Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert (born June 18, 1942) is a Chicago Sun-Times film critic and the first author to win a Pulitzer Prize for film criticism (1975 award "for his film criticism during 1974"). Through his newspaper reviews, books, television shows, lectures, and public persona, he has contributed perhaps more than anyone to the appreciation of film art among the general public.
He has been writing about film for over forty years, and in 1978 he and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune began co-hosting a weekly movie review television show, Sneak Previews, produced by a Chicago public broadcasting station. In 1982, the critics moved to a syndicated commercial television show named Siskel & Ebert. When Gene Siskel died in 1999, Ebert auditioned several co-hosts on a non-permanent basis (usually one show). In September, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed Ebert & Roeper.
Each year, Ebert publishes a book of movie reviews from that year; he has also published a book of movie clichés and two books of essays about great films, as well as a book of essays about films he hated. His "Roger Ebert's Book of Film" is a Norton anthology of a century of writing about the movies. Ebert also hosts Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival every year in Champaign, Illinois.
Ebert wrote the screenplay for the 1969 cult film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, directed by Russ Meyer and likes to joke about being responsible for the poorly received film. Ebert and Meyer were similarly involved with the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi?
An outspoken opponent of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system, Ebert often strongly condemns the organization in his columns for their decisions regarding which movies are "suitable for children." He also frequently laments that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes," making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most moviegoers.
As a teenager, Ebert was involved in science fiction fandom, writing articles for fanzines, including Richard Lupoff's Xero.
After graduating from the University of Illinois, where he was editor of The Daily Illini, Ebert did graduate study in English at the University of Cape Town (on a Rotary Fellowship) and was a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Chicago when the film critic's position was offered to him at the Sun-Times.
Roger Ebert has been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to be unveiled in 2005. He has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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See also
External links
- Official site (http://www.rogerebert.com/)
- IMDb: Roger Ebert (http://imdb.com/name/nm0001170/)
- Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival (http://ebertfest.com/)
- Ebert & Roeper audio reviews (http://ebertandroeper.tv/)