Ebert Being a Jerk

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He's not as smart as he thinks he is. His success as a film critic has always been a mystery to me.

I also caught Ebert in a lie. In his originally review of "Midnight Cowboy" in 1969, he gave the film extremely negative reviews. Now that the movie is considered a classic, he says he loves the film and always considered it to be a masterpiece.

Now there's another for the list of reasons I can't stand Ebert. He trashed The Graduate when it first came out, calling its protagonist, Ben Braddock, "not a rebel, just a selfish brat who messes up peoples' lives" (something like that). Ebert's weak point is his interpretation of characters. He's usually so far off the mark that his opinion can't even be considered respectable (as in, it's not a case of "to each their own;" it's a case of "that is so wrong"). I think he wrote a retraction a few decades later, but that's probably because The Graduate is a classic now.

"I think there's too much burden placed on the orgasm to make up for empty areas in life."

yeah in this review and most of the reviews from this time it sounds like he's trying to be like Pauline Kael, his hero at the time. He was a little more open minded later on. But I love Ebert and tend to agree with his more modern reviews from the 90's on, I just think sometimes it seems as if he is so fixated on what film is going to be important in cinema history, because he cares about cinema so much, that he can get a bit pretentious and try to rate a film high if he thinks it will have a place in history, and disparage it if it doesn't. Sometimes he gets it wrong and he backtracks on his old reviews of now classic films.

"zing zing zing went my heartstrings, from the moment I saw him I fell"

Ebert caught on to how John Nichols (semi autobiographical writer)of the Sterile Cukoo novel sounded so unbelievable fake. John Nichols has written about how he and his friends met and used girls like Pookie. John Nichols was a manipuliative user and sexual predator. He was no way like the wide eyed innocent country bumkin Jerry. Pookie sounds narcistic and personality disorder type. These type of girls can be alot of fun sexually but are dangerous. After Jerry used her he wisely distanced himself from her. Cukoos lay there eggs in other birds nests. Pookie had lost her mom and was raised by a cold Dad and stepmom. She felt she had no nest. Or ws raised in the wrong nest.

Someday there will be a critic who nobody will call a jerk. He or she will only write opinions that 100% of the people agree with 100% of the time, and then 100% of the people will be pleased. Why can't Roger Ebert be that critic? Shame on him for writing something that wmarkley disagrees with! What was he thinking? Only a true jerk would have the temerity to displease wmarkley. Wmarkley, after all, is ALWAYS right.

You know I have to agree with Roger E. here, I do think Jerry is very slow. Mentally retarded, in fact I think both he and Pookie are mentally retarded and she has other mental illness on top of that.

I thought something was wrong with Jerry from the very first moment he meets Pookie, that he doesn't recognize she's nuts. And when she shows up unexpectedly at his dorm - WTF?!?!? The fact that he didn't tell her at that point to get lost tells me there is something seriously wrong with him too.

I also could never figure out what he saw in her. She was desperate to latch on to anyone who gave her half a teaspoon of attention, but what did HE get out of the relationship? She was a pain in the a$$, the sex was probably the least erotic encounter between two human beings ever (truly, sitting with your face an inch from a blank wall and just staring at it for an hour would be more fun), she wasn't enjoyable to be with, at all, she had no friends - she was like a clingy needy annoying child he was forever babysitting. Ugh.