roger ebert | the m0vie blog

Are Bloggers Critics?

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Darren

Is any profession less secure than film criticism? Really. I mean, I was depressed about the box office success of Transformers 2 as well and was disappointed no one heeded you, but I didn’t begin to doubt my very profession. Similarly I was upset that G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was marketed around film critics, but I didn’t become openly petty about you guys not seeing the film for free. This time, it’s the fact that critics are being grouped with bloggers that has prompted a rather severe reaction from some quarters. Is there any point to be made?

The film critic on new media...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: awards daily, bloggers, blogging, criticism, critics, film criticism, films, hollywood elsewhere, indieWire, jeffrey wells, Movies, roger ebert, sasha stone, tiff, toronto international film festival | 34 Comments »

White and Wrong: Contrarian (Anti-Popularist) Film Critics

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Darren

I was away in Florida when the whole Armond White thing broke last month. For those out of the loop, users of film review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes decided that they’d had enough of White’s contrary approach to film reviews after he ‘ruined’ the perfect Tomatometer for District 9 – and generated quite the reaction on the site. With District 9 being released in the UK and Ireland this week, it seems almost the perfect time to revisit the discussion, with the benefit of hindsight. Plus, film criticism is one of those topics that I take a great deal of recreational interest in.

Somehow I doubt we'll ever see eye-to-eye...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: armond white, cinema, criticism, critics, district 9, film critics, Movies, popularism, roger ebert, rotten tomatoes, taste, tomatometer | 2 Comments »

Marbles: The Movie! – The Poster!

Posted on July 9, 2009 by Darren

… aka, I love you even more, Roger Ebert!

That man really hates Transformers 2 – in case you didn’t read his response to those critics of critics. Or maybe it was the announcement of a Viewfinder and an Asteroids movie within the same week that led him to publish a list of his most-anticipated toyetic movies in the years to come. It is awesome and totally worth a look at the link. Anyway, one of his ideas was so fiendishly brilliant I couldn’t resist doing a draft mock-up of the poster…

I give you Marbles: The Movie, with Ebert plot summary below…

Alternative Tagline: "Get some balls"

Marbles! Secret of the Universe! Nicolas Cage plays an astrophysicist at MIT who intercepts the feed from the Hubble Space Telescope and determines that the stars in the sky are in fact giant, brilliantly-glowing marbles. Enhancing the digital information, he discovers a giant thumb and forefinger in the abyss beyond space. They hold an aggie.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: asteroids, films, games, marbles: the movie, Movies, nicholas cage, poster, roger ebert, toyetic, toys, transformers 2, view master, view master movie, viewfinder | 1 Comment »

I Love You, Roger Ebert…

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Darren

There’s a lot of trash talk out there about Roger Ebert. Is he going soft in his old age? Is he wrong to ‘go easy’ on really terrible films? I don’t know and I don’t care, because the man is some sort of legend. Sure, I may disagree with his opinion from time (I don’t buy his argument against 3D, for example, and there are quite a few movies on which he and I diverge), but I always find his comments insightful, well considered and respectful. That’s something a lot of film critics these days who seem to use their reviews to make pith putdowns and blithe one-liners could learn from – and I am looking at you, David Edelstein. Still, he ain’t a man to pull his punches, and that’s another reason I love him so dearly. His latest attack was on those who dared deem Transformers 2 a good movie – or even defend it as “as good as it could have been”. The article can be read here and is well worth a look for anyone interested in the man or his artform, or even movies in general.

Some man for one man...

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: blockbusters, box office, criticism, critics, critiques, ebert, film criticism, film critics, film reviews, i am a brainiac, roger ebert, transformers 2 | 1 Comment »

Non-Review Review: Teminator 3 – Rise of the Machines

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Darren

Network 2 reaired the whole Terminator trilogy to celebrate Salvation‘s release on Friday. My luck being my luck, I caught the tail end of the franchise, the weak link if you will. As I write this, I face the question that I face when I review any given sequel or part of a franchise: should I judge it independently or alongside its predecessors (and – if I’m a latecomer to the party – its successors)? If I adopt the former approach, is Terminator 3 a reasonably solid sci-fi/action movie? If I look at it as the third installment in the franchise, is it fit to be considered alongside two of the greatest action movies ever made?