Where is Richard Roeper? - Life Itself (2014) Discussion

[–] stevenackerman69 11 years ago

Hmm, maybe he wasn't interviewed? I don't think they talked to everybody who knew Roger. Also, Richard came into the picture near the end of Roger's life (2000), so maybe there isn't a lot there.

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[–] fudgenuts101 11 years ago

Man, I hope he was. They were my Siskel and Ebert as a young film lover.

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[–] Anscules 11 years ago

Roeper's an idiot. The film is better off without him. Let's just hope there are no shots, however brief, of Harry Knowles sitting in the aisle seat.

"Rampart: Squad 51."

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[–] fudgenuts101 11 years ago

Roeper's not an idiot, and there's obviously a reason Ebert chose to work with him for so many years.

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[–] nutsberryfarm 11 years ago

that is true.

The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money.-James Madison

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[–] joependleton78 11 years ago

Compared to GeneSiskel, Richard Roeper is Ben Lyons. Compared to Ben Lyons, Roeper is Gene Siskel.

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[–] DPatts 11 years ago

Sadly no one ever came close to Siskel. Ebert commented in the documentary about how when Gene died, he confessed to Siskel's wife how Gene was the smartest man he knew. Their sparring and animosity was not an act but ultimately these men developed a long term friendship, one reason Ebert was so hurt about not knowing of Gene's illness.

I don't think other than the men interviewed in this documentary(long term friends from college and from his early years at the Sun Times)and Siskel, Roeper really didn't have that kind of relationship with Ebert. They may have liked and respected on another, but I don't think it went beyond that.

I like Roeper myself but I don't care much for his reviews and don't find him much of a critic. He seems at times bought and paid for by the studios.

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[–] mikeyflatley 11 years ago

Roeper wuz horrible and his reviewz have no deft. I really like a o Scott and mike phillipz and they reminded me of ebert and siskel a bit...unfor there wuz a thing called rotten tomatoez and metacrtic so nobody actually watch these prog anymo. I also feel siskel wuz irreplaceable bec he wuz not just smart but very personable and came across 2 viewer extremely well

Werd 2 ur mudda, bruddafcker

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[–] lizlemon84 11 years ago

why is your post written in lolcat?

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[–] Starduster 11 years ago

The question still remains as to why there is no mention of Roeper in the movie. They worked together for several years. Richard Roeper was the man that Roger was working with when he became ill and had to discontinue the TV show. Im sure that there had to be some input from BOTH sides regarding their partnership in the show. It just seems WRONG, that there is this omission in an otherwise excellent movie and account of Rogers life.

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[–] IndianaGuy 10 years ago

My thoughts exactly.

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[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

in ebert's autobiography, roeper barely merits a paragraph in the whole book. apparently he wasn't somebody ebert valued at all.

you'll have to wait for the richard roeper documentary for the juicy roeper/ebert bits.

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[–] BlackJack296 10 years ago

Never challenged him and got under his skin the way Gene did. Not that I think Roeper was horrible, I always just thought he was more "happy to be here" on the show than anything else.

-Hey yo, listen here, Bey. You come at the King, you best not miss.

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[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

it could be that by that time ebert had emotionally moved on from doing the show and was just going through the motions. gene was a close friend and they had their back and forth exchanges, roeper was just a guy he worked with.

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[–] covenant12 11 years ago

from the director - http://www.indiewire.com/article/life-itself-director-steve-james-expl ains-why-roger-ebert-deserved-a-documentary-20140705

I had every intention of at least documenting in some way the show with Roeper, because Roger did the show with Roeper for like seven or eight years. I planned to interview Richard, but what happened was that after Roger died, I started to really try and work with the interviews that I already had done, which ended up being about two-thirds of the interviews that were eventually in the movie. I started to piece together a structure for the movie. When I got to that part of the film where Gene dies, and the decision that Gene and his wife made about how they were going to be very private about the illness, and the impact that decision had on Roger -- how it hurt him to be excluded from knowing that diagnosis and how it fueled his own decision to not deal with anything that might befall him in a similar way going forward -- I just felt like I had to go from that to delving deeply into what befell Roger. I just felt that was such a strong narrative line of greater importance to spend some time with the show in the aftermath of Gene.

I know Richard really wanted to be a part of the film and I even sent a note to him explaining why I made the decisions I made and he was very classy about it. But I ended up decided that that was more important to telling the story and that the show with Gene was the significance of Roger's television film criticism. Everything that followed afterwards really was less important

You saw Dingleberries?

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[–] BRisBR 10 years ago

I would have loved to have seen Richard Roeper in the documentary more than so much coverage about how Roger was towards the end of his life. Roger's past is far more interesting than his illness.

Like him or not, like his reviews or not, Richard Roeper was a significant part of Roger's life, to the extend that Roger dropped Siskel's name from the show and it became "At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper" -- with the Ebert name first, just like Roger wanted.

I read what the director said, but exclusing Roeper was still a mistake. He was never as big a part as Siskel; nevertheless, Richard Roeper is a huge missing piece of the story.

B

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[–] haynese_98 10 years ago

Yes, I agree that Roeper should have been in the documentary but I also think a real doco on Ebert would probably be 6 hours long. A lot of us fans already know the full story of Rogers life without the documentary.

I'm really of the thinking that a doc on Roger Ebert is totally unnecessary. An impossible task for anyone willing to take it on. Still, Steve James did a really good job under the circumstances. His one mistake was to believe that just because Siskel was a bigger force in Ebert's life that omitting Roeper was OK. It wasn't OK but this doc isn't going to alter either Roeper's life(he's doing pretty good) or Ebert's legacy. Their legacy is in their work and they've entertained us more than most of the movies release, esp. nowadays.

There's no more Hollywood anymore, there's just a bunch of banks

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[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

no, in the grand scale of things, roeper is fairly insignificant. siskel and ebert were more or less equals who created something special. roeper was just the lucky guy in the next seat, and obviously meant far less to ebert than siskel did.

omitting roeper isn't as baffling a decision as leaving robert mapplethorpe out of the patti smith bio pic, for instance.

and i have to disagree with you - ebert's illness and the way it's handled elevates this movie way above a standard "ebert did this, then he did that" treatment. it makes the movie about more than just its obvious subject.

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[–] MannyCastro 10 years ago

I know people dislike Richard Roeper, but he IS a big part of Roger Ebert's career. Roeper was his co-host for 6 years and continued the show for many years after Roger became ill. Excluding Roeper was a mistake. Let me explain it another way. Let's say there's a 13-year-old becoming a filmbuff and this documentary was their introduction to Roger Ebert. Isn't it dishonest to omit Roeper's history? This documentary was made for fans of Roger and that is silly. We already knew all the information that was presented. This documentary should have been made for people who don't know anything about Roger Ebert and there should have been an obligation to include everything that's important. At the end of the day, Roger Ebert was a critic. If it weren't for his illness, there would be nothing interesting about his life. So he drank a lot in his youth? So what? He married late? So what? The meat of the documentary should have been the TV show and his illness. Everything else should have taken a backseat and allowed Roeper a few minutes to tell his story.

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[–] Moviemadness2012 10 years ago

Roger's time with Richard produced not a single memorable moment on TV. If there was nothing memorable, it was no surprise the film didn't cover it. In a lesser film, Richard would be interviewed, and he would say unmemorable things and the filmmakers would let him get by. But this is a film from an Oscar-nominated director who wanted everything in the film to be gold: every interview had to be the best, the most perceptive, and the most heartfelt. Every vintage clip, old photo, narration, etc. had to be perfectly used and placed. What would Richard possibly add to that?? He just happened to work with Roger in a period that was the least interesting time in Roger's profession (compounded by Richard's being a pale ghost of Gene). In fact, the film didn't cover a whole lot about Roger's film-reviewing career in the 2000s, the period after Gene's death. If his professional career wasn't as interesting, so why not cover that period from the angle of Roger battling his illnesses? That would be the choice that made the most sense, especially since Roger wanted to make his illnesses public.

No film could include everything. One interviewee I wish the film would include is director Justin Lin, who had a wonderful encounter with Roger. Here is Roger's passionate defense of Lin's 2002 film "Better Luck Tomorrow" during a screening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSzP9YV3jbc

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[–] MannyCastro 10 years ago

The film didn't cover a whole lot about Roger's film-reviewing career in the 2000s, the period after Gene's death. His professional career wasn't as interesting.

That's nonsense. After Gene Siskel's death, Roger Ebert did an entire episode with President Bill Clinton. He did a countdown of the greatest movies from the 1990's with director Martin Scorsese. His search for a new co-host was a rollercoaster of events with candidates ranging from Leonard Maltin to Harry Knowles. When Richard Roeper was hired, they had their highlights like the Garfield incident. And let's not forget Ebert's controversial opinion's about video games. Next to his illness, that was the most famous thing about him in the 21st century.

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[–] Moviemadness2012 10 years ago

Maybe you just didn't see much of Roger in his peak period of 80s to late 90s. Anyone who did would easily notice that his TV show after Gene's death was a shell of its former glory. Name me one single memorable debate that Roger had with his co-host during this period. To have great debates on TV, the two hosts needed CHEMISTRY. Name me one co-host who had as good a rapport with Roger as Gene did. Name me one co-host with which Roger had as memorable a debate as he did with Gene in their review of "Don't Be a Menace" (go to 14:30):

http://siskelandebert.org/video/Y3M1AN2K96YY/12-Monkees--From-Dusk-Till-Dawn--Eye-For-An-Eye-1996

Do you think such a partnership is easy to duplicate? These two guys not only had on-screen chemistry, but they were also able to express their thoughts intelligently, articulately, entertainingly, engagingly, and without any hint of condescension (at least not to the viewers). Maybe you just have no inkling of how high a standard Gene and Roger had set in their TV work and think it is easily achievable.

Roger's writing skills did not diminish in the 2000s, however. His "Great Movies" series of reviews of classic films were especially memorable. And the film "Life Itself" did mention that Roger was "a better writer than ever" in the 2000s, citing his blog as an example.

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[–] phantom2-2 10 years ago

roeper barely merits passing mention in ebert's autobiography, so dedicating any time to him in the movie would have been out of proportion to his importance to ebert.

if you want the "he did this and then he did that" version of ebert's life story, you'll have to wait for it to come out on the biography channel. if you think the only interesting thing is that ebert wrote movie reviews, then you missed an excellent documentary about life itself. hopefully a 13 year old film buff would be more broad minded.

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[–] Hyman_Flomax 10 years ago

Roger barely mentions him in the book at all. They weren't that close, and even Roger seems to have known that the show wasn't as good in those days.

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[–] biggtittsss 10 years ago

Richard Roeper was approached for the film, but the filmmakers wanted to have it more of a love story between Roger and Gene. Not having Roeper in it was disrespectful, I thought.
When Gene died, the show clearly suffered. At first, Roeper seemed too immature to replace Siskel. But around the time Ebert got sick, Roeper took over and his tastes and reviews got better and better. I actually agreed more with Roeper than with Siskel near the end of the show's run.

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[–] Hyman_Flomax 10 years ago

At first, Roeper seemed too immature to replace Siskel. But around the time Ebert got sick, Roeper took over and his tastes and reviews got better and better.

I see the flipside of that, actually. I thought Roeper was gutsier and more feisty in the first two years (his glasses era) and his insights became more impish and shallow as the years passed. His tastes were much more commercial and middlebrow than Roger's and he rarely went out of his way to express enthusiasm for foreign films or non-Oscar bait. Always more of a tabloid/showbiz reporter than a film critic, really.

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