2014 Top 10 - 2. Life Itself

2014 Top 10

2. Life Itself

This one found it's place in my list very late. In fact I didn't get a chance to screen this during the regular release as it wasn't offered to me.

Once I did see it, I couldn't get past it's unmistakeable charm. Life Itself is one of the best films this year, hands down.

Sure I could be biased being that it is about the man who defined film criticism for a generation or

more (mine).

Sure it's about movies...one of the things I truly love.

Sure it's put together by a master filmmaker in Steve James.

Sure it's in a genre I love...documentary.

All of that is true, but it is so much more than that.

Steve James brings together a story of Life...Itself! That is, of course, Roger's title...but Roger Ebert's life was filled with so many of the struggles and triumphs that we all encounter. (Ok so there was no Pulitzer in my closet...but I have won awards in my life.)

It's a story of life, in and around the movies. But it's also a story about life.

Documentaries get no love when it comes to putting together lists of the best of the year. And I don't understand that position. It is in rarified air on Rotten Tomatoes with 98% fresh as this was written. So why do we just throw it out when it comes to crafting a list of the best of the year?

I can't.

Steve James had to tell the story of the footage he shot. He had to make me invest in Roger, Chaz and all the others that have known him.

It was his culling of the material generated the tears that formed in my eyes, the chuckles when I thought about Roget being a Common Guy ... like myself with why he worked with Roger Corman.

We didn't always agree on a variety of things...in fact many of his takes on films are what gave me the impetus to start telling my stories of what I believed films to be.

I felt like I lived just a piece of the life Roger have...and it is a portrait of life itself.

Life Itself

Rated R

120 minutes

Directed by Steve James

Based on the book Life Itself by Roger Ebert

Starring: Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert, Martin Scorsese, Ramin Bahrani

Opened in theaters - July 4, 2014

Available on Blu-ray / DVD on February 17, 2015 (expected)