![]() ![]() There is a desire within damn near every filmmaker alive to have a movie reviewed by Roger Ebert. With Ebert, you always felt like he knew you were there, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, mouth slack, eyes glued to his every opinion, whether it be about a kids movie or a movie you won’t be allowed to see for another 10 years, worshipping him. It always felt like he was merely talking to Ebert. A vital part of the magic, absolutely, but when he spoke, you didn’t feel like he was talking to you. He was the Meg White to Roger Ebert’s Jack White. Siskel, I definitely feel love and nostalgia for too, but it was difficult to have that same connection with him. Just because I want to hug something that is him. Not even because the smell in my head is particularly pleasant. And I almost want to find some goodwill store nearby and sniff blazers until I find one that smells just like Roger Ebert smells like in my mind. I swear to god I can smell his damn blazer. I hear it and I can smell the slightly sweet musk of 90’s movie theaters-stale popcorn and sticky floors-but also, his blazer. Even just the name Roger Ebert produces that effect. Something about the colors and the sounds produce a sort of synesthesia where I can smell and taste what’s going on. Watching old episodes of At the Movies, I feel that same sort of nostalgia as when I watch children’s programming from my childhood. Even when you grow up and don’t think about them as much. Like Mister Rogers, he was a godfather-someone not blood-related that you can go to for honesty and wisdom, and will be there for you until the day you die. He was the first person besides my parents to get me to think about movies critically, and damn near everyone around my age can say the same. Sure, as we got older, we gravitated towards other critics (for me, Pauline Kael and Armond White) but Ebert raised us. This is not to say that the spirit of Ebert has not been within me, and the rest of the critics on here, from the moment we began Smug Film. And I look forward to that happening to me with Roger Ebert. Every creative act you make is weighed against what that sister soul, that icon, might do. It’s as though you’re carrying two souls within you. Your whole world takes on a different flavor from the oversaturation. And even when I wasn’t, they were still in my head, providing the backbeat to my every thought. I couldn’t stop listening to his songs and watching his videos. ![]() I went through this when Michael Jackson died. It will live on forever, and there is all the time in the world to experience and re-experience it. A death where you are left speechless and searching, grasping for the artist’s soulful air as though it will wisp away into the ether if you don’t. I expect that over the next few days, weeks, months, I will binge on everything Ebert. I don’t think anyone wants to read about zombie movies right now, or read about anything to do with movies, for that matter, unless it has to do with Roger Ebert. Today, John D’Amico was supposed to wax poetic about obscure zombie movies. ![]()
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