really it s wonderful. it s a wonderful celebration of film. i learned so much about the man. you knew him. did you learn anything after watching this movie? you know, i did. i didn t think i would. i heard the film was coming. i have great respect for steve james. but i was surprised, i found out more about his illness and also seeing him battle the illness day in day out. you really got much more appreciation for kind of his courage and his stamina and his will and also even though i knew about the battles he has with gene siskell, to see it in the way the film portrays it gave me new insight into that. so i didn t really expect to learn something new and i did. that was also enjoyable. they really did dislike each other for a lot of their relationship although they did come to have a grudging brotherly love for one another towards the end when siskell tied. yes.
reviews were sneered at by film critics for being too simplistic and dumbed down. what did you think? well i m a critic and obviously you spend a lot of time and effort crafting things getting nuance in there. and a thumb doesn t have a lot of nuance. but on the other hand, roger really used his positive thumbs to make small films, give them more visibility foreign language films, documentaries as in hoop dreams. it went both ways. you say ebert s impact on film was much larger than the syndicated film he did with gene siskell? he reached people. this was his gift. i d be with him in all parts of the world and people would come up and say hello. e h liked that. he liked convincing people that films were worth seeing. this was a great thing. this documentary, i watched it a few days ago, it is