like that did happen he would be one of those scouts following their training, and doing what he could to help. We can't completely shelter our children (or ourselves) from danger, so we have to make sure they know the right things to do when confronted by it.