Roger and Me

I love reading movie reviews. Especially, well-written movie reviews. A movie reviewer has a limited amount of space to convey their thoughts, and so if the review is any good, it must draw you into the argument very quickly.

Often, you think of a review as a review. It tells you what the movie is about (the dreaded summary), then tells you why it was good or why it was bad (though some manage never to do this). Occasionally, the review strays far from the film itself. I remember a review by Jonathan Rosenbaum, who has a deep understanding of film history. He was reviewing a documentary about Ayn Rand.

Now, I've never read Ayn Rand. The little I know about her may be incorrect. I believe she thought that the world should be ruled by elites, those intelligent enough to do the job right, and the rest of society, well, screw 'em all. This kind of philosophy certainly has its appeal. Those who are intelligent and yet find themselves surrounded by morons, some of whom control their lives, wonder privately and sometimes aloud, why this is, and wish for a world where they make decisions.

This philosophy apparently appealed to Rosenbaum when he was young, and yet he is a liberal, and eventually grew out of this belief, and therefore, with that backdrop, he can now give his opinion of the film, which really is his opinion of Ayn Rand, even if the film and his thoughts on the woman are distinct.

Eventually, the review reveals more about the reviewer than the movie. I don't mind this. If moviegoers have complaints about film critics, it's that they make these pronouncements about movies as if they knew everything. Of course, what they write is an opinion. It's just a punchier way of writing if you make your opinion sound authoritative. When a reviewer shows his or her biases, or talks about themselves, it begins to remind you that these are people doing the reviews. Sure, they've seen ten times (or more!) the movies you've seen, and they're probably far more capable of writing than you are. Even so, it is their opinion and not yours.

I began reading reviews, probably as an undergraduate, when I would visit the Cornell bookstore. I would read Ebert's reviews. At the time, it was the only convenient way I could many reviews, since this was nearly 20 years ago, and prior to the advent of the web. Ebert has a to-the-point style that I would call Hemingway-esque if I read more Hemingway and could definitively compare Ebert's style to Hemingway.

For a long time, Ebert and Siskel (although, it was titled Siskel and Ebert) hosted a movie review show. Originally, it was on PBS, and Siskel had a moustache. Later on, they left PBS and had "At the Movies" and finally "Siskel and Ebert". They were the most famous movie critic duo, which would make you think that both of them were equally "good" as critics.

This wasn't the case. While Ebert is considered the lead critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, Siskel was not the lead at the Tribune (I believe it was Mike Wilmington). And where Roger Ebert was a film buff who loved to watch films, old and new, Siskel treated the job like a job. His spare time did not involve watching movies or studying its history. Siskel would just as soon watch a basketball game. His favorite film was Saturday Night Live because, as Ebert notes, the lead, played by John Travolta, had the kind of life that Siskel wanted.

Siskel died in 1999 at the age of 53 from a brain tumor, and despite lacking the kind of pedigree of film criticism like Ebert or Pauline Kael, his influence was large enough that a film center was built in his name, and good films often make its way there.

Ebert wrote a review of The Longest Yard, the remake of the Burt Reynolds movie, starring Adam Sandler. The problem? Between the time he saw the film and wrote the review, he went to Cannes, the premiere film festival in all the world.

Before he left, Ebert enjoyed the film. It was a good, solid effort, and he could give it a marginal thumbs-up. After ten days of watching numerous films, some aspiring to greatness, Ebert had a change of heart. The Longest Yard is basically an Adam Sandler vehicle. It has no aspirations to be a great film. It will win no Oscars. It will not be on anyone's top ten list. It isn't even a spectacular failure from a brilliant director. It is pedestrian.

And yet, Ebert was pained to change his mind. When he writes reviews, he writes it as he sees it, as he feels it. A positive review may have as much to do with what he ate, whether he's sick or not, and certainly with what films he's seen before and after. As with many events in life, how you evaluate something depends on the conditions surrounding it. It's Ebert's job to rate these films, and to compare one against the next.

But Ebert has seen literally thousands of movies, and there's no possible way for him to keep an ordering in his head of all those films. There's no reason he has to either. And while we seem to value the strength of an unwavering opinion, such steadfastness is often folly. People change their minds, and sometimes with good reason. So if Roger Ebert feels one week that The Longest Yard is a good, if not great movie, and another week decides it's a weak effort, then let him. You've changed your mind on lesser things.

Besides, in the end, it's just his opinion. Not yours.