He made tons of mistakes in his film reviews as far as plot details. Scorsese should have picked a better subject to make a film about.
Watch out for a terrible troll named Topix. Ignore any postings by that individual or any stranger!
This is true. I was actually thinking this upon discovering this film, and why he is frequently regarded as an icon. Especially when he would rip a movie apart based on something he completely misunderstood, or for something that wasn't even there in the first place. This occurred way too much to be ignored.
A list of My Favourite 100 Films
http://www.imdb.com/list/ls076253329/
Poor man's Barry Norman.
shareSame challenge as with OP. If it occurred "way too much," post examples.
I mean, I'm all for not "ignoring" a review based on misunderstanding. He'd probably tell you he was too. So that's kind of a false standard (perfection, actually). The question is whether getting something wrong occasionally makes you a "very bad film critic."
i could not agree more.
"laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone." - Dae-su Oh
I remember when he gave a thumb down to Home Alone, which is regarded as a classic, and gave a thumb UP to Home Alone 3, a complete cash grab. The worst thing is that he gave his thumb up for pretty much the same reasons he had given his thumb down years ago. Look it up, it's on Youtube.
shareSo your complaints are:
1. He disagreed with you about these two films.
2. You think he did so by using a standard or rationale inconsistently, but you're not posting what that was.
The second of these two is potentially legit. So what was it?
[deleted]
Wow, it's inspiring to see people "happy to see a person die", just because he didn't like your favorite movies. My faith in humanity is restored.
I've seen, and will probably keep seeing, "Ebert was a hack" threads often. It instantly reminds me that most people do not know what a film critic is, or what his function is.
I've disagreed with Ebert more often than agreed with him, but I always enjoyed reading his comments. I bought and read many of his books as well. He obviously knew and understood cinema both as art and as entertainment, and he had vast knowledge on the subject. So I couldn't care less if he didn't like one of my favorite movies, I still wanted to know his educated opinion on it.
If you can't take an opinion that's not the same as yours, you've got no business reading critics anyway. You should be reading fanboards.
And for the record, it's not "he could have went" it's "he could have gone." If you're badmouthing a writer, at least learn to write.
Never be complete.
I'm happy he's gone … He gave alot of bad reviews to great movies.
He interjected his own political bias into his written reviews far too many times to suit me. I think he was guilty of the same thing many of the Hollywood stars are: just because you're good at what you do, doesn't mean your thoughts on issues are more profound than anyone else and it certainly doesn't make your viewpoint the correct one. When you constantly criticize where I live, how I vote and my core beliefs, then it's hard for me to listen or read anything else you say.
When he reviewed The Life of David Gale, he ranted that such a film might have been good if not set in Texas. The movie didn't totally change my mind, but it did make me re-think capital punishment and that if we're going to execute someone, we should be 100% positive the killer is guilty. Gale wasn't the best movie I ever watched, but I thought it a good one with an interesting twist I didn't see coming. He then brought up Dead Man Walking as a better example of an anti-DP movie, which I found perplexing; if anyone ever deserved the DP, then the Sean Penn character certainly did.
I am against the death penalty but the Life of David Gale has imo a ridicolous plot, spoilers about the Life of David Gale the only thing David Gale proves in the movie, is that when you haven't commited a murder, but you really really really want people to believe that you did, and you really want the death penalty you get it. That's not a very strong point against the death penalty at all
shareActually that's a pretty good point against the DP. The point is that if a person can be convicted of a crime he didn't commit -- whether by false confession or any other means -- then the DP is too final and irreversible a penalty for such an imperfect system.
Most researchers put the percentage of false conviction somewhere around three to five percent at the low end and 18 to 20 percent at the high end, with the usual reasonable consensus at about one in ten or so. If it's even half that -- one in 20 -- that means for every hundred people executed, five are factually innocent. (And by the way, there is such a thing as a false confession. That doesn't remove the state's obligation to try to find the person who is factually guilty.)
That, IMHO, is the single most irrefutable reason to be against the DP as policy. It guarantees that innocent people will be killed by the state. Most other anti-DP arguments make little to no sense to me. Some are clearly irrational ("state murder"? what is incarceration, then, state kidnapping?). But from this one there is no escape.
Look at it this way: With any other penalty, the possibility of discovering new evidence is there for the person's entire natural lifetime, no matter how long that person is in prison or how long he/she lives after being released (if there is a release). But the DP makes that impossible. When you go back and look at how many people have been exonerated by DNA and other new evidence when they were headed toward certain execution, it's terrifying.
He interjected his own political bias into his written reviews far too many times to suit me.
I think he was guilty of the same thing many of the Hollywood stars are: just because you're good at what you do, doesn't mean your thoughts on issues are more profound than anyone else and it certainly doesn't make your viewpoint the correct one.
When you constantly criticize where I live, how I vote and my core beliefs, then it's hard for me to listen or read anything else you say.
Well said, from another Texan
shareGreat response.
shareI think Siskel had a much better taste than Ebert. Home Alone 3 a thumbs up, and Full Metal Jacket thumbs down. Starship Troopers, not a word about the satire of the movie.
But I do like to watch those 2. And I think he has became a icon because of how long he is writing movie reviews, because of his disease that didn't stop him from writing, and also because I believe he was sincere in his judgements. Just like Siskel when they disagreed they really did disagree. It wasn't played.
I thought Siskel was sometimes right when Ebert was wrong too. Doesn't make Ebert a "very bad film critic."
shareI recall somebody writing somewhere that Ebert made tons of mistakes in his film reviews to be sure but he (Ebert) got big money for it all the same.
Watch out for a terrible troll named Topix. Ignore any postings by that individual or any stranger!
Well, so: You read what somebody wrote somewhere.
So what are the mistakes? And what percentage of mistakes did he make, relative to the uncountable tens of thousands (if not more) details he included in reviews?
And what's your objection to somebody making "big money," if he had an audience and his employer thought he was worth it?
I don't just disagree with most of what Ebert wrote opinion-wise of a film I also KNOW he made car-loads of plot-detail mistakes. It is like he only saw the film once before writing about it.
Watch out for a terrible troll named Topix. Ignore any postings by that individual or any stranger!
Care to elaborate and give some examples of those plot-detail mistakes?
Without those, you're not really supporting what you just said.
If you hunt around the internet you can see how Ebert bullied film-makers and studios quite frequently. The pompous prick tried to decide which films the studios should back - I don't see why people are being told to kiss his ar5e when his judgement was often questionable and his reviews were insipid.
He is not missed at all. Who actually reads his old reviews? He is irreverent and future generations will, rightly, have no idea who he was.
He is not missed at all. Who actually reads his old reviews? He is irreverent and future generations will, rightly, have no idea who he was.
The pompous prick tried to decide which films the studios should back
you are wrong, but you have every right to be wrong.
shareThumbs down to Full Metal Jacket? That's crazy.
Really, I don't think any two people are going to agree on which movies are good and which ones aren't. Not totally, anyway. So really, I think the main job of a film critic has to be to entertain. And let you know enough about the film so you have an idea of whether you would like to see it or not.
So he's a bad critic because he disagreed with you on certain films?
You're right to an extent about what a film critic should do: He shouldn't simply say "go see it" or "avoid it." But Ebert clearly didn't do that. Usually he'd give the film a pretty fair go when it came to the plot outline, and if he had certain somewhat hard criteria or some kind of specific rationale for giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down, he'd typically tell you what it was.
I mean, is your complaint about Ebert, or about critics in general?
Also, just for the record, I didn't remember that he didn't like FMJ, but if so, I would disagree with that assessment too, as I did on some other films as well.
share