R.I.P. Roger Ebert....

Roger Ebert is dead. I'll miss him. What I always liked about him was he was a sort of "passionate analyst" of the movies, he could generate credible reasons to champion the directing career of everyone from John Waters to John Ford. He could stand his ground and rarely if ever changed his mind about his own opinions today's punditariat scrounging their last meager pittance from the dino-media, could learn a thing or two from Ebert. His was an important voice, he deserved that Pulitzer believe me. What I won't miss is the self serving wails of self pity arising from his surviving film critic brethren all of whom will insist that film criticism is dead, because the paying opportunities therein have vanished along with Newsweek Magazine, The Boston Phoenix and the Saturday Evening Post. This is akin to a gaggle of philosophers insisting that "philosophy is dead" because no one is willing to pay philosophers for their big thoughts. People need to get a grip quite frankly. Ah but Roger Ebert as a young man he did inspire me, anyone with a high opinion of "Inframan", "Massacre at Central High" and the capacity to write a screenplay as demented as "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is an official Demigod of the Channel Zero Pantheon.