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)

Thumbs Down for the Passing of Roger Ebert

Today as I ate lunch, I got a text message from a friend.

"Did you hear Roger Ebert died?" :-(

Immediately my heart skipped a beat.

Sure I had read the article only days earlier that said he was taking a break due to deteriorating health it didn't come as a huge shock, but yet I wasn't expecting this kind of turn this quickly.



This is the image at rogerebert.com running with the
statement from Chaz, the way I will always remember Roger.

Roger Ebert is an icon in the business of film criticism. I'm sure by the time you are reading this you will have read a million stories about the man that Roger Ebert was, but allow me to take a couple minutes to talk about what I know.

It is one of the regrets that I have that I never had a chance to meet the man. He was only 90 minutes to my south and yet I never gor a chance to sit down and chat with him about the thing that we both love, movies.

I'm jealous to have friends and colleagues that have met him,talked with him and enjoyed a moment with him.

Whether you have agreed or disagreed with his opinions on movies throughout the years, Roger Ebert is the name that everyone knew.

I grew to know him, as many did, with Siskel and Ebert. It was a show that even in my younger years I found enjoyable to pacify my love of movies. At a time when there was no proliferation of voices to be found on a national basis, Siskel and Ebert were talking about the thing I loved.

I grew up without the internet in my youth, so the ability to get the best information on the most curent films was like gold. It was my lifeline to movies that played in parts of the country that I knew I never would be able to see theatrically.

I found myself yelling in disagreement ast some of their thoughts and it drove me nuts at time. They hated some films that I loved., or Roger loved it and Gene hated it, or vice versa...but they always had an opinion and brought out my passion.

While I grew, I worked at video stores, and started to share my opinion, always watching my two role models and using that movie passion that burned inside of me. I took to the young growing medium of the internet and established commonguy.com to add my voice to the mix. It was 1997 and the wild west of the internet. I grew quickly in a market that was rapidly expanding. And it was all because of Siskel and Ebert and the example of passion for the movies that they led with.

In 1999, when Gene Siskel passed, I shed a tear as one of my role models in the business was gone. I waited with all others to see what would happen with Roger on a national level and was very pleased when he was back on my screen with Richard Roeper. Sure I disagreed with Ricahrd a lot but I still watched religiously.

Roger kept the show coming in different incarnations with some talent I loved, and some I was lukewarm on but always with personalities front and center. The personalities they found always popped with a passion for the medium that I love.

Always putting his wife Chaz at the forefront of his life. He fought against the illnes that eventually took him from us and reinvented himself behind a different screen, the computer screen. He was always passionate with what he does and the internet was no different. Even his political thoughts came through on his twitter and whether you agreed with him or not, there was immense passion in everything he wrote.

Roger Ebert influenced me. He influenced most of us that talk about movies today. He probably will be influential for years to come. There will never be another Roger Ebert although there will always be those that talk about the movies. He used his mediums in the paper, on television and online to tell us the story and we all listened and learned.

For now Roger will have to go back to hanging out with Gene again. Siskel and Ebert will be back for another run. I'm jealous of the talent that heaven will get to experience. Although his time with us here on earth is done, he won't soon be forgotten.

Thumbs down on the loss of an icon. Thumbs up on the life of an icon.

And for now, in an era without movie palaces, the balcony is closed.