MovieChat Forums > Life Itself (2014) Discussion > Steve James

Steve James

posted 10 years ago by jonhopper217
3 replies | jump to latest

I couldn't wait to see this. Then I found out who was directing and all desire was lost. I am in a very small group of people who hated Hoop Dreams. I love the story, but I hated the way it was told. Ebert, whom I respect almost more than any film critic, couldn't get enough of it. The best movie of the 90's he proclaimed. It's not even in the top ten documentaries of the 90's, but that's an argument for another day. Steve James plays to Roger's weakness and that's exploitation. Roger loves exploitation and that's why he hired him. He knew, James would take Roger's wonderful life and depict it in a way that showed Roger as some Lone Ranger type, who bucked tradition and did it his way. The irony is, Roger rarely liked movies that weren't commercial success ready. He did push documentary filmmakers ahead, because he enjoyed the juicy bits of ho hum life, but for the most part he picked big name directors, with big named actors in big budget films and to throw us off his scent, he threw in documentaries and foreign films. Roger was Hollywood, in every sense of the word, he was simply located in Chicago.

Where the documentary fails is in that it never goes into what made him tick from his childhood. It never really touched on why he settled down, aside from bashing people who drink and it never tells us how he dealt with replacing Siskel with Roeper. Richard Roeper doesn't even appear in the film. The problem with the film is it's two hour and an hour is about his wife, who seems like a loving companion, but frankly, she's not why I or anyone else tuned in. I do appreciate that they didn't shy away from his suffering, although the man took it in stride and I know from his blogs, his attitude was second to none. I know this will sound shallow, but I couldn't help but think, James' real movie about Roger is in the can, waiting for some statutes of copyright limitations to run out. I just can't imagine that a man who meant that much to film and to whom film meant everything, led such a boring life.

[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

ebert probably picked steve james because he loved hoop dreams, and james is also a chicago guy. ebert is about as un-hollywood as a movie guy can get, much preferring chicago and his "regular folk" newspaper people. russ meyer was his favorite director...that's hollywood?

Roger rarely liked movies that weren't commercial success ready.

this is simply ridiculous, and even a casual reader of his reviews knows that probably the opposite is true.

I just can't imagine that a man who meant that much to film and to whom film meant everything, led such a boring life.

if you'd read the book, you'd know better. but then the viewers would have complained about the film dwelling on how ebert enjoyed the comfort of going to the same places and walking around. he basically lived to watch movies, write, and hang around with friends - not exactly the most action-packed of lives.

[–] jonhopper217 10 years ago

I do not mean this to be combative, but just how closely did you watch the film or follow his column? Roger was Hollywood. His entire style, especially later in life was to tell America what they would like and this, was the essence of the show. Something the documentary hammered home continuously. Richard Corliss, another one of my favorites and a sellout in his own right, bashed At the Movies for never telling the public if a movie was good, but simply telling us if we would like it, thumbs up or thumbs down. Pauline Kael, the god of movie criticism despised that Roger, who she knew had immense film knowledge, used none of it in his reviews, choosing to praise commercial promise over art.

You pulled out my comment on commercial success and said it wasn't true, but even the documentary makes a point to state that Roger had become softer in his later years, rarely bashing a film. You follow this up with something that the film did do, ad nauseam.

I myself despise being told this, but I think your worship of the man clouded what you saw on the screen. All the things you said were left out, were in the film and those you claim weren't were in it and hammered home. I don't know when you last watched it, but you might want to revisit it, because it appears, you saw what you wanted to.

I don't watch reviews until after I've seen a movie and if it's older, I always go to his page first. Over the years, especially since I've become more into foreign films, I can see his frustration in American viewers. I also sensed towards the end, that his reviews of American film all began to sound the same, while his reviews of foreign films were done in a completely different voice. I attribute this to his need to dumb down his writing for those movies aimed at a dumbed down audience. This, in my opinion, is what made Corliss, Kael and a few others, much better writers, but what impressed me most was Roger's blog. There, the true him shined through. One of Pauline Kael's biggest complaints (and AO Scott in the film), was that here was one of the most well educated people on film history, writing rave reviews for mediocre work and creating hype that made it a hit. Not everything in this documentary was spoken and one of the most memorable scenes (to me) was the Look Who's Talking poster with nothing, but "two thumbs up." That movie made $140 million, because of Roger Ebert.

[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

i watched the film and read the book, and have read tons of his reviews. saying ebert was "hollywood" or that he tried to tell people what they should like could hardly be farther from the truth. where did you come up with this idea? if ebert said once that he tried to review a movie based on his reaction to it, and how well he thought it accomplished what it was trying to do, he said it a hundred times. thumbs up or down was how he liked it, not whether anyone else would. at the movies didn't tell people that a movie was good or not precisely for this reason.

considering how many utterly uncommercial efforts ebert gave four stars to, and how many highly commercial films got mediocre reviews, the claim that he simply rated based on commercial promise just doesn't pass the laugh test.

if he gave fewer harsh ratings over the last few years...maybe, maybe not. maybe he just tended to rate movies he thought he'd enjoy, instead of slogging through everything that came down the pike.

as for look who's talking...if you think a middling three-star review (have you even read it?) can turn a total dud into a blockbuster, that's giving ebert way more credit than he actually had. it's certainly not the case that every three or four star movie went on to make hundreds of millions. that he occasionally enjoyed a film that isn't exactly high art...well...who doesn't? since he's giving his personal impression instead of trying to simply pick commercial winners, some of these are bound to crop up occasionally.