Death to film critics! Hail to the CelebCult!

I dream of being first in the Ebert comment queue, but if I am I would also need to be insightful and say something other than, uh huh, yes, true, entirely spot on. And also: the line about the news staying big it's just the papers that got small.

Having said that - it would be interesting to compare and contrast fictional/filmic Newspapers reactions to diminishing readerships in a time of economic crisis...

I'm thinking of scenes in Citizen Kane, His Girl Friday, The Sweet Smell of Success? I'm not sure how positive an example they give us. Who was Joe the Plumber but a less endearing and handsome Jimmy Stewart raging against Washington corruption. But a personality almost instantly. A cert to be on (I believe you call it) 'Dancing with the Stars'.

The only positive I can come up with is that the high street where I live is packed with Fast Food Joints, but if I want I can either not eat anything or walk a little further and find a decent Indian takeaway. The same is true for celeb news; you can either choose to ignore it, or push past it and find something a little more healthy and worth your time and money.

I see what you mean, but don't you think that the recent surge in film criticism in the blogosphere partially makes up for the dumbing down of newspapers?

I can understand your disdain, as I feel it too. But don't you think society's yearn for this stuff is why this is happening? Maybe that thought-provoking quality can come from somewhere else now. DOn't ask m where though

Newspapers all over the World have lost their quality, not only in the States but in Eastern Europe as well. That's where I live. I find it a sad thing. The only way of 'staying critical and analytical' is to read your reviews and blog entries, Roger. Besides being intelligent and...critical, they help me develop my language.

Film critics, theatre critics, columnists (critics of the society) are essential. One can read Hello! magazine from time to time BUT one must remain critical and active by reading well written articles on matters of importance and true interest as well. Whether the intrest is film, the elections or gay rights. These articles make the reader think and see different points of view.

The fact that there aren't plenty of 'room' for good columnists (and I include critics) in newspapers anymore due to the "celebrity culture" taking over is a threat to the young. Most 14-16 year olds don't read the papers anyway, why is it necessary to put photos of Madonna's abs and armpits in a big newspaper then? When the 16 year-olds start reading the papers (and they will one day) then they will find out that OK Magazine and a dayly "quality paper" don't have a difference if "celebrity culture" continues to dominate. If there is a well written review of "Twilight" instead of pictures of Suri then perhapes the youngster who picked up a paper finds the bad review of his/her new favourite movie a reason to start thinking critically as well and analyse, argue and maybe start writing herself/himself.

If we don't think critically, if we don't challenge articles and discuss them then the society will become even more stupid than it is today.

The Showbiz News on CNN has never contained any showbiz news - it has always been celeb crap. Should be labeled as such.

When Entertainment Tonight first aired, it was actually entertainment news - they reported on who was cast, what the new projects where, what was going on in the business. Now it's all celeb crap.

So how do I get actual entertainment news anymore? I'm in some hotel somewhere at a film festival or on location and I want to know what is going on... can't get any of that information on TV. That leaves the newspapers and the internet.

But I guess I can't get that information from AP anymore, either. Isn't this a *bad* business decision? If your business is providing information, you need to provide that information. Film reviews fit in that information - I want to make an informed decision before I pay $11.50 to buy a ticket. 500 words is 2 pages... 1 page single spaced!

And if part of this is in response to internet needs, that's even worse. I can understand cutting a review or article or interview to fit a page, but online I want to read everything.

I hate the capsule reviews. I want the information, I want the details.

- Bill

I agree with your general premise. Anyone who doesn't is ignorant of what journalism has become since Watergate, but I have to ask what you propose to do about it. Do you think there is a way to save newspapers and even the entire media?

Also consider the ubiquity of human interest stories in the media now. Coverage has entirely become about how an event made someone feel, or how it inspired them, or how it crushed them. There is little to no mention of what context preceded the event and how related events might play out later on. This loss of perspective is troubling, and I'm not really sure where it came from. The current curriculums of journalism schools, with their overwhelming focus on marketing and sales instead of on harder things like honesty or history, are probably a big cause.

The best thing anyone can do is find four or five trustworthy current events blogs, with writers from various political ideologies, and follow those.

BORRRINGGG! Keep it short, I almost had to think.

Roger,

I totally agree. But the pendulum almost always swings back the other way at some point.

As good cinema, and good discussion of it, is pushed further into the margins, new and innovative cinema will develop in the shadows (where it thrives)! Generation Y is not terribly interested in thinking deeply about art, from my observation, but I imagine their younger siblings or their children might be, if just to rebel against their parents.

Punk music, indie rock, German New Wave, Dogme 95.... these all emerged when things looked rather bleak culturally.

I have hope that intelligent discussion will not disappear into Karolina's invisible belly button.
best,
John

Has the internet displaced the notion that a daily repository of "all the news that's fit to print" available in one place, while at the same time failing to provide the journalistic integrity to cover the same ground piecemeal? For me, it has. So what can people can do to encourage and promote a problem-solving, aware, motivated mass population? There's the question all responsible media producers face today. Thank you for writing this, Roger.

In fact, Happy Thanksgiving in general!

I being 25 was probably a victim of all of this. I remember back when I was in 7th grade, the entire school shut down for about 5 minutes awaiting the news of the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial. I was so shocked at the time that they interrupted our education for this, I don't even really remember what the reaction was except that it was a big deal to the teachers. I am still pissed about that today.

But about the snuffing out. It's the same reason I hate television commercials. I don't like them because they are using kind of brainwashing mechanisms to get you to buy their stuff or whatever. The way actors are used in commercials too is always someone their that is emotionless, like Kim Kardashian, and expects nothing out of you but to be totally passive and appealing to the lowest common denominator. So, I think they are doing all the things you said also because they just want to make money. I myself consider myself to be the total opposite of a paparazzi...meaning that I try to never take pictures of everything that happens in life, even when looking at a landscape that I will never see again. I let my heart do the looking, not a photograph. The same is with what they do with celebrities. Like with a certain gossip show that I will not even mention by name, the guy is following the celebrity around asking them things about their life as if they know them while holding a camera to their face. Not that I'm saying they need to be shot, but I'm thinking of the ending of Natural Born Killers and what happens to Robert Downey Jr's character Wayne Gail at this point.

Spot-on blog, and one I sort of relate to. I could have gotten a gig at a local paper as a film critic, but when I saw the vast limitations, restrictions, and requirements that would have been placed on me, I politely bowed out.

From a film critic's perspective, there's something to be said for the freedom to explore the canvas that comes with writing for a website. My reviews/essays are usually quite long, because I'm working for a University that encourages me to expound. I can't think of a better place to have the sort of creative freedom that I need for a gig like this. I wonder if the future of true film scholarship dwells on the web.

But here's another turn of the screw, re: our obsessions with celebrities and how it is reflected in the news. It's funny, but literally minutes before I read your blog, I was looking through the invaluable book "Herzog on Herzog," where the director says that cinema "comes from the country fair and the circus, not from art and academiscism." He elaborates quite extraordinarily:

"For me, cinema has the same fascination you feel during an eclipse and you see a close-up of the sun with protuberances shooting out that are thousands of times larger than our own planet down here. It is for this reason that I am loathe to address many of the points critics raise about my films, because when everything is explained it gets boring very quickly. ... It is the very nature of storytelling and presentation of images that somehow demand moments that critical analysis cannot penetrate. ... If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big colour photos and gossip columns, or the 'National Enquirer.' Such vulgarity is heatlhy and safe."

Herzog seems to be saying that nonsense like gossip magazines are empty and silly, but at least by feeding our need for simplicity, they keep us from expounding too deeply on the meanings of film and encourage us to simply stand in awe of their images (I'd say I don't need the Enquirer to stand in humbled awe of anything by Herzog, but whatever). Intellectualism, for all its quality, IS secondary to the experience. Maybe we critics need garbage like The National Enquirer to keep our egos in check? I don't know, but I'd love to discuss this further with Uncle Werner. It's a fascinating idea that I'm just not sure I can agree with.

Two words: Oh dear.

"The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out."

Yes. Yes. Yes.

You've described my perception of the trend of news shows and newspapers since I can remember. I'm curious why they are going this route. Perhaps I am naive, but I think that things like the success of "The Daily Show" and the decidedly unformulaic "The Dark Knight" indicates there is a sizable, marketable group of thoughtful people.

I do have a question for you, Roger. Being as I am only in my twenties, what were newspapers like several decades ago?

Ebert: Thick. The strategy at the Sun-Times was to draw the reader through the paper by anchoring regular columns all the way. Ann Landers. Kup. Paul Malloy. Theater. Movie reviews. Sports. There were serendipitous wire stories. The New Herald Trib, WashPost and Sun-Times formed a syndicate. We all ran the HT Book Week section. You could sit down and drink yourself a slow cup of coffee or two while reading. Editors had selected all the best news for you.

Amen.

"The CelebCult virus is eating our culture alive, and newspapers voluntarily expose themselves to it. It teaches shabby values to young people, festers unwholesome curiosity, violates privacy, and is indifferent to meaningful achievement. One of the TV celeb shows has announced it will cover the Obama family as "a Hollywood story." I want to smash something against a wall."

A-Goddamn-men. But I've sensed this thing for a long time. I am 30 and have long sensed its traces and marks in the print in front of my face, and I've seen the effects of this problem in younger people. They seem like victims of something in the same way my parents might have felt sorry for the kids my age when I was younger, without them knowing why. Even at 30, I have the stodgy pilgrim-in-an-unholy-land feeling all the time these days.

I realize the AP piece triggered your journal entry here, but how long, Roger, had you come to this conclusion before slipping it? You had to see this coming.

Ebert: I saw it coming when we started getting helpful suggestions from people who didn't realize celeb interviews had NO PLACE on a movie review show. Now some of the critics think they are the celebrities and their bright, shining faces are why people watch.

With due respect, it is not newspapers that got small, it's people. American consumers are some of the smallest minded people on Earth. They want Christmas items to go on sale in October, gas guzzling vehicles when our gas comes from those wanting us dead the most, crazy cult-following celeb baby pics, catchy celeb name conjunctions, weight loss plan infomercials watch while eating a Whopper, and all things in the news based on doom.

What;s killing America is options. 700 channels on tv isn't good for anybody. When I was 4 years old I was at home and had nothing on tv to watch but an old Jimmy Stewart move called Call Northside 777. I had no interest in watching it, but got hooked and remembered every detail until I saw it again at 15. Kids these days, as well as us adults, have too many damn options, and too many damn people trying to create new ones. No one cared where Marylin and Joe ate because everyone was at home eating dinner themselves.

I can't watch baseball anymore, Roger, steroids did it for me. So I watch Ken Burns documentary and marvel at Lou Gehrig and Satchel Paige and wonder what it must have been like to actually watch real men play baseball. I don't want fancy graphics and pretty faces on my news, I just want news. I don't need 18 year olds telling me what movies I should see, because I don't think anyone in High School Musical is cute. I don't want everything in my life chopped up and condensed so I can digest it and move on to the next quick fix.

I want to wait 364 days to hear the opening to A Charlie Brown Christmas and grin from ear to ear. I don't want to catch it right now on youtube. Patience is dead, Mr. Ebert, and it died very suddenly.

Ebert: Yes. It's not that people can't read. It's that they don't want to sit there turning page after page. That for me is the pleasure as a long, great book, passes from right to left under my fingers.

Here's something depressing. Let's look at the devolution of my local paper's (the Birmingham News) Arts section. It went from "Arts" to "Books & Culture", remaining under this title long after they fired the book critic; and then settled on the current title--a pullout tabloid called "Play." In "Play" you get many advertisements and barely any art, unless you consider advertisements some sort of art.

It's no wonder that I must drive 100 miles south to see an independent film nowadays. This is the wonderful Capri theater in Montgomery. I mention it just in case film lovers in the deep south think they have been abandoned.

Filmdr,

Ebert's buddy Jim Emerson did a few article on the death of the professional film critics after one round of layoffs. It's worth a read. He gave props to bloggers, and acknowledged that he read plenty of interesting stuff on them. But then he pointed out that pro movie critics see something like 400 movies a year. That provides both more breadth and depth than the blogger who probably only sees on average one new movie a week in the theaters.

You are absolutely correct, sir.

I used to review films for a small town newspaper. I wasn't paid for it, I did it just to get a byline. I did it for about two years and found the experience very rewarding. It helped me become a better writer. I went on to become a "hard news" reporter for that paper before being "Downsized" after a buyout. Silly me, I thought holding out for a meager $9/ hour (in 2004) was nothing big.

I did eventually find work at another newspaper, but shrinking readership eventually caught up with me there as well. I now work in network marketing and watch with sadness as the masses consume the latest on Britney and Katie and the rest of the Celebrity Pop Culture. It makes me ill but there's nothing I can do about it.

I hold out hope this is just a passing phase and that our culture will reinvent itself. Sadly, I probably am holding on to a pipe dream.

I love your work Mr. Ebert and I make sure to stop by your Web site and read it every week (Even when I'm at work. Shhhh!!! Don't tell the boss.)

The pendulum *will* swing back. These are the growing pains. This is the darkness, the falling into the shadow. There is the inevitable embracing of the shadow that is yet to come, and then the lifting and learning to live with the shadow, side by side with the light. It will take years. Pluto moves into Capricorn this friday, for over 20 years. The world, its spirit, and the physcial planet, are all about to change.

Roger, I'm an alumnus of the University of Illinois and worked at The Daily Illini until I graduated in 2001. I loved working in that newsroom, but even then I could feel journalism decaying all around me. We made a lot of rookie mistakes at the paper, but we were students, we had an excuse. And we learned.

I didn't pursue journalism as a career. Like I said, I noticed the decay. I think you make a very good point about the failure of education being the culprit here. There is the famous slight against teachers: "Those who cannot do, teach." But can you ever do if you are never taught? Critical and creative thought is not valued enough in our society. I have a friend who works in educational publishing, which these days means standardized test preparation. I was very good at those tests when I was in school, but mastering them is a skill that has little to do with the subject matter tested.

I would also argue that my lifetime (29 years) has seen a degradation of morality and responsibility in our culture. By that I mean something much broader and yet simpler than what the media call "the culture wars." I see a great lack of respect for other people in the public square. I see message boards on the internet crowded with comments that the authors would never dare proclaim on a crowded street. And television and radio hosts who spew nonstop words with very little critical (or creative) thought behind them. There's so little empathy. Nobody cares.

At the same time I know there are stellar writers, inspiring and hardworking teachers and ministers, and great friends yet to be discovered that can grapple with me about matters of importance. I fear that we are developing new classes in our society: those who have access to quality engagement, and those who do not. It is not enough to discuss problems like "the information poor," "food deserts," "failing inner-city schools." To borrow a phrase from a popular classic of western literature, we are really dealing with the "poor in spirit."

I was substitute teaching for a poetry class on the far south side of Chicago last week. This is an afterschool program for 8-12 year-olds. Not far from where our president elect did his community organizing. We read a poem. I asked them for comments. Did they like it? Did they understand it? What did it mean to them? The answers: "I don't get it." "Why doesn't it make sense?" "It's dumb." So we read it again. We read it line by line, phrase by phrase, word by dumb little word. More questions. Some from me, more from them. After 30 minutes of discussion, sometimes whispered into a hand, sometimes shouted into the center of the room, they expressed things that hadn't occurred to them (or to me) before. There were no wrong answers given. These kids were very bright, and I had a stirring sense they felt comfortable that way.

When I was the same age as these kids, one of my favorite projects was the space shuttle we built out of boxes (for a refrigerator and a stove). I had parents who allowed me to believe it made sense and was not dumb. What a triumph that was. We read in our house every day. I read the Sun-Times and the Tribune every morning before school and my parents read books aloud to me and my younger siblings at night. Sometimes they just made up there own bedtimes stories. Then the Trib came out with a weekly section called Kidnews, some misguided attempt to lure the next generation of readers. I think it lasted a few years. I felt like suddenly the paper was talking down to me. A decade or so later the Trib released a new edition called Redeye. I had the same feeling. I also felt queasy. This new paper was amateurish, filled with rookie mistakes. But it was put together by professional journalists. And they didn't have an excuse.

Michael Mounier writes: "The current curriculums of journalism schools, with their overwhelming focus on marketing and sales instead of on harder things like honesty or history, are probably a big cause."

I believe it's the other way around. The overwhelming focus on marketing and sales in current media is pushing the thinkers out and the salesmen in. There seems to be this firm belief in many coompanies now, and not only media companies, that people are craving for new stuff every hour of everyday. Just have a walk by any aisle in you local market and you'll be hard pressed to find a product that does not sport the words NEW!, even when the "newness" is only in the label. Nothing is more annoying to me than reading the label of a product that says in bright colors: NEW LABEL! And they even add sometimes: "Same flavor"... Everytime I see that, I can visualize the marketing department of that company congratulating themselves for keeping their jobs for the next quarter, that is, until they convince their bosses, once again, that the product needs to be improved because that's what people want, even if it's only the label.

Do people really want that celeb crap in their daily news and papers? Twenty years ago, when there was very little of that trash in the media and many adults I know today that spend their days reading and watching that kind of "entertainment", were around already, I never heard any of them saying how they wished they had all that crap delivered to their doorstep or TV. Most people will watch or read whatever you give them (they were not less happy before, were they?), so someone at some point had to start that trend of trash entertainment instead of real news stories and critical commentaries and columns; someone else noticed and must have thought that was the way to go ("they must know something we don't") and the result is today we have the entertainment information "we really want" in most papers and television networks.

It's like that joke about the new chief in the tribe; his people come to him and ask if the winter will be too cold. Since he is new to the task and not really sure on how to read the skies, he offers "Yes, it will be very cold". So the tribe starts gathering wood for their fire. He then stops to think about it, calls the weather service and asks how the winter will be. "Very cold", they answer. "How can you tell?" asks the chief. "Well, the folks in the nearby tribe are gathering wood like crazy..."

As a graphic artist/page designer for the San Antonio Express-News, one of my weekly duties is to reformat the national weekly "Star" magazine for republication in our Sunday edition. I have to hold my nose (figuratively speaking), but it keeps me (and probably several staffers here at the EN) gainfully employed.

The Star is not the favorite section among the news staff. We lament the loss of serious journalism and the rise of the CelebCult. However, we tried once to delete the weekly gossip tabloid section. Perhaps the old contract had ended and a new one had not been finalized, but suffice to say we didn't have a gossip section in the Sunday paper. That lasted two weeks. Our Sunday circulation fell like a stone. Therefore, we will not try such an experiment again. Circulation is too difficult to maintain as it is.

The best thing about the Web is that the normal printing costs don't apply. You can write as much as you are capable of producing. It's rather refreshing. A few of my DVD Extra blogs have been over 1,200 words. Some are less than 400.

I doubt that the Sun-Times will ask you to take a buyout, Roger. The mere mention of such a possibility would be a huge mistake on their part. Of course, that would put you in the CelebCult headlines for the day, possibly for the week or even month.

However, with buyouts happening all over the media, especially in the newspaper industry, you might want to suggest to your colleague Richard Roeper that he be careful about entering those big expensive poker tournaments. He might just need that seed money.

Roger:

Don't lose heart. Just look at it this way.

Think of it as a traditional Darwinian "Survival of the Fittest," or in this case, "Survival of the Smartest."

In terms of news seekers, you have the people like us, whom you rightly describe as "intelligent and curious readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically."

Then you have the brain-dead celebrity gawkers who are only interested in who was spotted with whom buying what at which Paris or Manhattan boutique.

The "intelligent and curious readership" will continue to read newspapers (albeit online), seek out meaningful information, pay attention to the film critics, and thus, see better movies.

The "celebrity gawkers" will continue to focus on Tom & Katie, Paris, Miley, and the rest. They will not read the newspapers, will ignore the film critics, and will continue to watch bad cinema.

The "intelligent and curious readership" will use what they learn to improve their lives and the lives of others. They will continue to demand better movies. Some of them may even decide to MAKE better movies.

The "celebrity gawkers" will eventually turn into brain-dead couch potatoes like the humans on the spaceship in "WALL-E."

So how do the film critics fit in? There will always be a place for intelligent news reporting and, yes, intelligent film criticism. The medium may change (from newspapers to online news) and film critics may not get paid as much as before.

But as long as there are thoughtful film critics in this world, they will find a way to get their criticism to the "intelligent and curious readership" -- even if the critics have to start a personal online blog to post their film reviews and commentary. The "intelligent and curious readership" will always be hungry for intelligent film criticism, and will seek them out.

A good critic will always find a way to increase their readership. Take you, for instance, Roger! These commentaries you keep posting on your blog are good enough for "regular publication." You should collect your best blog posts and publish them in a compilation book.

It's not just film criticism. Almost all newspaper coverage has been affected. While there are still excellent reporters writing for the papers, much of the really good writing and insightful commentary exist on the Web instead. That's true of film criticism, political coverage, economic stories, you name it.

We are in the throes of a change to a new way of sharing knowledge. Print is not dying but it is rapidly being reduced in importance. The online world is not yet ready to replace newspapers by any means, but you can see it beginning a process that will go on for a while. Newspapers will continue to cut back, continue to lose money, continue to see circulation drop. Blogs will continue to increase in seriousness and thoroughness and coverage. By necessity bloggers will learn the techniques of the good reporters so that while reporters are directed to cover the latest celebrity inanity, bloggers will cover the real news. We're not there yet, but it's coming.

What you are seeing, Roger, is merely one symptom of a much larger shift in society.

I think this is more about the death of newspapers. You recently commented that you would not want to read anything on a "kindle" but I think that is the way things are going. How likely is it we will have newspapers and books for much longer? The internet has allowed you to write much longer articles and in a much more personal way than you were probably allowed with a physical space in the Sun-Times. At least I would assume such a restriction existed before you became THE critic.

The New York Times has more debt than money and most other papers must be hurting as well. They would all be smart to grab the talented writers away from the print side and figure out how to transition them into blog format.

I do agree that there has been a trend towards less intelligent and less substantive information. There seem to be a lot of people who don't care about fact, nuance, critical thinking, math and science. The number and the attitude of such people is a bit frightening and I hope the trend starts to reverse with a new administration and hopefully a new attitude about education and what it means to our country's future.

The "good stuff" can always be found for those who search - most of it is hidden a layer or two below the mainstream media. Drill down from music on the radio to music on satellite to music on independent internet radio and you will start to find something worthwhile. Same seems to hold true for news, TV and movies - if it gets all the attention it is probably mass produced and expected to hit some major emotional points, be tasty, go down smooth and quickly be forgotten.

I'm curious if you agree that there seems to maybe be a more decentralized media universe?

Ebert: Actually, the Sun-Times has given me the space I required right from the get-go. It has always been known as a "writers' paper."

Pick up the newspaper, perhaps get a drink (preferably warm)and find the nearest bench. Sit down and take in the ambience. Feel that breeze. Open the newspaper--unnecessary advertisements clumsily fall to the ground-- and breathe in that age-old, classic newspaper smell.

Euphoria

Eyes scan the paper.

What was Palin wearing last night? How about that Obama puppy? Will Bill cramp Hillary's style?
Africa: Country or Continent?--text in your vote.

Sigh.

Eyes scan for the nearest dust bin.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

Your ability to read my thoughts is staggering. Or maybe it's just that I've been influenced by your writing for so many years that I've begun to think like you.

A little personal background will help put my questions in context. I started reviewing films in 2001 after being laid off from an online entertainment trade publication. It was mainly an exercise in trying to prove to my family that my film degree amounted to something. Three years ago, I moved my private newsletter, which went out to mainly family and friends and their friends, online with the intention to write reviews touching more deeply on theme, story and filmic techniques, a perspective I had wished was more readily available when I was a film student. At this time, I began reading more and more reviews from various newspapers and trades, trying to learn how others balance between appealing to a wide audience, while still dealing with specific details of craft and technique. I have been influenced greatly by your work and Todd McCarthy at Variety, especially. Like any writer the more you read, and the more you write, the better writer you become.

So my questions are - how will the next generation find their critical influences when critics in the future will not have a respected home, like a major newspaper, for their voice to be amplified from? Jonathan Rosenbaum would still be Jonathan Rosenbaum, but how would readers find his blog if he had not written for the Chicago Reader, and his blog was just one in thousands found between FrodoForPresident.net and Twilight4Life.org? How do you think fledgling film critics will be able to talk over the CelebCult clatter when even the respected "brands," such as the New York Times, are screaming the praises of Britney's latest stint on "Celebrity Rehab?"

Ebert: Believe it or not, I met Todd McCarthy when he was a student at Evanston Township High School, and called me up asking to have lunch with him and a few friends (including Charles Flynn, later editor of the great book Kings of the Bs ). Even then, they had both seen every film ever made. "Fledglings" will find critics they respect. The web is a sea of drivel upon which beautiful sailing ships are sometimes seen. Good critics make themselves, as Todd did. As Pauline did. As Kauffmann did, coming to film as a subject later in his career. Readers find them. Sometimes the web is a tempest, but intrepid sailors call out safe ports to each other.

I feel queazy thinking that the age of thought is over, that the public only cares about celebrities, our education system is failing, and that respectable intelligent writers are being fired to make way for a 'new direction' of 'news'.

Yes i am only 17, and i cannot speak absolutely or even give a good insight into my ages groups look on this. I feel tempted to explain that i find celeb news ridiculous, and i have only indulged in reading them while sitting in a dentists office. I feel like i need to state, proudly i would like to add, that never in my life have i spent money to support celeb magazines. Why do i want to say this? Because i hope that although people may see the newspapers direction symbolizing a loss of thought, i hope that people understand that this just isn't the case. We have discussed the Obama/Clinton/McCain campaign for almost 2 years even though were just Canadian. We saw entire speeches made by all candidates (youtube) rather than clips or 5 mins synopsis's that CNN, and BBC love to make. We read Joseph Conrad, Isaac Asimov, Agatha Christie, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Arthur C. Clarke, and Virginia Wolfe.

I have spent so many hours on the internet soaking up opinions, watching videos made by people talking about life. I've read reviews, laughed at silly top 10 lists, spent hours thinking of good questions to ask the answer man, and unique glossary entries. Adored films like 8 1/2, la Dolche Vita, Godfather, Ikiru, Oldboy and disliked great ones like The Seventh Seal, Scarface, and Marie Antoinette. Revised my negative opinions on great films like Lost in Translation and Adaptation. Written reviews of my own, written essays discussing my thoughts on things i notice about film. Had arguments on forums, read pages and pages of discussions on anything and everything. Discussed Fellinism, Semiotics, Structuralism, and the auteur with friends my age. I've had intimate discussions about love, fired across wild theories about life, contemplated the meaning of life and as Douglas Adams would put it the question of life. Debated religion, discussed the essence of humanity, nuclear war, discrimination, and gay rights.

I think the problem is, no newspaper, magazine, producer, surveyor, or newspaper owner sees any of that. It is an age of abundance in information, so much so that no one has any idea how many people actually read it. I think newspapers are fighting for revenue not thinking about what it may cost. If it weren't for your website i never would of been able to read so many things written by you. I don't need to buy a newspaper to find out about the latest film, read intelligent critics opinions, or discuss politics anymore. If i were interested in 'the latest' celeb gossip and pictures. Yes, i would have to buy magazines. My understanding is people buy magazines mostly to look at pictures, having a copy in your hand is worth it. When it comes to everything else, i don't need a copy in my hand to read it. All i need to do is google it, or perhaps just click my favorites tab entitled (Film Critics)

I recently got out of newspapers - partly because of changes going down within the organisation, but also because I really didn't like the way the paper itself was going. There was getting to be a marked absence of "proper" news and it was getting kind of pathetic.

As to the demise of film critics, I find these days there's less and less critics that offer a distinct voice. Yes, many are offering opinions, but reviews are written as if they could've been penned by anyone. I seldom sense any authorial voice.

One reason I've always respected yourself as a critic is that you've always been excellent at not only showing a distinct voice and opinion, but giving the reader all the information needed on a film to form their own opinion. For example, I'm an unashamed fan of Adam Sandler (well, perhaps slightly ashamed), and even in a negative Ebert review of one of his films I can get a sense of whether I, as a fan, would enjoy it. That's a difficult balance to strike.

If I ever log onto suntimes.com and find that your weekly masterpieces are replaced by those meaningless blurbs that are put on the posters of lousy movies, I will have to do something drastic. You know the ones I'm talking about; the quotes like "If you liked "Freddie Got Fingered," you'll love "Brainless Racists Say the Darndest Things!" from movie critics nobody has ever heard of, from publications nobody reads. Do I really care what a staff writer from "Blockbuster Video Monthly" was paid to write about a film they censored because it was too racy for a "family store?"

I'm trying to remember the title and author of a short story that I read a couple of years ago. It was about a highly respected film critic who wrote terribly scathing reviews of a certain production company's films, which were deserving of even worse. However, through creative editing, the company was able to edit movie-poster blurbs that sounded like the critic actually endorsed the film. So, from a full page of lambasting, they were able to put something like "{Film's Name}...is...plausible..." or something along those lines, much like the blurbs explained here: http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/a_spectacular_film_also_banal.php
The critic would write worse and worse reviews, trying to make it impossible for the producers to get any kind of positivity, no matter how they edited. It never worked, though, and he became quite famous because of it. Eventually, though, he succumbed to the fame and started making it a bit easier, which took the fun out of it for the filmmakers, and they stopped using his reviews.

While I don't believe it will happen to you, Mr. Pulitzer, I do lament for your less fortunate fellow canaries. Granted, the one in my town I could do without, but that's more a dislike of his style than his profession.

For the record, I don't care whether Miley ate a burrito or taquitos. And, they'll cover roving death squads in Mumbai, but won't cover an anti-terrorism fatwa? Where's the balance? Tonight, I go home and prepare to make a gigantic feast for family and friends. Thanks to be given: I'm healthy, have a great family, a career is opening before me, and you've yet to hit the poisonous gas pocket in your particular mine.

Happy Thanksgiving, Roger, to you, your family, and to anyone else who may read this comment.

And, in the immortal words of Buddy Holly, RAVE ON!

Ebert: As John Wayne said, "That'll be the day!"

Lets hope that integrity comes back to the newspapers. We already have those sleazy tabloids for our celebrity guilty pleasures. Well... not me but I guess everyone else. My celebrities such as Scorsese, Malick, Herzog, and others are not in them.

When I emerged from the theatre a couple of years ago after having seen "Idiocracy", I commented to my companion, "Look, we're surrounded by people from the future."

It does feel like we're on a downward slope towards an infantilized future...

Enough with all this film criticizing mumbo jumbo.

Roger, tell me more about the missing belly button! Fascinating.

Ebert: It is as mysterious as the rice cooker.

I grew up in Chicago when it had four daily newspapers. Lisagor, Royko, Mabley (and later on Ebert) were an integral part of my education. Work took me on a farewell tour of great columnists: Royko, Caen and Emmet Watson. For the first time in my life I do not get the local newspaper. The newspaper consisted of NYT reprints. Edited reprints. The food critic is an ex-waitress who cannot write. The movie critic reads like the weekend top gross. There was no redeeming quality in the paper. From reading four papers to zero in one lifetime.

500 words? One would get better content from blogs and comment sections like these. Someone I respect recently opined on the slow demise of newspapers across the country and how they have responded to competition by reducing staff and content. His assertion was that the proper response to competition for ad revenue was to try and improve and improve content to hopefully increase readership. As a consumer trying to cut back on expenses, perhaps the perception of more bang for the buck might entice one to buy a newspaper.

I hope that future generations will have someone like Mr. Ebert who can educate and elighten us with their writing and points of view, to expand our horizons and broaden our experience. Sadly this hope seems to dwindle by the day.

I think there's more of a transition from print criticism to online criticism than a death of film criticism. Unfortunately this does mean that certain writers like Quint of Ainitcoolnews.com, who has become big enough to merit a predominant role in the Fanboys trailer, have a bigger soap box. However, there are also true critics online like Emanuel Levy. As a detroiter it does sadden me that the Freep won't have a critic anymore but hey that's the way capitalism works people have infinitely more access to film criticism so the value of individuals critics is diminished there's not much I can do about it.

In the 80s and early 90s I used to watch Entertainment Tonight here in Mexico but our main cable company retired it some 15 years ago. I used to love its "coming soon" movie stories plus the excelent reviews and articles by film critic Leonard Maltin. My brother and I would have fun trying to guess the rating (from 1-10) he would give a movie based on the review and we got quiet good at it. Then last month, out of the blue, ET has returned to our airwaves, coincidentally being shown back to back with Inside Edition, and I just can't believe what I'm seeing which is basically the same thing in both shows; with stories about a trucker who goes to work with his duck and so forth. I guess Leonard Maltin still works for ET in some capacity and to American viewers the evolution of that show into such a mess was much more gradual than what it was for me but I find this a perfect example of what you are talking about in your blog (applied to another medium). How can one watch a show that, with its programming, tells you it believes its audiences are idiots?
By the way, our same cable company also showed Siskel & Ebert for a few years but that was retired permanently. Good thing the internet allowed me to get re-aquainted with it so well, too bad it allowed me to also witness what that show itself became in just the last couple of months (ex.: commentator 1 "so you are saying SKIP IT", commentator 2: "no, I didn't dig it as much as you did so, yeah ! I say SEE IT too, yeah !". Frankly, I'd rather watch more duck stories than this.

Mr Ebert,
Sir I think these last few weeks your audience has been lionizing you. I hope you enjoy that. This week you look ahead and see a bleak landscape for cultural criticism, but I feel disagreement and I write to dissent. The future is for me; I am twenty.
I was watching Rounders, “a recruiting poster for gambling” (-you,98), and a conversation between my friend and my brother kicked up about internet poker.
“You have an account, but it’s all equity based” my friend explained to my brother. Brother is a rugby player who’s sustained concussions and it made me nervous that he might not understand the elliptically admitted debtage. A while earlier a poker account had appeared on our laptop. I deleted the original program but bro is now old enough to have a credit card. How to point out the obvious without making myself an irritation?
I say to my friend: “Every time you mention equity, your palm goes up to your forehead.”
My brother irked: “Damn, you’re always bringing things around to body language!”
“So what do I mean?” asks my friend.
“I can’t tell that, only you can.”
Imagine a world where the cultural critic could be anyone, anywhere, armed with sharp insight about the rules and regulations of our subjective parameters. In an earlier time the secrets of body language were locked up inside esoteric poker manuals; science has conquered these. Book of Body Language by Barbra Pease is a best seller. I used to believe I had ADD, in trying to find a cure I discovered the secrets of hypnosis, now I know there is no such thing as either of these things... just cognition. Celebrities and us all are working the same reward mechanism. I’m just the son of a phone line worker but I believe in a future for cognitiatti, to borrow a term from Louis Giannetti.
So I have a question. What are you going to do with all this extra-new social proof? Icon books does illustrated introductions to individual philosophers, usually long gone and of large reputation, but they covered Barthes, so why not you? I’m looking for a text book, otherwise how can I communicate details such as the relationship of thumbs up to representation provided by promotional material as found in your review of Booty Call. Obscure, isn’t it?
http://www.iconbooks.co.uk/book.cfm?isbn=1-84046-719-3(Someone we won't hear much about after the cognitiatti appear.)

This is a great article, and, coming from Mr. Ebert, that's no surprise. The big surprise for me comes from the wonderful, witty, articulate responses it has generated. America's newspapers are sure being dumbed down, but America's intellect and spirit are alive and healthy.

When I went to grad school at a major university, we had investigative reporters from the only major newspaper in town come and tell us about their work.

Someone, although I was encouraged to become an investigative journalist, I could not fathom how one could, with a straight face, tell a room full of intelligent people about waiting outside of a house to follow the woman (Monica Lewinsky) to Starbucks and proudly tell us what she ordered there.

I decided I would rather spend my time in a dark theater considering the thoughts of a playwright and, on occasion, of a director or screenwriter.

We do need to cultivate intelligent thought and while I don't believe all theater/movie critics do, it is sad that critics are so little valued while gossip about celebrities and movie stars and actors are so highly valued.

During these dire economic times, we need to consider that we both entertainment to buoy our spirits and we also need more intelligent talk to keep us--on all levels--personal, business-wise, city-wide and nation-wide--on course to prevent future economic disasters.

We need recall, that not all cultures and societies are so much into the celebrity cult and perhaps we could benefit from looking at other cultures and what they expect and value.

The magnificenly portrayed Mephisto is a "talented animal" ,a "hollow man" caught on a roller coaster who has no where to go but himself.He is exactly Charlie Kane."Vaulting ambition" and diving a 1000 leagues "seeking the bubble reputation".It may be that in some collective sense,with reference to what is called the "spirit"we may not have crossed the primary stage.Returning to Emily Dickinson,who veers to another extreme

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog

Celebrities like Gandhi and King are different from someone like the (brilliantly enacted) character Mephisto in the film of the same name----they donned metaphorical crosses following an inner mandate --------reading your post I can only think "et tu,America ?"

Reply to: Roger Ebert: The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think. It is not about the disappearance of film critics. We are the canaries. It is about the death of an intelligent and curious, readership, interested in significant things and able to think critically. It is about the failure of our educational system. It is not about dumbing-down. It is about snuffing out... The web is a sea of drivel upon which beautiful sailing ships are sometimes seen...

We've just gone through a Presidential election, and never once did I hear the words "zero-population growth." Seemed like a wonderful question to test whether Republican candidates could think on their feet. For most of history, earth's human population was less than one billion. Today, six billion. By 2050, over eight billion. The easiest way to save the planet is to prevent two billion extra people from being born in the next 40 years.

Population control should be easy for politicians because you're talking about people who haven't been conceived yet, and thus have no constitutional rights. But, is there any leader of an organization who comes out AGAINST artificial birth control? Let me think. Well, there might be ONE. (Which entitles him to the title "Dumbest Guy In The Room.")

When you talk about "being trained not to think" and the "dumbing-down effect," this is where you start. Can this planet support nine billion human beings? At what cost? If we want to control population growth, HOW do we do it? Coming up with a workable "HOW" is a great place to start your "10,000 steps a day" program.

I've read books on "evolutionary biology" which offer insights into why we do things. EB is a wonderful proof that we evolved from tiny mammals who used to spend a lot of time avoiding becoming fast food for dinosaurs. We're greedy. We're irritable. One of the greatest movies of all time featured two angry primates trying to bludgeon each other with swords made of high-energy plasma. We are fascinated that the Sexiest Man Alive could leave America's Sweetheart (Jennifer Aniston) for the Sexiest Woman Alive. Why? It's who we are. At the core, that's what human beings care about. Relationships. How other primates attract and keep mates. Why? Because monogamy doesn't make any sense. Harems make sense, and Hugh Hefner has one.

I rarely see a movie that offers a practical solution, other than "putting bad guys in jail." Which is actually a workable method of population control. Clint has a new movie "Gran Torino" where old guys stand up to street gangs. That's kind of an interesting thought. Instead of waiting for government to find a workable way to achieve zero-population growth, leave it to senior citizens like Dirty Harry.

I remember a film critic who thought it was important to comment on the President's daughter wearing jeans to a swanky dinner in England. (She did not actually do that, but never mind.) I don't always agree with you Roger, but you are right on the money. Things are going down hill fast.

Yes, it's all horrifying, but not surprising to anyone who's in the business. The proliferation of crap, which replaces thought, is taking place with frightening velocity. Got a good idea that you want to take some space to actually write about? Don't waste our space--blog it on the internet. Doesn't cost anything to print, and people don't have to pay to read it. Better yet, just gimme some photos and don't bother with the text.

I publish a magazine in a field where 10 years ago a long story was 1,000 words. Now, through a lot of hard work and pulling our readers along with us, we've been able to publish many New Yorker length pieces--some as long as 30,000 words. But we are not the best-selling rag in our field. The magazine that sells more has much shorter stores, with larger photos and far less text. It's hard to tell the stories from the ads.

Should we cater to the lowest common denominator to sell more copies, or do we create a magazine every month that does what no magazine in our field has ever done before. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground.

Roger, you may have won a Pulitzer, and your writing has never been better, but one day the folks who publish your newspaper are going to cut you loose from their printed page. Of course you read about Gael Greene getting the chop at New York Magazine. No one is safe these days.

We are in an age of uncertainty fueled by the staggering boredom of the average person's life combined with the bottomless whore of the internet. Hold onto your knickers because the end is nowhere in sight.

Ebert: Given the subject of your magazine, cut an article too much and a woman might end up being sawed in half!

I fear what awaits us if our culture does not change it's ways. Unfortunately I doubt we will change. I am only 19 so I have grown up around this constant media circus and it saddens me that I will never experience a time when the news was just(or mostly) about what was important; and it certainly isn't just news and papers, music has sold out, everything seems to have.
I think the 2000's was a horrible time to grow up, but hopefully people are starting to wake up and realize that there is more out there, that questioning and thought aren't so bad after all. With the new election behind us I am more hopeful.

"The news is still big. It's the newspapers that got small."

Roger, good editors are going to keep editing, and good writers are going to keep writing, and the great ones will be noticed because quality will out, and that's all that matters.

Rest assured.

The commercial details will sort themselves out, but good writers won't quit, and neither will good editors. It's in the blood and bones. You do it because you need to. You know that, if you think about it. It's the same for the rest of us.

The rest is details.

I think the comments above mine prove that, although the more publicly advertised media outlets are quickly crafting real Orwellian newspeak, the internet is a formidable David to the Goliath of advertisement-soaked mainstream media.

It may actually be BETTER for the level of intellectual discourse, as the writer will not be restricted by a publisher who has a duty to the shareholders of the corporation to which that publication belongs. There will not be editing of content because "ooh we might loose some readership over formal complaints if you say something like that!" is not and will never be relevant to the independent critic who publishes via private means and doesn't seek to court the favor of an overseer. Call them bloggers, and certainly, point out the other side of this coin, where constant adherence to traditional standards of journalistic accountability and integrity are erased; recognize that they can lie, but notice that it is not just that they may lie with greater ease, they also may tell the truth with greater ease.

Plus peer monitoring of output will most always remove most scandals and find erroneous reporting out, just as it has done for the scientific community. And as for the ease of finding more thoughtful content? Those with an interest will always be able to find what they desire due to the artificial evolution of information sharing via the already advanced and effective cybersocial networks.

An opportunity to quote my other favorite film! (It is tied with All About Eve.) I have the promotional lobby stand that I begged off of a theater manager as a kid in my living room.

Aaron Altman: What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women.

How interesting you wrote on this topic. I used to read a "CelebCult" blog and some of the stuff written on there was pretty awful. The blog writer would shower praise on a celebrity and than six months or less later would be trashing the same person. (It was almost always a woman). Also some of the stuff written on there was very mysogynist. I was reading it and noticing it the blog writer is not much of a writer. There was no wit or humour; he did not really skewer celebrity culture and really never wrote anything interesting. And than a voice inside my head said "don't read that blog anymore." So I didn't. I have thought about going back to it. Old habits die hard.

A few years ago I read a piece on the internet by a Canadian commentator who really said celebrities are worshipped because they seem to have everything we don't: Money, power, wealth, the ability to change the world for the better. I really think this is true. People see what is going on in the world and feel helpless, like they cannot do anything about it. Be it the war in Iraq, Darfur, the bailouts that are happening. So celebrity worship makes people feel better and helps people forget. Which is maybe why major media outlets are making celebrity coverage into regular news.

I also enjoy turning the page of a book because it seems so perfect...like the author has an awareness of the page and kind of edits it visually so that one page leaves you yearning for the next page--everypage is like a story unto itself mysteriously...the end, and the next page is the beginning...its magical.

Oh, to have come up during the Film Generation! The modern entertainment media is a joke. The obsession with gossip is inexplicable to me. I have friends who gawk at magazine covers and comment derisively about how fat Tyra Banks or Jennifer Love Hewitt have gotten, or how ugly so-and-so looks without makeup. And they wonder why they're self-conscious about their own looks -- imagine. A media training the public to train themselves into self-hatred.

Who cares? These publications, television shows, and websites perpetuate their own myth. They insist upon shoveling us nothing crap in the guise of giving the public what it wants, but that's a crock. They have normalized the glorified stalking that is the CelebCult, and have managed to convince an ungodly amount of the populace that it matters what Suri Cruise wears or what Brad and Angelina had for breakfast this morning. I, meanwhile, don't care what sixteen-year-old girls think about Robert Pattinson -- though I admit to wishing he had a friend honest enough to tell him he should run a comb through his hair before doing interviews.

I'm a member of an online community that for the most part still values film, film criticism, and the art of the motion picture. I recently had a brief discussion about Fassbinder. The CelebCult doesn't know who Fassbinder is because he never directed a movie with Miley Cyrus in it. We're out there. We're active. And we're hungry. It's probably too late to save the print media; the future, I think, is on the internet, though online, as everywhere else, it's difficult for serious voices to be heard against the din of the stupid.

When I started my graduate degree in history two years ago, I took a course on media and film. I learned from the course that celebrity culture started when film begin. Those who headed the film industry did not care about the actors. The idea that actors could become famous did not cross their minds. The public saw actors on the screen, and they wanted to know about them. This led to celebrity culture, which was an unintended consequence of film.

The celeb cult has become a lot worse than having obsessions over the personal problems of Brittiny Spears or the love life of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

With the arrival of You Tube and other video sharing sites, celebrity culture has risen to an unbelievably ridiculous extreme. You Tube has literally made it possible for any average person to achieve fame just by posting videos of themselves sitting in their bedrooms doing nothing and blabbering about nothing. Many people have fantasies about being famous. If they were given an opportunity to become famous, they would certainly take it. You Tube has given them the chance to either become famous, or at least feel like they have achieved fame. There have been many stories about average people posting videos of themselves on You Tube either blabbering about something or playing musical instruments. Then they are offered to appear on television, or given the chance to start careers in music. Many of them are not talented, but the point is that they are made famous just for showing their faces to the world.

The Magibon craze is a good example. Magibon is the nickname of a girl on You Tube (named Magi) who lives in rural Pennsylvania; her username is MRirian. For two years she posted videos of herself staring into her camera, saying a few words in Japanese, and showing the peace sign. Magibon is half white and half Native American, but is obsessed with Japanese culture and is trying to become Japanese. There are other young people like her, typically white, who are also obsessed with Japanese culture and are trying to become Japanese. They are either called Weeaboos, Wapanese, or Japanophiles. A Japanese internet company saw her videos and invited her to Japan to appear on a television program, a radio show, and in a Japanese playboy magazine. They liked her videos and invited her to Japan because she was promoting their culture, even though she does not speak Japanese very well and may not entirely understand the Japanese people. She has gone to Japan a few more times to participate in some events, most notably a recent You Tube live program. She has also attracted a large cult following, most likely consisting of Japanese people and other Weeaboos. A musical group wrote a song about her and performed it at the You Tube live show with her on stage. Since appearing on Japanese television, she has become some sort of celebrity; internet or You Tube celebrity to put it more accurately. Magibon stated that she started making videos because she liked to see herself in the camera, and that she did not think anyone would bother to watch her videos. This perhaps shows that she was not desiring to become famous by posting videos on You Tube. Whether or not she wanted to become famous is not important.

What is baffling to me is that celebrity culture has reached a point where average nobody people like Magibon are pushed into it and made into celebrities, whether or not they were intending to become famous. It is all meaningless and unnecessary.

I don't know what film critics are supposed to do in a world where a You Tube video of a kid staring into their camera is more important than a movie. Bill O' Reilly said something on his Fox News program sometime before the Oscars that does not sound good for the film critic. He said people would rather stay home and watch You Tube videos than go to the movies, which was the reason he gave for why the Oscar nominated films were probably not going to do well at the box office.

If your bosses at the Sun-Times tell you to stop reviewing movies, and start reviewing You Tube videos, than you will know that film criticism is dead. Your choices will either be to "hail to the CelebCult," or retire and go home to read some good books. I would read the books, and I know you would to. After all, reading helps to make life meaningful.

The inability to think critically leads to a person being more susceptible to half-baked propaganda. This is a key reason to keep people ignorant and happy. Give them all the pablum they can absorb, then lead them astray. As long as people have their heads full of celebrity nonsense, they will have little desire to read real news.

A newspaper summarizes your world, connects you to your culture. But if your culture is failing to connect with you, what do you do? You could reach out for the celebrity news. It satisfies with instant recognition and meaning. You are 'hooked up'. When society becomes flimsy and slippery, with nothing to hold on to, people drift. If the celebrity culture is on the rise, it's because society is failing to meet the basic human needs that a culture should provide. Technology moves too fast, changes upon changes occur. Nothing is permanent.

When I lived in the U.S. (my home) I got up half an hour early to read my newspaper, to connect myself to my world. When I married and moved to Switzerland I received a one year subscription of the Sunday edition as a wedding present. Over time, my connection to the minutia of my culture has waned. My old newspaper is a long lost friend. Now, it seems that someone has failed to introduce a large part of a generation to its own culture. They must satisfy their needs elsewhere. Enter celebrity news.

Great article. You've addressed an issue that makes me sick everytime I hear it come up. I think everyone in the newspaper business/media should be required to read this and watch La Dolce Vita and Ace in the Hole.

Ebert: They saw CelebCult coming. So did "The Sweet Smell of Success."

I'm not happy about it, but as noted in earlier comments, the "death" of film criticism has been upon us for some time. I hope that for as long as I live there will at least be a few good ones spotted across the country.

I was reminded of this tonight when I had the chance to catch "Lakeview Terrace". The ad campaign given to this film was a disaster. It made a complex and nuanced film look like a cheap thriller. I decided to see it after you reccomended it. Looking over at rottentomatoes.com I see that the top critics seem to have split over this movie. And why not? It's bold, daring, and complex. There's quite a bit packed into that 110 minute run time. We need critics to jump start national dialogue about films like this one. You may hate it, and you may love it, but I don't think you can walk away from that movie feeling luke warm. It's a shame that everyone is talking about "Twilight" instead of this Neil LaBute gem.

Movies, and all other arts, are a strange window through which we can look at ourselves. We would do ourselves a service by contemplating what it is we see. We should ask ourselves what these visions mean. We should wonder if others have seen the same things.

But we should all be encouraged a little. While large newspapers and other media channels underestimate the need for critical thinking, this blog (and more specifically, it's commentators) proves that there will always be some corner of the world willing to engage with these moving pictures.

Thanks for the reccomendation. I don't think you're always right, but I trust you as a critic.

A well timed article, Roger. This one I strongly identify with. The university newspaper that I write for down here in Nebraska has recently decided to make some changes. Less columns, less opinions, less reviews. As the paper's only serious critic, I have been moved online to the newspaper's website. Published reviews have finally been scrapped altogether.

We had a 500 word limit in the paper before we had limitless room on a computer screen. I wrote a review of Twilight the day after it was released. I was proud of it. I thought I had made a very strong argument for my opinion. The only problem was it was over 750 words. The mutilated remnants of my review that actually made the paper after the editors raped it with their keyboards had no flow. It left out the rhetoric and left in the summary. I feel like I have been tortured into appreciating the fact that I'll have no word limit online.

Here's my review as it appeared in the paper.
http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/media/storage/paper857/news/2008/11/24/Features/twilight.Doesnt.Translate.To.Silver.Screen-3559847.shtml

And here's the review I actually wrote, posted to my own website where I can really speak my mind.
http://go-see-a-movie.com/2008/11/23/review-twilight.aspx

Different? You tell me.

Ebert: Yep. When editors cut, they leave the words but chop the music. The words are the venue, the music is the performance.

I read somewhere that the late film critic Vincent Canby quit film criticism in 1993 and switched to theater criticism. The reason to my understanding was that most films coming out of Hollywood were aimed at younger audiences and were only meant to entertain them. Hollywood was not producing enough films for adults, and many pictures were not being honest about the real world and getting their viewers to think.

As newspapers lean more towards celebrity gossip, it might be safe to say that theater criticism may also be dying. It is hard to imagine what Canby would do if he were alive today and working for a newspaper. He would probably get fired like all the other good critics. Maybe he would have written books on all sorts of topics dealing with politics, art, and his own life.

The best I can say is that film critics are riding into the sun set like the movie characters they have written about for years. Wherever they go, is anyone's guess.

Good, solid, passionate piece, but you are conflating (and confusing) two very different subjects: the popularity of uncritical, superficial, brainless celebrity coverage and the fact that newspapers (because of competition from the internet and other social and economic factors) are being severely scaled back, merging or folding. I don't really see these two topics as meeting much in the middle. It's true that trashy celebrity gossip has increased in popularity in the last ten years or so, and infiltrated the broader culture to a greater degree than before, but even gossip magazines and websites are being affected in this economy. Regardless of whether you write film criticism or who-did-what-with-whom-last-night gossip items, this is a lousy time to write for a newspaper. (That said, it's true that film critics are having a particularly tough time, and that's partly because art cover tends to suffer first in times of cutbacks and crisis.) But to pin the problems of newspapers (which are considerable and, to some degree, insoluble) to celeb-culture doesn't seem to me particularly helpful. If anything, in this depressed economy, people are likely to get more solace from lighter items and superficial stories about celebrities, and is that really such a bad thing? I hate our fixation on celebrity culture but realize that it isn't likely to go away any time soon. In a healthy climate, daft items about Tom Cruise's baby should be able to exist (as they are undeniably enjoyed by many readers) and film critics like Nathan Lee and Jonathan Rosenbaum should have the space to write analytical reviews. The fact that in the current climate good writers are losing their jobs and their audience is tragic. But I don't think it's Baby Siri's fault.

Since you mentioned Stanley Kauffman, here is a quote by him that I had come across in a book a long time ago, when I knew nothing about him:

"I think of criticism as a form of literature. Not paraliterature, not a substitute for literature, but a kind of art concurrent with art."

I live in Michigan and on Fridays would look forward to: 1) reading Ebert's reviews of the weeks films, and 2) buying a Detroit Free Press and doing the same with Terry Lawson's weekly take on cinema. Lawson took the "early buyout" and now, as you state, the Free Press has no film critic, just revolving reviews from the wire services. Why read that?! The reason you seek out a film critics opinion is that you have grown, over time, to trust the thoughts and insights of said critic. The fact that a major American newspaper has no film critic on staff is criminal-an affront to is very own readership. Sadly, canaries are dying all over the country, one critic at a time, and no one (save readers and writers of this blog), seems to care much.

Newspapers have been dying the slow death for decades. Every move they make now is vying for survival and profitability. With every cost saving cut they make, be it a column writer or a cartoonist, they loose a customer who was just getting the paper for that.

But Roger-this isn't the end of culture or critics.

Did painters stop painting when photography was discovered?

Did theater close down when the motion picture were created?

Did nightclubs stop having live bands when the phonograph played for the first time?

No...they all transformed. So to will the newspaper industry and the critics that go with it.

People still want to read well written articles. They want to see good reviews. The reality is that Newspaper, Television and Radio aren't the only game in town.

From what I can see-the internet...and the wireless devices that are coming...will be the new way that this will be delivered.

With the internet, you can read a book, watch a movie or listen to song. With the ability to interact with others from all over the world only makes the experience better.

Eventually, voices will rise to pick up the torches that you guys carried for so long.

What I don't understand is why a Newspaper would fire someone that could fill their internet pages with content?

Roger, I have to say that I totally agree with this post, the CelebCult as you put it has really gotten out of hand, I was fortunate that when I was growing up it never really existed or had only begun to come on the scene, now its everywhere and I hate it.

I mean, when you stop and start to think about it, does it even matter what these guys do in their private life if they make movies you have enjoyed, I mean sure some have gone completely off the deep end but if they've made a movie that you liked and/or loved, shouldn't that matter the most when it comes down to it.

One last thing I'd like to ask: Is there any chance of a special tribute to Gene next February to mark the sad 10th anniversary of his death as it would be really nice.

And so I imagine a generation passed out on lawns and pavements. Unable to process the pace of a passing cloud. But somewhere someone grapples with their fingers and puts pen to paper. A prescription on how, passing it on until the ground turns damp and the movement of limbs and intellect is inevitable. We carry on. Anticipating the next move. And eventually there's more. Eventually we multiply.

Your blog post reminded me of an interview with Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451. I have some vaguely related ramblings to share, about the Internet, and the instant gratification it provides, along with the effect it has had on me, and might have on others.

I confess that I used to spend too much time browsing the Internet. When I did, my attention span got very obviously shorter. I'd watch a 10 minute video on Youtube. Then a 5 minute video, then a 3 minute video. It was addictive. I kept looking for a "quick fix," another trivial, amusing thing. This habit made my attention span get shorter, and temporarily numbed me intellectually and emotionally. After some time, individual things I saw no longer had integrity in my mind--the videos, attractive articles, and amusing Top 7 lists all blurred together. In addition, staring at the computer screen so long made it difficult for my eyes to focus on individual things in the room I was in--appropriate, I guess.

By allowing myself to lose my own impulse-control, it made it more difficult to put effort into work and thought for hours afterward. I also failed to realize at the time the effect all those videos, images, and information had on my psyche. All that nonsense was still there, cluttering my mind afterward. It made it harder to remember the important things about life, and to keep things in perspective. That's the bad thing about excess--having too much makes it harder to appreciate the little things. Having all this at our fingertips can useful, but we need to be willing to excercise restraint. Willing to avoid getting into the habit of taking it for granted--a habit encouraged by instant gratification.

In addition, it's just shameful how much time I wasted on the Internet. I want to be glad for how I spent my time in life when I'm on my deathbed--it won't be a joke anymore than. When I was little, I drove my mom crazy by saying things in odd ways like this: "It's wrong to sacrifice the future for the present, because the future will become the present, while the present will merely become the past." Of course, I didn't say it that way really, I didn't say "sacrifice" and "merely," but I still said it sort of like that.

As an above poster said, intellectualism is secondary to the experience. However, I think these aspects of our culture, and my old habits, aren't harmful for the reason that they aren't intellectual--they're harmful because they can stunt people's, and my, emotional capability. We get the wrong priorities, and become less willing to make effort, including thinking. They, or at least, I, have blocked out emotions, too, a terrible thing to do, all in the name of taking the easy path and giving into basic impulses. Good old stupid fun can be good and fun if, and only if, it is had sparingly, and a person keeps things in perspective and is not overloaded or numbed by it. Otherwise, it stops being that fun, and is mainly just easy and addictive. And, deep down, wearying and unsatisfying. For me at least, anyway.

I have a mild form of autism, and a number of obsessive-compulsive tendencies, so my case might not be typical. However, I think it's likely that a lot of aspects of people's minds work a lot like my own, including addictive tendencies that giving into discourage effort and patience, and encourage mental and emotional numbing, short attention spans, and a general mindset of taking things for granted.

I apologize for making you read through that badly written mess. I am not worthy.

Ebert: You are worthy. I wonder if the internet is a carrier for Attention Deficit Disorder. Chaz doesn't like to read anything very long without printing it it out first. I didn't understand that. But now I'm beginning to.

I find Rotten Tomatoes to be a perfect symbol of the decline of film criticism. I've clicked on the "T-Meter" critics and am lost in a wilderness of short reviews littered with typos claiming films are "boring," "slow" and "bad." Many reviews are mean-spirited, displaying a lack of knowledge of anything prior to 1990. I've read "Gene Wilder is a limited actor with poor comedic skills" or certain films "rock." A small percentage of Internet critics have insight and skill. I appreciate James Berardinelli. But even the "Top Critics" have shallow reviews often two paragraphs in length. Ironically, I've discovered very good reviews on Amazon, and find multiple critiques with thoughtful analysis (though one must wade through similar wastelands).

I believe the decline of film criticism has much to do with the decline of good films. It's not the art form it was during the 1970s, and the best films today are often seen the least. So many modern films are throwaway time wasters, spawning thousands of throwaway, time wasting blogs. Today's market is driven almost entirely by an uncultured, youthful mindset living for the moment. It's also corporate driven, where the bottom line of profit far outweighs any cultural or qualitative aesthetic. What is considered a good film today is that which makes money. If a film critic stands in the way of a profit-making enterprise, the critic is expendable.

I remember reading about the demise of newspapers in 1995, when an influential editor said, "When they create a computer that can be carried into the bathroom, then I'll start worrying." Well, that time is now. Like teachers, preachers and generals, newspapers have been slow to learn. But to quote Arthur Christiansen in a fine black and white film from 1961 about the end of the world, "It's never too late for a good news story well written."

Great post - I totally agree. Reminds me how every time I'm back at the grocery store checkout stand, I realize that most members of our society are still in high school -- only now they have never met the people they gossip about and obsess over. Very depressing.

This is weird- two quotes came to mind as I read this. The first is George Carlin- "I think when you're born, you're given a ticket to the freak show, and I say enjoy the show."

The other is from Herzog's interview on Fresh Air. He said something like "the poet can not avert his eyes... that's why I watch the anna nicole smith show." I did a quick search for the actual quote and found this-

"here's a great thing: herzog was telling us about his dealings with critics, and saying he was lucky that he's always been treated rather favorably by them. eventually he became friendly with roger ebert and then forced him to watch the anna nicole smith show. he said, "it's important to know evil." there's just something nice and surreal about imagining werner herzog and roger ebert watching the anna nicole smith show together.

Here's the link: http://www.msgphoto.com/notables/wernerherzog.html

I'd certainly like to hear that story... that is, if it's true.

Ebert: I don't recall that. Perhaps it's symbolic.

thought this would be a worthy footnote
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/alisa_miller_shares_the_news_about_the_news.html

enjoy, well on second thought maybe you shouldn/t

When you speak of editing, I started to think about your review of "I've Loved You So Long", and wonder if that was edited in any way. Did you say everything you wanted in the review or were there some things left out?

Ebert: That's how I wrote it. What seemed to be missing?

So here we have a talkback section with terrific comments lamenting the decline of newspaper film critics...even though such a talkback section, which is infinitely more interesting than, say, a single critic's take on this issue, would never appear in a newspaper.

Talk about meta.

Here's the harsh truth, Mr. Ebert: All those fine critics you mention, they all had more than a fair run in their industries. A better run than most of us have at anything. If they really love film, they'll find a way to stay engaged in it. Film critics should not expect lifetime appointments. Nobody in the newspaper business should.

Sadly, such expectations were par for the course for decades.

Roger,

Whose editorial decision was it to run photos of Justin and Karolina's belly button with the article?

If it was yours, wasn't that pandering to the very celeb cult you're decrying?

If it was your editor's, why don't you walk away from this gig before your oxygen gives out?

After all, one of the reasons you're still read is because of your own celebrity, and the fact that your better stuff goes viral on the web. You'd survive quite nicely without the Sun-Times job.

You're certainly right about a lot of things in your article; but I remember reading great exchanges in Film Comment between you and others about how Siskel and Ebert at the Movies was a harbinger of the demise of serious film criticism. I'm surprised that your article doesn't reflect more awareness at the meta level.

Ebert: My decision. I choose all the art. I was trying for an irony which I perhaps failed to achieve. On the other hand, maybe they demonstrated awareness at a meta-meta-level.

I'm a film critic at a paper for a smallish city (pop. roughly 75k), and I can say from experience that it's not just our intelligence that is getting short shrift here. It's also our communities. My job, as I see it, is not to say "yea or nay" to a film but provide the jumping-off point for a dialogue. I consider the tastes and tendencies of the local moviegoers (without ever pandering to them). I consider how some movies might relate to local issues. I make my reviews personal enough that I hopefully come across as a "friend and neighbor", but intelligent and articulate enough that I (again, hopefully) represent the community well. Ideally, without sounding too full of myself, I like to hope that people would be proud to live in a city with strong local writers and thinkers, and not 500-word AP pieces on Angelina's babies.

I can say from the phone calls and the emails I get, and the people I see out and about, the feedback from the local arthouse theater owners, that my work is indeed appreciated — even when they think I'm a complete idiot.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people give lip service to the notion of strong communities, and when it comes to little things that help *build* strong communities like cultivating local critics and talent, the bottom line — and the supposed needs of the lowest common denominator — comes first.

Roger,

Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, I read your piece, and many of the comments, thought of a thing or two I'd like to add, but decided to pass--we're hosting about a dozen carb-addicts today, and every turkey demands its basting--and was just about to close out, when on your mainpage a popup window blared at me, filling the screen with an ad for jackass.com. Et tu, Roger?

Paul

p.s. Speaking of gossip, Greg Wright mentioned Film Comment, where your name used to appear every once in a while--but has been absent for quite some time (I believe). Has there been a breakup between you and FC, hopefully involving nasty scenes in The Viper Room?

I'm 15 years old and I've seen the damage the CelebCult has done on my peers. A notable example would be this girl who was ranting about how the Twilight movie was the "greatest movie ever." I already knew she wasn't very intelligent from her saying WW1 was about "taxation without representation," so I guess I was kind of prepared for what I brought myself into. When I brought up my qualms with the acting and special effects, she claimed those were "perfect" and said "You'd like the movie if you read the book, just like the reason I don't like the Harry Potter movies is because I don't read those books." I made a list of a couple hundred movies better than Twilight. She hadn't heard of most of them, and she scoffed at the idea that ET, Juno, and The Incredibles may in fact be higher quality than Twilight. The one movie on my list she actually complimented, albiet a bit backhandedly, was Spirited Away, saying she loved it when she was a little kid but now Twilight's "deeper" and "more mature". When I asked her what she liked about Twilight, she said "it's like a modern twist on Romeo and Juliet" and proceeded to declare Stephanie Meyer a better writer than Shakespeare himself. I asked her what books she does read. I got three levels of responses:

1(upon the initial question)) "I read a variety of books"
2(when asking for titles)) "You wouldn't have heard of them"
and 3 (when I told her that my mom's prior bookstore job has given me a wide knowledge of books, even those I have no interest in)) "They're girl books"

By the time I told her I liked some "girl books" (whatever that really means), she refused to give me any answer.

Dear Mr. Ebert,
I think now is the time for you to view "Idiocracy" if you haven't yet. Deals with the dumbing down of the world in such a way that, well.....see for yourself.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Brandon

500 words? I work as a copy writer/ghost writer, and on a 500 word article, I can usually expect to make about seven bucks for thirty minutes of work (and that includes research).

If a critic is only supposed to mirror what they presume the reader to think, look out Roger, I'm after your job!

My favorite celebcult story so far has been "Tom Hanks eats a sandwich". Two full pages of photos depicting Tom Hanks, well, eating a sandwich. The scoop of the century!

On a side note: I wish there were a place one could leave comments on your reviews. Your essays on Twilight and Four Christmases were the funniest things I've read all month!

I'm starting to wonder if doing ANY kind of writing for pay is going to be a dead industry soon. (Ex-journalist speaking.) I feel totally useless in this culture because I can get budget-cut in a heartbeat and apparently, "nobody" minds too much as long as they get their 500 word review.

Finally managed at least partially to decipher your masterpiece of Greek prose. What is being "snuffed out”? It is not the newspaper which is the endangered species, but man, or at least his mind. Perhaps I was totally mistaken in thinking that the West was a maturer society—seemingly it is only the size of the burgers which is slightly larger.

What is the role of a critic? One might as well ask, what is the role of a human being? Or would you put that question in the category of the dissapeared belly button.

One thing that came to me thru your post is that the people everywhere are very similar ,as they must always have been.

Finally managed at least partially to decipher your masterpiece of Greek prose. What is being "snuffed out”? It is not the newspaper which is the endangered species, but man, or at least his mind. Perhaps I was totally mistaken in thinking that the West was a maturer society—seemingly it is only the size of the burgers which is slightly larger.

What is the role of a critic? One might as well ask, what is the role of a human being? Or would you put that question in the category of the dissapeared belly button.

One thing that came to me thru your post is that the people everywhere are very similar ,as they must always have been.

I'm writing this in the knowledge that it probably won't get published, because it expresses a political opinion.

To the point, though: yes. Absolutely. Yes. The CelebCult is upon us, and we're the poorer for it.

As an example, might I mention the last Presidential election? Mr. Obama ran an entirely CelebCult campaign. There was "Change," and "Hope," and "Hope for Change," and "Change for Hope." There wasn't one serious policy proposal, or any statement of theory of governance. The madding crowds, weaned on a diet of Tom and Katie, and Angelina's twins--yes, this goes further back, I'm just mentioning recent examples--found this entirely to their liking, since substance means thinking, and thinking means knowing, and they certainly don't know much about much. Knowing, apparently, hurts.

Mr. Obama's campaign advisors had certainly done their homework. They knew that all they had to do was present an American Idol-style campaign (minus Simon Cowell). To a population for whom it hurts to think (tip of the hat to A.E. Housman), for whom more than 500 words presents an impassable literary obstacle, it was the perfect thing. After all, cultists only needed to remember a single word: change. It didn't have to mean anything. (Does it mean anything yet?)

I'm not kicking the President-elect in the shins. I'm simply showing how the CelebCult premise was used to get someone elected. That sort of thing strikes me as dangerous. Perhaps, as Roger suggests, Mr. Obama is exactly what the country needs, and it'll be all sunshine and fluffy bunnies for the next eight years. Should that happen, I'd think it quite ironic, considering that he was elected by arms-held-out, shuffling refugees from a zombie flick.

Present company excepted, of course.

Ebert: Let's NOT get into politics. By not mentioning the CelebCut candidate, Sarah Palin, you risk identification as a troll.

Excellent piece - and I very much agree. This is all very bad news. I only wish I could say that I was surprised.

Not long ago, my local newspaper went on a diet: it cut back on the size of its pages, its number of sections, the length of its articles, its number of writers. The only thing that got bigger was the font on the page.

I suppose that tough economic times are in part to blame for all of this (in the age of the internet, papers do need to make money) – but it is difficult for me not to get a little upset that various news agencies haven’t found ways to survive that don’t require pandering to the worst natures of people.

And: I don’t think the bad economic times can be blamed for all of this. The trend of devaluing critics (and serious journalism) in favor of juicy gossip and superficial junk seems to have been unspooling for some time now. Was a time when this kind of tabloid stuff was really only on display at the supermarket. Not so anymore. Now it pops up everywhere: newspapers, news programs, you name it.

Strictly in terms of film criticism: there are, of course, still excellent publications devoted to the intelligent discussion of film, but how many people outside of cinephile circles have really heard of magazines like Cineaste or Sight and Sound – much less actually read them? Alas, some of the excellent discussions of film exist in publications the general public doesn’t read. For this I do not fault those magazines (they are excellent), but rather the culture that instead encourages people to read Us Weekly. Sound bites sell.

As a note: I found a couple of solid articles in Sight and Sound and Cineaste that discuss some similar issues - specifically, about criticism in the age of the internet. The one drawback for some: the articles are more than 500 words.

The Sight and Sound piece:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49479

The Cineaste piece:
http://www.cineaste.com/articles/film-criticism-in-the-age-of-the-internet.htm

Fahrenheit 451 is not a book about government censorship. Book burnings only began when people stopped reading anything.

Also, I often use Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic for reviews (aside from reading your reviews of course), but these websites do rely on newspaper critics.

Roger,

Shortly after George W. Bush was elected, you wrote a column about how his twin daughters had worn blue-jeans to meet the Queen at Buckingham Palace (or something along those lines: the story was quickly pulled when somebody realized it was totally false!) Now tell me, Roger: even if that story had been true and you weren't forced to apologize for it, what was the intended "news value" of that item? Was it really important to spread a lie about what a couple of teen girls wore to a formal event? How was that any different than a story about, say, Britney feeling old? Or Justin and Jessica being spotted together?

Come on, Roger. In what way was that story not teaching shabby values to young people, festering unwholesome curiosity, violating privacy, and indifferent to meaningful achievement?

Ebert: The article was factually inaccurate, for which I apologized. It was not intended to spread a lie. It was based on news reports. If those had been accurate, it would have been appropriate to criticize the girls for wearing blue jeans to meet the Queen, don't you agree?

Minor pedantry - I assume when you said "festers unwholesome curiosity@ you actually meant "fosters etc.". But the malaprop actually has an extra resonance!

Ebert: I think the dictionary allows my usage.

Someone already claimed, "The future belongs to me. I am twenty." And then went on to write some nonsense that he thought was clever.

I am forty, well beyond the "it" demographic but still a chief target for capitalists, and, when I was twenty, my generation declared it had no future. We were wrong, but we were also, turns out, correct.

I will now continue to write some nonsense that I think is clever.

The Girls-Gone-Wild Generation is artless. Their exclusive concerns are money and fun. These are two very good things, but they are not the only valuable things in the cosmos. Also, each of these things can be made even better in ways these boys and girls can't understand. Money is better when earned and put to good use. Celebrities don't earn money. Paris Hilton hasn't earned a nickle. Fun is almost a given: Any time there are more than two people together in any enclosed space, fun is almost bound to show up, invited or not. But there are things more fun than squeaking loudly and getting drunk and exposing tail-feathers. Paris Hilton has never had any fun that doesn't involve squeaking or alcohol.

Newspapers are the latest victims of capitalism? Why not? What makes newspapers any different than rock music, movies, literature or television journalism? CelebCult is nothing new. I think Andy Warhol claimed to have invented it. Maybe it was Truman Capote. He was a writer, wasn't he? The internet didn't force CelebCult down our throats. Capitalists found out they could sell a lot of magazines with Jennifer Aniston's face on the cover. Then they stopped trying to sell magazines without Jennifer Aniston's face on the cover. Doesn't really prove anything about the public's regard for Jennifer Aniston, one way or the other. Just proves capitalists are lazy.

Yes, it is unsettling that entertainment journalists will not be able to write at length about things other than the winner of last night's reality show contest, but, really, how long has it been since the majority of them wrote about anything else, anyway? Movie reviews will get shorter? Good, because, with notable but rare examples being obvious, movie reviews are rarely worth 300 of their 500 words. It's easier to write some sarcasm or repeat a tagline from the studio's press packet. Capitalists aren't the only lazy ones. Maybe film criticism should pass into retirement. Roger and his peers, influenced by the cinema of their times, wrote beautifully well. "Quint" blogs, influenced by the meh cinema of his times.

If our culture is artless it is not our culture's fault. Blame lazy writers, readers or sellers. Doesn't matter. Blame yourself or blame me. Art exists. Artist's live and work and write. Finding art is more like homework than ever, but that doesn't mean art has been trampled to death by celebrity. Celebrity, at least the current codependent relationship between it and some of us, will pass. All fads do.

But I do want to tell the twenty-year-old snot, "The future belongs to people who haven't even been born yet. The past is mine. You can have the present because no one else wants it. Now please shut up."

I don't really read newspapers for one of the main reasons being, yes, they are too small. The biggest story you will find maybe covers two whole pages. I can and do read that in about 3 minutes. It is also filled with paragraphs that are 1 or 2 sentences long. But with celebrity gossip, I couldn't care less, and I'm surprised that they are actually required writing...as if there is one. I avoid all celebrity gossip on television, and well, altogether, and this kind of ranting or actually riffing, rather, reminds me of the ranting that is done in the movie "talk radio", directed by Oliver Stone, based on the real life of Alan Berg (Barry Champlain in the film) who you knew....well, its brilliant and a show I would listen to and here it is all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvC5A3K-0fY&feature=related

And here is Roger's four star review of the film

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19881221/REVIEWS/812210301/1023

Could you elucidate on "consider the local scene"?

This article is all too true. I fear that one day, the people of the future will discover "Idiocracy" and conclude that Mike Judge was the 21st century analog of Nostradamus. Mr. Ebert, I sincerely hope that you will always be a part of the critical landscape, in one way or another.

It's about finding a "roots" of the mind.Mephisto is talented but rootless,as you noted in your review.

The mind being unobservable,there is no way of comparing one's mind and others.But I note a difficulty of the mind to stop and draw in.One need not lament the demise of newspaper than the the stone tablet .Change is the law.Man will surely find himself.The internet at worst is a symptom not the disease.To paraphrase ,Hamlet is not a prisoner of the prison Denmark,as he feels , rather Hamlet is both prisoner and prison.

Mr.Ebert, I have never read your journal entries before, but now that i have read this one, im going to read the rest of them. There are 88 comments up there. that means at least 88 people are reading more than 500 words accounts of who ate a sandwich and who does not have a belly button.

Perhaps predictably, most comments agree with the original post. But the minority dissenting opinion has valid points to make, and I will try my hand at some of them.

Most important, the demise of newspaper film critics does not necessarily coincide with the decline of film criticism. The former seems natural and not unhealthy, because a newspaper is not the most convenient and logical medium for film criticism, but merely the traditional one. As Roger Ebert should know as well as anyone, the internet is a much better repository for movie reviews than newsprint, because it puts at the reader's disposal an entire archive of criticism.

Naturally, I am more interested in reading what critics think about the movies I am considering seeing this week than about those they happen to have seen last week. Once the two categories may have had to coincide if we lived in the same city, thus having access to the same theatres. But this has no longer been the case for decades.

More generally, and therefore with greater hesitation, I find the paean to a past golden age of journalism strikingly paternalistic. Despite lacking scientific proof, I doubt the quality of information and opinion available today is uniformly lower than in the past. On the contrary, I veer towards the optimistic view that the very best that is being printed, broadcast, and posted online today is as good as it ever was. The only problem is separating the wheat from the chaff.

Hence I feel the nostalgia is for an era when local newspaper editors were in charge of doing this selection and "educating the public" in their city. I am skeptical this is an arrangement worth pining for. If people are left to choose on their own, we surely make mistakes; nonetheless we believe in democracy as opposed to benevolent central planning when it comes to politics. Does the same argument not apply to information?

I wonder if, instead of a decline of serious thought and a rise of celebrity culture, we are merely witnessing an alignment of the U.S. newspaper market to the British model, with some quality national newspapers and some gossip rags. That is certainly sad for people passionately involved, as writers or readers, with the old quality local newspapers; but does it actually portend any broader cultural tragedy?

Before we lament the passing of the good old days, we would always do well to take a deep breath and re-read Horace, Ars Poetica 171-174.

Your post and the comments are proof that 'thought death' has not arrived. Nor do I think it will, as others have commented, the portal for information delivery is the greatest change. The problem (or perhaps opportunity) is how to pay the serious critics for their work. People need to raise their families, and it's hard to do it on blog comments.

Run with me on this. My portal for film is mainly the IMDb. I see a movie, click on Trivia, and then the External Reviews (which is how I discovered your writing). I like James Berardinelli, Todd McCarthy (although I get tired of the Variety abbrevs of thesp, pic, prod), 3 Black Chicks (oh where have they gone!) and Mr. Cranky (among others).

So how do I support the people who provide the writing I want? I find the ones you like and support their site. For the longest time Berardinelli wouldn't post ads, but now he does. Now I click through them, and view the page. He gets compensation for the click through. Even better, Amazon is starting to pay commission to those who put their ads on the site and have a sale.

I suspect the internet model will make it easier for web site owners to get the advertising revenue that papers formerly had. I will miss newspaper when I'm 64 (36 now), but if I can get the same pleasure for my mind while saving a few trees, I'll take it as opposed to not having it all.

Ebert: You are the ideal. I've made a little from Amazon from my books, DVD commentary-track DVDs and the rice Pots (!). So far, not a lot, but it covers my purchases on Amazon...as long as I don't want to buy a TV.

I am away from home in graduate school so I will not be spending Thanksgiving with any relatives. In fact, I will not be having a turkey dinner. I never liked turkey, so I might grab some chicken.

I know you cannot eat. It must be strange and uncomfortable to watch everyone around you eat turkey when you are not able to have any. Don't let that get you down, and just have a happy Thanksgiving.

Damn that was powerful! I've never read such a wistful, beautiful comparison as your analogy between the film critic and the canary in the coal mine. The fact that someone such as yourself, a personal hero of mine, is as passionately infuriated at our descent into Idiocracy as I makes the inevitable backslide somewhat easier to digest. Rejoice in the miracle that you were born when you were, Roger. If only I were concieved in 1942 with you, Scorsese and the Film Generation... I too could have lived through that glorious time in film history that I can now only read about.

Oh! Before I forget, did you say you were writing a Great Movies review for 'Waking Life'

I'm only asking because I remember recommending the idea to you a few months ago, to which you replied "Its circling for landing now"

It sounded as though it was in production...

Maybe there's always been an underlying celebcult threatening to engulf journalism? I'm sure that at one point, even the great newsman Edward R. Murrow, dreaded the idea that history books in 2008 would read:

Edward R. Murrow famously interviewed Liberace during a little-known conflict with Senator McCarthy. Thankfully, we as a society haven't forgotten that interview...

Reply to: Ebert: If those (news reports) had been accurate, it would have been appropriate to criticize the girls for wearing blue jeans to meet the Queen, don't you agree?

Not even close. I wouldn't wear a dress or high heels, and I would never criticize a female for thinking the same way I do.

Reply to: Ebert: I've made a little from Amazon from my books, DVD commentary-track DVDs and the rice Pots (!). So far, not a lot, but it covers my purchases on Amazon...as long as I don't want to buy a TV.

What if I want to buy a TV? Or a home theater?

One goal of writing... is to make a LOT of money. Let me make sure I get this name spelled correctly

Joanne "Jo" Rowling OBE writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated her fortune at £560 million ($1.1 billion), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Britain. Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year.

Reply to: Ebert: ...the Village Voice... recently fired all the local movie critics in its national chain, to be replaced.. by syndicating their critics on the two coasts... Meanwhile, the Detroit Free-Press has decided it needs no film critic at all.

Rowling sold 400 million copies of "Harry Potter." Numerous publishers turned down her first book, saying it was "too adult" for children.

Yes, there's an issue over money. Newspapers don't want to pay, they want to sell. Disney/ABC finds it cheaper to produce their own show than buy one. (One night, check how many commericials interrupt "According to Jim," a show that simply occupies dead space between commercials.)

Two days after a movie comes out, most reviews echo a common theme, and there's little reason to read more than five reviews for "Twilight" or "Quantum of Solace." With the Internet, there's too much supply and not enough demand for all the potential film critics who want to write. And there are simply more important things to write about than movies.

In an ideal world, you write ONE book and then move on to a different subject. Michael Crichton did that with his travel books, but he also signed a multi-book contract for science-based thrillers, and he found it a burden to write that seventh and eighth book about (the wonderful technology behind) Frankenstein's monster breaking free and chasing children through the kitchen at Jurassic Park.

Out in the publishing world, today, there's an enormous market going untouched. Bring the concept of "two film critics who don't agree with each other" to the genre of Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ".

Instead of writing a biased, deceitful that only presents "the case FOR", write a book that argues both sides of the story. Same for Creationism. Assume that people who buy books are curious, intelligent, and resent being sold a load of bull.

If you want enough money to buy that TV set... or syndicate that program that isn't an exact copy of an existing program.... find an area where there's a void, and fill it. Ms. Rowling did that for children's books. I'm trying to do it with "Two Realities," but I haven't found an author willing to defend Christianity (or Catholicism) against legitimate objections. There's a Wall of Silence. Christianity has too many Defense Mechanisms. This afternoon, I'm going to the mall where Christmas music tries to seep into my subconscious. When I get home, I expect to read an angry letter about replacing "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays".. because people care about that subject. They care deeply. It's the next "Harry Potter." How many times can you review a "Harry Potter" movie? I thought seven, but now WB is going for eight.

Twenty years ago I began my career as a journalist with the ultimate dream of becoming a film critic. Twenty years later, I look back and am glad that my life has taken taken the twists and turns that have led me to where I am now. Over that time, I have seen journalism change dramatically from a (mostly) noble profession of social analysis and truth seeking, to one of commerce, speculation and gossip.

Historically, I have blamed CNN. News 24-hours-a-day is great in theory, but in the absence of facts to report - or the tedium that sets in reporting the same old facts ad nauseum - speculation from every angle invades to keep the masses tuned (and the sponsors paying). Now I realize that it was just the beginning of an inevitable evolution borne of modern technology.

I am often asked if I regret not having pursued my dream of being a film critic. I have long thought about it and wondered if I would not be terribly jaded today, having to watch 20 films a week, every week. And reading your words above, I know with certainty I have no regrets about my professional choices. Today, I love film more than ever. And I am also certain that my admiration and respect for your words about film far outweigh my desire to write my own.

That said, I did not leave journalism due to my moral indignation (though I am often ashamed to tell people today that I was once a journalist). Rather, I left the profession for more pragmatic reasons - opportunity and more money to raise my family - and began working as a communications professional in the health sector. Today, I work for a not-for-profit health care organization mandated to bring about significant change to the access and delivery of health care in Canada. I am still a writer and, I believe, helping to making a difference in the world around me.

(I must admit, however, that I do at times live vicariously through your words, and I marvel at - and thank you for - your stamina, Roger.)

Hey,Rog,it appears to me the AP is toast. Good riddance,I say. Their management team of late seems to resemble the giants at AIG and Lehman Bros. And besides I've been channeling old Royko lately, and he gleefully informed me awhile back that their fate was sealed last spring when they named Rupert to the board of directors. See any connections?

I tnink it's all cyclical. Right now, a lot of transition is happening: not as many intelligent tv shows because of reality tv, not as many serious critics because everyone has a blog of their own, where they can write their own opinions. But eventually this will change, and people will hunger for more informed, intelligent writers. Maybe it won't be in newspapers, but in computer websites, or whatever technology gets the most money. Keep on writing the great comments, Rog. Don't get discouraged. We all love ya.

Mr. Ebert is right, but not entirely. He is overlooking the fact that we live in a continuously adjusting world, under the sign of the ratio quality/quantity quantum. A mere glimpse at metacritic.com would be extremely helpful. Consider the film critics as being components of a whole. How is it possible that some critics rate one movie with 100 and other critics rate the same movie with just 20? Their points of view seem right, which is even odder. For example, Sideways, which is a just above average movie, on metacritic.com received 94 points and The Thin Red Line, which is a masterpiece, got only 78 points. The artistic standard of some critics might be influenced by their misconception of art essence or by applying inappropriately movie criteria; other critics base their judgment on entertainment efficiency terms (primal emotions and box office prowess). What happens in the film critic world is the equivalent of what is happens now in the banking collapsing universe. The market is overwhelmed with overrated critics, but only a few of them are of real value. An intelligent, skillful, and honest writer can attract readers because she or he can open the viewers’ eyes within the boundaries of an art that makes sense and creates aesthetic impact. The rest is tolerance beyond reason. As a matter of fact, the moment of truth generated by an economic or cultural crisis is a privilege. All we have to do is let the stronger survive. Mourning the dead leaves in the garden is ignoring the nature’s call.

Long before the rise of the Internet, newspapers were becoming mere repositories for the national syndicates. Now syndicates and newspapers give away their content for free online ... and that content, staid and homogenized, is hardly competitive with the many news and entertainment alternatives available in cyberspace.

For a brief while I had a comic strip published on Universal Press Syndicate’s GoComics web site. The site is a mish-mash of the established features they distribute to newspapers and original, “Web-only” comic strips that they don’t lift a finger to develop, edit, promote or sell. Though I’d obviously like to think my feature was an exception, the vast majority of their “Web-only” features are - if you can imagine it - even more risible than the stuff they sell to newspapers. Their “Web-only” cartoonists are essentially working for free (my monthly share of their advertising revenue was two or three bucks). The only reward for being on their site is the validation one is supposed to get from being marginally associated with the folks who brought us DOONESBURY and CALVIN AND HOBBES. But their site is so packed with amateurish garbage that I couldn’t sustain the illusion of validation. Eventually, all I felt was embarrassment.

It’s tough to make a living providing original content on the Internet - whether you’re a cartoonist, a journalist, a film critic or any other kind of writer. But those who succeed - and their numbers are increasing - do so by providing an alternative to the cookie-cutter crap that syndicates and their newspapers have come to represent. In cyberspace, it seems that beginning writers endorsed by newspapers and syndicates are about as fucked as politicians endorsed by Dick Cheney.

There was a time when newspapers developed and shaped young talent by providing a professional community environment in which to learn and grow while eking out a living. That’s not the deal anymore. By selling off their integrity and expecting their writers to work for next to nothing, newspapers have made themselves magnets for chumps and morons - people like my former self who think association with a dying industry that has lost its credibility somehow gives them validation. Smart writers figure if they’re going to work for nothing, they might as well work for themselves.

The problem, of course, is that they don’t have the support and mentorship of wise, erudite editors and colleagues. But then, they won't get that at newspapers anymore, either. Blogs like yours help fill the void - although I think the sense of professional community and hands-on mentorship that newspapers once provided really needs to be recreated somehow. Great journalism isn't being taught in many schools, and certainly can’t be learned just by sitting at home, alone, reading blogs and participating in online forums; actual, human contact is essential. But you and others do a great service by passing on the best of what you learned working in an industry that is now, sadly, destroying itself.

Happy Thanksgiving. Have you watched PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES today?

Ebert: Exactly what we have planned for tonight.

Rarely have I found on the internet a rant so incredibly true that I felt compelled to comment only to say: "thank you for saying what so tragicly needed to be said."

More online amateur critics, less professional print critics. That sucks. All the good jobs are being done for free. Seems the Internet has made a writing career -- a pipe dream to begin with -- even harder.

As an employee for one of the entertainment news magazines you mentioned, I can speak for the people who deliver such content, and they are, by and large, kind and enjoyable people who recognize that they're in a mind-numbingly stupid profession. If they were all to leave, others would snatch up their positions post-haste, and the celebrity culture would continue on its downward spiral.

Part of this is simple, stupid human greed on the part of the outlets. Everyone wants a paycheck, and most of these people do their jobs well. A number of us - myself included - take pains to approach the culture with as much flippancy, mockery, and occasional bursts of vitriol as will get us through the day. Even that isn't enough. Working in the culture is wearying, if not occasionally soul-deadening.

The other part is that the American public can be really, really dumb. I don't mean to be misanthropic, but this entire conversation reminds me of Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," where the oppressive culture is a result of the people's demand for more "walls." And it also reminds me of the late George Carlin, who once noted: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are dumber than that."

Not that either of those two points makes me sound like anything less than a hypocrite. I am, and I either quit this job soon or risk becoming what I hate about "commercial art." I hate to think that I'm contributing to the culture that sacks film critics and replaces them with red-carpet blurbs about new fragrances. You know what I've learned about extended hypocrisy? It's insanity buried under a guilty smirk.

Ebert: I'm going to remember that.

I think the death of professional, serious film criticism is a symptom of an even larger and more endemic problem. Namely, that everything has become a subtle form of marketing for something else. Movies act as ads for cars and clothes and music and candy and shoes and video games and soda and computers and other movies, and God knows what else. While the cars and the shoes and the soda all carry ads for the movies in their promotions. Movie reviews have always been thought of as unofficial advertising for a film by the marketing people, but nowadays they've been more successful in their attempts to subvert real critism. Remember David Manning?

This sort of soft journalism has been happening for decades with cars and car reviews. Go to a newstand and see for yourself, read any car magazine out right now and count the number of times they give a genuinely bad review. Hundred bucks says that you can't even find five that clearly say "Don't waste your money". They may not fawn over something, but they always do that thing where they accentuate the positive while ignoring the negative. Which is like saying "Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo" was good because it had really pretty Amsterdam location shooting.

Personally, I think movie studios would be wise to remember how well purging most negative criticism worked out for American automakers. There's always a price to pay when you surround yourself with a**-kissers.

PS: About Planes, Trains and Automobiles... let's start a petition to force Paramount to release a decent 2 disc box set of this wonderful film.

I was always that weird kid in the school library pouring over Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael's review collections, and I carried my Leslie Halliwell books between my math and chemistry homework. I was in the art club, drama club, and on the school paper ( and by my last year of high school, I was the school paper- and the art director for prom, but that's a different story that involves the fact that I moved in the eleventh grade from a small town to a place that barely existed). I screamed bloody murder at the classmates who dismissed Schindler's List as boring before even watching it, simply because all black and white movies are boring. I couldn't wait till college, hoping to find, somewhere, others who knew Canby and Champlin... never met one. I'm only 31. My daughters ( 11, 7, and 6) can recited entire swaths of dialog from films as varied as Casablanca and Citizen Kane to The Godfather and Persona. ( They can also sing the lyrics to every song in every High School Musical movie, but again, they're young- and sing the lyrics for the songs in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Little Shop Of Horrors as well.) I know longer depend on trying to find these mysterious intellectual types as I believe they do all live in New York, Chicago, London, and Paris, and not in Calgary, Alberta. Speaking of which, our paper now devotes a mere three pages on weekdays to " entertainment", and their reviews have been crap for years. Louis Z. Hobson was never a great critic, but at least he tried to be one once upon a time. I have simply decided that I will not allow my children to be stifled by a world that deems stupidity a virtue. There is a place in my day for mindless gossip ( it's what I read at my desk at work- I can't place comments there, so might as well read stupid stuff and wait till I get home and can read and respond in the moment... that takes a lot of willpower, surprisingly, as I feel my brain is turning to much, but I digress...). My goal is to make it to forty and not feel like my girls have become Paris Hilton.
The most shocking question I was ever asked, actually, was by a parent of my eldest daughter's best friend. They were over and mom stopped in for a coffee and a chit chat. Eldest girl was at the table reading a very old copy of The New York Times my mother kept ( it was from the day I was born- it's fragile but a hoot). Beside her on the table was a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare that had also been my late mother's. My mom was a librarian, and placed enormous importance on the written word, and I have continued that with my children, as they must read an hour a day while I make dinner, as my brothers and I did as kids. The mom stared at the fact my eleven year old was reading Shakespeare. Did she understand it? Eldest girl looked up and said " No, but the language is phenomenal, and the music of the dialog soars." My kids are all advanced readers, and their teachers keep asking me to stop allowing them the time to read these classics and just allow them to read the assigned books and the juvenile claptrap that their so-called library allows them to take out. I responded by sending them to school with Harper Lee, J.D. Salinger, and Dr. Seuss. Schools are refusing to allow my children to read literature. And I include Harry Potter in that, but they were removed from the school library after a parent complained about the pagan values of the books. But now I'm ranting and rambling and should really stop.
Idiocy may be cyclical, but I hold very little hope right now for the future, because OMG Joe Jonas and Taylor Swift are no longer together and awkward red carpet LOL. Oy.

Ebert: "No, but the language is phenomenal, and the music of the dialog soars." There is a young lady who will find joy and happiness. When I cite Shakespeare as one of the influences on my writing, that sounds unbearably conceited. But I don't mean I can write like him. I mean I am inspired by the freedom he gives himself. Ten percent of the words in his works were invented by Shakespeare. That fills me with amazement--a word first used by Shakespeare. http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-words.htm

The only newspaper I get is the one delivered my hotel door while on travel. I refuse to order one. It doesn't take much to peruse the pages of the paper to realize how little use it still has. I can, and do, get my news from multiple sources on various issues. I can allow newspaper sites to still offer me some of the bigger news items, while I can dig deeper to get more depth.

Why read business in a general newspaper, when I can go to specific sources for business news? Why read world news, when I can make sure to check out BBC's, Reuter's, NY times, and the WSJ's main Web site? Why read one local critic's reviews, when I can just travel through my saved bookmarks of key critics I like. This way, I can Dargis's reviews, while skipping A.O. Scott.

Why read printed media form where editors and advertisers say what is, and isn't, allowed to be there? Why do so when I can go to direct, more independent sources?

"The Girls-Gone-Wild Generation is artless. Their exclusive concerns are money and fun."

As someone you'd probably include in that generation (1981), I feel compelled to say 2 things. One of them would probably lead to this comment not being published, so I'll stick with the other, which consists of one word: Wrong.

On this Thanksgiving, thank you Roger for your continuous insight and critical thinking. I have used your movie reviews, especially of your Great Movies, to discover new and wonderous films and filmmakers. Had you not written about Army of Shadows, I don't know if I would have ever found Melville, and what a shame that would have been. I might never have sought Dark City if you had not championed it so vociferously. The list goes on.

There is a line in Peter Brook's "The Empty Space" which says that a critic's angriest reaction is valuable because it is a call for competence. If something is being lost I am afraid it is the power of a critics' chorus to call for competence: works of intelligence, comedy, emotion, creativity, and sophistication. When those works come along, the chorus must speak louder for attention to be paid. Not that all critics speak as one, of course, but at least the intelligent debate sparks discussion and opinion which are otherwise lacking. Otherwise people learn to assume as competent whatever big, shiny, loud object the PR machine promotes.

There is still an audience for wonderful art and wonderful criticism of art. There are many people (obviously so many of whom comment on this blog) who know that the film will survive or not on its own merits long after we've forgotten where and with whom the lead actress ate dinner the night of the premier. In the cacophony of the TV, celebrity rags, and the internet it may be harder to find but it will not die. Intelligent people will still consume the art and debate its meaningfulness. Your reviews and articles are full of intelligence, style, wit, and passion and that is why I will always come to this site.

Wait. A woman with no belly button? What in the-? How many of these people are running around out there anyway? Is this the advent of the Un Superman? Maybe that's what the AP is worried about. If people are suddenly losing the ability to even contemplate their own navels, it could be reasoned that a review of more than 500 words might be too demanding after all.

Criterion just opened up a new site called "Auteurs". Free/quick registration. Once at the main page below, click on the "Festival" link and you'll see a smorgasbord of quality movies you can watch for free. Would this have been possible 10 years ago? No. The technology wasn't fast enough, cheap enough, and powerful enough. Now it is. Look at the range of films on that page -- it's the equivalent of a rich and deep festival, right from the comfort of your home viewing station (whether you pipe the wiring to your desktop, your laptop or your TV).

http://www.theauteurs.com/dashboard

(switching gears) Magazines like Film Comment and Sight and Sound Quarterly are still on the racks at major bookstore chains for those who want some serious criticism. Or buy a book about film, for god's sake. We still have those.

Or shut off your blackberry, silence your cellphone, bury your pager in the sock drawer ... and have a 3-hour conversation with your friends on a single film, filmmaker, or genre. Without recourse to googling. Fumble your way through to deeper understanding through Socratic give-and-take. Conversation is the oldest newspaper going, and the paper never gets yellow and brittle.

In paraphrase O'Toole in his best role:the internet is the ocean in which no oar is dipped.

Roger, you’re mixing the death of a business model (a temporary situation) with the age-old complaint that there aren’t enough critical thinkers among us. Both are true. Together, however, they are false; there is no relationship.

The sacking of film critics or the rise of 500-word limits are just further symptoms of the death of regional monopolies and the struggle newspapers face to remain relevant (or noticed) as information and conversation shift to the grid. Now, while IT IS sad to see a fairly nuanced form factor like newspapers (and all their editorial grit) disappear, what is bothersome to you is that the new landscape has not yet sorted itself out. It’s unreliable and mixes high and low, good and bad—with abundance and without relevance. But this isn’t a failure of content. It’s simply a lack of “post filters:” tools to sort through the abundance of commentary and thought and surface those that are good. (And by “good” I mean the material you cherish: thoughtful, articulate, intelligent.)

Behold, in the last couple of days I visited:
-The Playlist, where I read a smart and sassy review of Criterion’s new release of Bottle Rocket
-John August’s blog, to research dialogue technique
-The BFI blog, to watch shorts on British shorts
-Art of the Title, where I re-watched the opening to Panic Room
-Criterion’s new Online Cinemateque, where I was able to reflect on Steve Buscemi’s favorite films (Why Billy Liar as #1?)

At what point during the golden era of film criticism could I do this? If I didn’t live in New York or LA, how could I possibly find or encounter such thought, resources, or connections? And how could any of this be considered thin or hawkish?

None of it, of course. But that brings me to the second point: your attempt to connect celebrity culture with higher minded film critique. While it’s true that CelebCult is rampant, it’s more a manifestation of a culture bent on consumption—literally eating its Gods in this instance—than the decline of critical thought, filmic or otherwise. Establishing the link between great film thinkers and the gossip of Katie and Suri’s matching eyewear is an unnecessary parlor trick. You might as well bemoan the fact that your salary—and thus your high minded prose—has been paid for by the local restaurants and “SWF seeks same” advertising in the classifieds of the Times. One simply isn’t connected to the other.

What IS connected is the death of the newspaper format, and by proximity and reliance, the death (or at least hobbling) of film criticism as a PROFESSION. However, film criticism as an exercise, passion, or activity is thriving. Professors, critics, students, filmmakers—all of them can now participate in the act and, as a collective, create a wider, deeper, and intensely more rewarding discussion about the form than a cabal of big-city scribes.

What I find ironic about your lament is that you and Gene Siskel were the ones to harness an underused film critique medium—television—to reach a much broader audience and get them to think and care more about film history, culture, and production. (Even going so far as to brand your thumbs in an effort to condense deep thinking into a singular, iconic act.) At the time, your counterparts ridiculed you. They did not believe that 3.5 minutes of banter could capture the work of Scorsese or Coppola. But you proved them wrong, citing that in television (with soap operas and late-night infomercials as your neighbors) you could inflect, insinuate, demonstrate, and project the spirit of the work in ways that were simply not possible in print. (It worked for me. I remember flicking to PBS in 1982 and catching the last minute of your review of Jonathan Demme’s Who Am I This Time? Before that review—before the clip of Susan Sarandon and Christopher Walken in a heated argument—I had never cared for or considered “film criticism.”)

I would hope, despite your sadness for the loss of newspapers as a format and revenue stream, you recognize the even greater opportunity for film criticism to grow even further beyond previous boundaries and for new voices to emerge. I’m sure you do, and the grind of CelebCult has simply stunned you with flashbulbs and momentarily blurred your vision.

I can understand Mr. Ebert's anger and sadness on the demise of his fellow movies critics but pairing the reduction of movie review columns to the decline of American socieity is a little much. The world is changing because of technology and newspapers must adopt. For example, I tend to limit myself to reading two, no more than three movie reviews before I decide whether the movie is worth the investment of my time. I grew up in NYC and I usually read the Times review and picked up just one copy of the Daily News, Post or Newday depending on what was on the sports backpage that day (Mets yes, Yankees no). Sun Times was not an option nor I would spend a quarter just so I can read a movie review. With the Internet, Mr. Ebert's review is as easilly accessible to me as the old dailies. I no longer need to read the reviews on local dailies and as Mr. Ebert's readership increases, it is understandable that someone else will have to lose his/her job because the amount of time I/WE allocate to reading reviews is finite. Quality of my life has improved and I consider this progress.

I go to Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and our school paper, the Daily Egyptian, has become a victim of this very phenomenon. Our paper used to run 16 pages every day with occasional 20 page issues, but now it's 12 pages. I write for the entertainment section, which has shifted largely to online. My goal was to one day be a film critic, but since no one reading the paper can read my criticisms unless they go online, it becomes disheartening and with all the critics across the country getting downsized, the dream is slipping away.
Yes, we do have a section where our reporters write silly one line zingers about celebrity news, but it's not the dominant theme of the section, nor is it something that any of us try very hard to do. I do get a weekly column published where I rant about celebrity culture that gets a lot of positive feedback, but I often feel like our paper is just something that people pick up and peruse on the way to class without caring about the actual content.
I'll always remember the line from Flashdance: "When you give up your dream, you die." I hope I will never have to give up my dream, but if the newspapers keep shrinking, my dream may eventually wither and die.

Ebert: Many comments here reassure me that other channels exist, that all things must pass, that I must be reconciled. I am not. I usually don't even describe myself as a journalist but as a newspaperman. Tell me about the internet. I love it, but as Kipling told us, A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

My goodness, there are just some days when it seems like you are reading my mind.

I'm a freshman at Indiana University, majoring in Journalism, and so much of this article alone has applied to many of the issues I've faced in the last few months since starting college.

(1) In my journalism class, our first discussion was on Celebrities in the media. Naturally, the class was quite cynical on the matter, and I could not help but agree with them but felt that celebrity news itself cannot go away, but the meaningless stories on TMZ for instance that are so invasive and insulting about seemingly innocuous things have to go.

(2) I'm an aspiring film critic myself and have been writing reviews on a personal level and for my high school paper since I was in 7th grade. Working for the college paper is wonderful, but my word count is consistently restricted to roughly 315-345 words. Good luck Mr. Kauffmann! I've gotten by this by writing everything I want to, posting that full version on my website, then cutting down my own review before my editor can butcher it (I listed my website in the url space provided so feel free to take a look). He attests that writing succinctly will improve my writing, and I believe him to be right, but there are some exceptions that have to be made.

(3) Ever since I expressed an interest in journalism, other journalists have been telling me the industry is changing, print is dying, and high paying jobs are slim. Then I mention I'm interested in being a film critic and forget about it! I wonder everyday if I have any chance in this field, but I keep trying.

(4) As an aspiring critic, you Mr. Ebert are probably the critic I admire most, and I find it delightful that there is someone like Mr. Kauffmann that continues to inspire you. I think of a Simpsons episode where Homer is trying to catch up to Thomas Edison in number of inventions, only to find out that Edison himself was trying to match Galileo.

I intend on showing this post to the other kids in my journalism class, because this will surely be a fascinating blog post for them, let alone anyone that reads this.

Ebert: Indiana. Ernie Pyle's school.

My goodness, there are just some days when it seems like you are reading my mind.

I'm a freshman at Indiana University, majoring in Journalism, and so much of this article alone has applied to many of the issues I've faced in the last few months since starting college.

(1) In my journalism class, our first discussion was on Celebrities in the media. Naturally, the class was quite cynical on the matter, and I could not help but agree with them but felt that celebrity news itself cannot go away, but the meaningless stories on TMZ for instance that are so invasive and insulting about seemingly innocuous things have to go.

(2) I'm an aspiring film critic myself and have been writing reviews on a personal level and for my high school paper since I was in 7th grade. Working for the college paper is wonderful, but my word count is consistently restricted to roughly 315-345 words. Good luck Mr. Kauffmann! I've gotten by this by writing everything I want to, posting that full version on my website, then cutting down my own review before my editor can butcher it (I listed my website in the url space provided so feel free to take a look). He attests that writing succinctly will improve my writing, and I believe him to be right, but there are some exceptions that have to be made.

(3) Ever since I expressed an interest in journalism, other journalists have been telling me the industry is changing, print is dying, and high paying jobs are slim. Then I mention I'm interested in being a film critic and forget about it! I wonder everyday if I have any chance in this field, but I keep trying.

(4) As an aspiring critic, you Mr. Ebert are probably the critic I admire most, and I find it delightful that there is someone like Mr. Kauffmann that continues to inspire you. I think of a Simpsons episode where Homer is trying to catch up to Thomas Edison in number of inventions, only to find out that Edison himself was trying to match Galileo.

I intend on showing this post to the other kids in my journalism class, because this will surely be a fascinating blog post for them, let alone anyone that reads this.

I know some have advised waiting for the pendulum to swing back, but I have cousins, nieces and nephews who are growing up in this culture.

One particular niece is very bright and does well in school but she seems ashamed to discuss anything that does not relate to whatever the TV or the other girls at school tell her she should like. She's resistant about saying anything about the excellent books I catch her reading. On books like "The Scarlet Letter" or "Of Mice and Men" beyond "I enjoyed reading it" or "It was a good book".

Then she quickly changes the subject back to the Jonas Brothers. Even there, I try to encourage her to analyze what it is about their music that is appealing to her, but she's resistant to even that. Sometimes I worry she'll never feel comfortable expressing any kind of critical thinking outside school assignments.

Ebert: If she has this private pleasure and it means something to her, I trust it will pull her through.

There are many things here and above that I can incorporate as a parent who is struggling to get a young boy more interested in, say, reading rather than his Nintendo DS. I compare my own time as a young boy in the library, in perusal of Ed McBain's seemy and steamy word pictures and my son's passionate discussions with his friends over Pokemon battles. Am I part of the problem, I wonder? Mediocre or lazy as a parent? Unable to stear my son toward more worthy pursuits? So I'll try harder because of how this whole discussion rings true and that it's IMPORTANT, godammit. The future is with our children and it's forged in the present by their parents.

And only slightly off-topic, I laughed merrily at your shaggy dog criticism of Four Christmases. Thanks again.

The premise of a "film critic" was flawed from the beginning. One person's tastes really doesn't translate into anything helpful...especially if the "critic" has tastes outside the general consensus. And...Mr. Ebert...believe me when I say that your opinions are wayyyyyy different from my own....culturally, professionally, politically, and (---and a number of other "lly" words---).

Besides...newspapers are dead...and the only reason (in my opinion) that anyone watched your television reviews was to see clips from the films.
Cheers
GW

I think it's hilarious that there links to the stupid celeb stories mentioned in the article. Way to edit, sun times.

Ebert: Don't blame the paper. It's all my doing. And not links, but a couple of photos, as I indulged my affection for irony.

I'm puzzled, like the six blind men investigating an elephant. After seeing Juno,I thought children in the US are so smart and mature,and society so evolving. But the present post paints a very bleak picture. Everybody wants to be a celebrity. Being human should be enough, but apparently, that is not as simple as it sounds...I always seem io end up here.

I gave up on mass media during Bush's run up for attacking Iraq. It was obvious to me that he was lying the entire time because he never answered any question about WMDs, he would just repeat over and over that Iraq had them. Few people bothered to ask where, how, or why, and when they did Bush would just repeat that they had them and his answer was accepted. I was the only person I knew who could tell he wasn't telling the truth, and no in the mass media bothered to point out that he was merely repeating himself and never answering the question. To this day, no one in the mass media has stood up and said this in spite of half the population thinking it.

We have seen the Republican party turn into a propaganda machine instead of a party with a platform, and news outlets happily publish their propaganda without thinking about it instead of asking questions, reporting, and doing real journalism.

I was a journalism major for a short time in college, and soon thereafter OJ Simpson's first trial started. This was the only thing on the news and became the only thing anyone talked about. In my journalism classes, we were all told about how important and exciting it all was. I changed majors.

But of course newspaper downsizing has to do with the internet. I discovered in 2000 that I could read the exact same news reports that were in my newspaper up to a week earlier by reading the news feeds directly. There's no question that newspaper downsizing is causing papers to go the cheapest routes, destroying mass media, filling all forms of it with fluff and filler -- blindly publishing whatever comes down the line -- instead of reporters doing real reporting.

While I enjoyed the article, seeing it online and getting the experience to interact and read other's thoughts was the best part. And there is one part of the problem.

I write for a daily newspaper in Oxford, MS and letters to the editor are scarce. Yet, readers spend much time talking to me on the street, in a restaurant, in the grocery store, or anywhere they find me, about their opinions. So much so, that after continued complaints that we just run AP film criticism, I began my own film column. I had already been writing for a little less than a year occasional film articles, but hadn't taken it on full-time as my editor always said, oh it is fine, we can just run wire.

Yet, from everything I hear, people don't want the wire. They want it to be localized. I ask people to write letters to the editor to let him know what they want. Most say they don't have time. Yet, many of these same people have no problem responding on my own film blog or writing comments to people's statuses on facebook. So, what has happened to remove the reader from the print writers? Why is it so much more approachable to get involved on-line than to send an email to an editor that then gets printed?

On a positive note, maybe it is because I live in a fairly literary and educated town, but there are readers out there that not only want but demand good criticism. There are still people that want to follow a local person's opinion over anyone who is writing that week for AP (Although myself I do always enjoy Lemire's writing even if they are now going to shrink it to under 500 words). My A&E editor for our weekly entertainment mag hardly ever cuts down my articles (1 time but to be fair in layout it would have taken half the magazine). He trusts my judgment and knows that the readers are taking the time to read from left to right. After reading everyone's comments, I guess I didn't realize just how lucky I am to be at a newspaper that still appreciates print over the internet, and always focuses on local impact and measures us by stories that affect the community. We have yet to run anything about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Baby Suri.

Maybe we are a dying breed, but there are still papers and readers out there. As long as we have that, we will continue to have champions of true criticism like Roger Ebert.

Ebert: You have never printed anything about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, or Baby Suri? Isn't that a Pulitzer category?

Your blog reminds us that the best film critics add something to the enjoyment of a film, and stimulate an interest in the topics and ideas involved. My personal favorite film critic is Frank Pittman, a psychologist, who writes reviews for a magazine called Family Therapy Networker. (He also has been doing it a long time...) Of course, his reviews focus on the characters, the relationships, and social commentary. When the magazine arrives in my wife's mailbox, I turn to "The Screening Room" and see what Dr. Pittman has to say. It's all about the ideas and the film itself, not necessarily his opinions. It is a shame that good critics have been replaced by celebrity sycophants, but astute readers will still find their favorites.

Your last line has me worried that you might be following in the footsteps of Norma Desmond after all. What will you think will become of "pictures" after the serious film critic is all but gone?

I too, have been raging about this for years, and I still remember well when my local paper fired its film critic because it would be cheaper to run a syndicated critic instead (somewhat ironically, that critic was you).
As to the infantalizing of our culture, I recall a quote from Fahrenheit 451 (it refers to books, but still applies here, I believe):

We must all be alike…Each man the image of the other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it…Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?…And so when the houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world…there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges, and executors.

I hope to God I don't live long enough to be part of such a world.

Fluff bunnies and raisinets in the sun? We cling to our self-evident truths until our weary wings grow numb, we fail, and falling come to realize that by living to write and writing to live, we left the project of our lives undone; we counted on those bursts of gamma radiation spewing from the sun to wash away this earth speck before we grew redundant, a stream of solar wind forcing us with its own unnatural malice to relinquish our place of blogs and Celebcults and defer to those once and future planets harbored in the further corners of our "unsane macroverse" outsourced if you will and strictly in the cataclysmic sense by a process movingly described in laborious detail by Eudorodous the Mad Monk in his post-Hellenic graphic classic "Let Us Think About Three Things"). But I digress...I digress...therefore I am.
Kerry
PS Whew! That's the last time I use Cheech and Chong's One Step Down Home Stuffing Mix in the Thanksgiving Turkey!

Chance writes, "You know what I've learned about extended hypocrisy? It's insanity buried under a guilty smirk."

What a great line! Chance should quit being a hypocrite and start writing personal essays on the celebrity industry that he or she works in.

About three years ago I started working as a beat reporter for a weekly newspaper outside of Detroit. I was a film studies minor in college and, as a side project, began reviewing films for the paper. More than three years later, I am still reporting on my local beats but have discovered a passion for reviewing film. I was invited to be part of the Detroit Film Critics Society last year and I consider myself lucky to be the rare beat reporter who has covered city council meetings and been able to sit down with Diablo Cody, Jason Reitman, Rainn Wilson, Danny Boyle and others to talk about their work, not their personal lives.

But your post hit it right on the head. I cherish my freedom at the weekly because I am not bound by length restrictions and I am able to pursue the stories I find fascinating. But I fear for the future. I would love to move to a full-time film beat at a more prestigious publication (one where the pay doesn't require me to work retail on the weekends). But I worry that there is no future there. And online is a wonderful place to post my thoughts and reviews, but I worry if there's a career there or if there is any money to be made. And I agree that there is junk out there online and also great reviewing; sometimes in the same place. I cannot believe some of the drivel on Aint-it-Cool-News and yet the writings by its staff-Moriarty and Quint in particular-is often some of the best musing on film I've read.

But I also worry about my own growth. Because film is a communal medium and film reviewing, like any writing, is better when you have peers to admire and challenge you. I am a young writer, 29, and still working to find my voice in regard to film criticism. And there are few places to turn now to find a challenging voice or a critic who actually seems to love film. I'm thankful that your writing has been collected online and in books because collections like "The Great Movies" and "Awake in the Dark" have been indispensable for me. There are those of us out there who want to continue celebrating film; the problem is that those in control think we're the only ones.

Any advice? Anywhere to look...until, of course, you retire and cede your position to me?

Roger, I was surprised you didn't auote one of your own favorite lines, from Elaine May's "A New Leaf:"

"You are carrying on in your own lifetime, sir, a tradition that was dead before you were born."

It would be nice if Mr. High Dudgeon would spend a moment to get his facts right. Some of us remember his early days at the Sun-Times, when he would invent bogus history, such as the claim that the first movie shoot-out was in High Noon. Here he continues the tradition. The Chicago Tribune reviewer pseudonym was not "May Tinay" but "May Tinee," as ten seconds on Google would have confirmed.

When critics get lazy, gossips take over.

Ebert: I seriously doubt you can find me ever having made that claim about "High Noon." I'll correct the Trib byline.

Roger, I hear you!

Everything about what you are saying about newspapers are true. I think that is why podcasts are so great, the authors/broadcasters are responsible to no one for their content.

There are a lot of terrible ones, but the cream always rises. My favorite film critique podcasts are Filmspotting and Movies You Should See. In both of them they spend over 15 minutes discussing a movie.

I would love if someone would read your reviews to make a Roger Ebert podcast, it would be awesome.

First of all, I just want to say that I have been only recently following your blog, but the decline of criticism has been something of a trend I've noticed, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Not to spam, but I am launching a website of my own soon and so this is something I've thought about a lot. I in fact wrote an essay in response to a journal entry of yours a few months ago, and I would be grateful if you would read it and give me your thoughts. I'd rather not try and condense my thoughts (wouldn't that be ironic?) and I don't want to paste a 2,000 word essay and clog up your comments.

http://socrates420.livejournal.com/3759.html

If you can't spare the time, thank you anyway for your writing and your efforts to keep the art of criticism alive.

Gee Roger here is an idea, how about writing reviews about movies without putting political and personal beliefs in them. Just because a movie has either actors which have the same sensibilities as you or the director as the same political beliefs as you, that in itself does not make a good or bad movie. An example "W" was a lousy movie but so many reviewers considered it terrific because Stone directed it and it made fun of Bush. Spike Lee has done some great work but many of his films are lousy yet many critics are afraid to admit this. As an old Chicago boy, I waited with anticipation for you and the late Mr. Siskel for your reviews and I was rewarded many times with seeing movies that I might not have normally gone to (examples, "Diva", "Danton", "the Return of Martin Guerre", "Local Hero", "Stranger than Paradise" just to name a few). But now too many reviewers are so pc oriented (including yourself) that I find I have to read between the lines of the reviewers sensibilities in order to determine whether to attend or wait for HBO. It has made it not worthwhile to pick up a paper to read the columns.

Ebert: The general opinion is that Stone was surprisingly kind and empathetic with Bush. Have you seen the film?

First of all, thank you Mr. Ebert for addressing this issue when so many people are so willing to just let it be.

I was recently named the Arts and Features editor of my college newspaper, and I do not know how to prepare my writers for what awaits them in arts (entertainment) reporting. My paper has a loose 500 word maximum, but it is not enforced. I don't know how to tell my writers that the world will be much more harsh.

A college paper is like a sanctuary, a protected publication where the reporters can write however they want about whatever they'd like. And, interestingly, they do not choose to cover gossip and hearsay and low culture. When given their own choice, the majority of writers cover the real news, the important news: budget cuts, administration impropriety, local business failures.

In the Arts and Features section, we cover local musicians, small theatre groups, and local businessmen. And, it is sad to think that on a larger paper in the bigger world these stories will be lost, and with them, the ability to write them will be lost. This is perhaps even the greater tragedy. I would like to think that quality writing trumps all else. But, I am not so sure.

Waah! Waah! Waah! Newspapers are dying! Waah! Nobody reads serious movie reviews! The simple fact is that, in 2008, people get their opinions from thousands of sources and not from the monolithic dinosaurs that print media has become. Twitter, YouTube, blogs, blogs, blogs, instant messaging, hell, even e-mail, for those who still rely on it -- all of these create more meaningful value and cultural context about what we consume (yes, movies are products, BTW) in a much broader and richer context than 500, 100, 1,500 words.

The synthesis of these myriad sources happens between the ears and through ongoing interaction with our peers. They create meaning for the people with whom we interact on a daily basis (and, thanks to the Interwebs, that circle of people is several orders of magnitude larger than it was even 10 years ago -- I don't think newspaper get this, still).

Personally, I will continue to read "serious" movie reviews about "serious" movies; that still seems relevant. But reading tired, inky wretches making laborious points about what is, essentially, pop culture is boring. Save the space for missing belly buttons.

Good afternoon Roger,

In reading this blog post, I can't help but wonder if you ever watched the greatest television show of all time, "The Wire." The entire fifth season pertains to the Baltimore Sun Newsroom, and the plight of an editor struggling between doing the right thing by asking more of a rookie writer he suspects is falsifying news stories and not losing his job. The show is Dickensian in its scope and detail to supporting characters, and completely rooted in the tragic realities of an American city (and newspaper, and war on drugs, and school system, and middle class) in decline.

I love your work, and I can't wait to start reading your latest book, which was given to me as a birthday gift yesterday!

Here's what I read in the paper a week ago (and get ready for this one): "Nicole [Kidman] Loves Her Husband." News!

That having been said, I'm not sure if the death of film criticism is a bad thing. Far too many film critics take film too seriously, too personally, and are talentless hacks who approach a film with an attitude that goes "Oh, it must fulfill this, this, and this" for them to say it is any good (or "profound"). God bless cinema as entertainment, a way of passing the time or, in very rare cases, as stimulant for the brain but damn the person who set down the limitations and the rules. As an example: we all know who Agatha Christie is, who Conan Doyle is, who Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson and James Cain were, but who ever heard of Ronald Knox, author of the "Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction"?

Ebert: Probably not many readers of detective fiction, although he wrote six novels in the genre. But among general readers, the good Monsignor may be better known as the author of an influential modern translation of the Bible.

Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for saying this so eloquently. The symptoms you describe apply to each area of the news business. It's interesting that H.L. Mencken railed against the ignorance of some of his fellow journalists so many years ago -- he would be appalled at how far the business has fallen.
Your closing line was fantastic; I'm guessing that 80% of the reporters and editors working in the business today have no idea that you are paraphrasing Norma Desmond, or the deeper meaning behind what her character symbolizes.
What's so sad is that the people I speak to are canceling their subscriptions to urban and suburban dailies because they are seeing less of the "real" news they want and more of the crap you describe. Yet the news executives think there is some great outcry for more celebrity-driven drivel and ignore the "dry" and "boring" stuff that is becoming increasingly harder to find anywhere.
Thank you again for this piece. It should be required reading for everyone in journalism.

Greetings from a fellow afflictee of "Good-Old-Days Syndrome", defined as follows: "Longing for a specific past time, during which everything was as good as it could possibly be, or from which everything has irretrieably deteriorated; usually the speaker/writer's early adulthood." The way I fight this malady is by providing myself with reminders that the G-O-Ds really weren't all that good. We can start with CelebCult.(Have you trademarked this, by the way? If not, you should.) CC has always been with us in one form or another; go back to the Wild West days, when Ned Buntline made his fortune by glamorizing outlaws in print. Then proceed to the early 20th century, when a man named Bernarr Macfadden invented the tabloid newspaper - not only the size but also the content. It was Macfadeen who came up with the "composograph", the 1920s version of photoshopping, putting his eager readers in places where they could never have gone: such as the Gates of Heaven, to see Rudolph Valentino personally escorted into Paradise by Enrico Caruso.From there go to the movie fan magazines, from the 30s through the 60s, where the marital, extramarital, and occasional extralegal exploits of stars were documented as well as the defamation laws allowed. Add in radio news, not only the Murrow boys, but Winchell, Hopper, Parsons, and more on the local levels. The election of John F. Kennedy to the Presidency set the stage (so to speak) for the merger of politics and entertainment. /*/*/ By then news and showbiz were already firmly mixed. I grew up in the 50s, and my memories include seeing John Daly hosting WHAT'S MY LINE? on CBS on Sunday, then doing the nightly news on ABC the rest of the week, to the consternation of nobody. When you get a chance chck out the original DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL; those are real newsmen - Elmer Davis, H.V. Kaltenborn, Drew Pearson - describing the spaceship landing. This is one example of the nonexistent "line between news and entertainment"; you could probably come up with many of your own. /*/*/ Backtracking a bit, the 50's saw the rise of CONFIDENTIAL magazine, the grandparent of today's gossip industry, and as bad an influence on that generation as TMZ and its like are today. Of course, CONFIDENTIAL was out to make celebrities look as bad as possible, but they could be bought off (or at least rented - recall how, when they got the goods on Rock Hudson's sexuality, they took a lesser Universal actor in trade). Today's tabs have no such 'restraint': the public misbehavior goes national in moments, a triumph of modern technology. This is the real CelebCult: its purpose is not to exalt celebrities, but to moick, deride, and humiliate them, thereby supposedly making us 'ordinary folk' feel just a little superior - for a while, anyway (Robinson's poem "Richard Cory" seems to apply here.) /*/*/ We can go back and forth on who or what can be blamed for this state of affairs 'til the Big Clock runs out for all; my point is that this particular state has always been there, going back even farther than I have in this comment. /*/*/ As to the Question of 'the decline of criticism' in newspapers: well, your own beloved Sun-Times just cashiered its most recent TV critic, and now gives the reviewing assignments to whoever shows up at the office that day - and I'm not talking about Lazare's glorified bulletin board; I mean someone who would cover TV the way you cover movies. All my life I've been waitng for somebody to do that, and it hasn't happened yet, and now it probably never will. Yes, I remember Paul Molloy, who mainly wrote about his family; I remember Ron Powers, who considered the assignment beneath him and never tried to hide his contempt for the subject (Years after he left the job, he bragged in one of his books, about how he didn't have a TV of his own until the Sun-Times requisitioned one for him. I pause to ask: if you're the sports editor, would give the daily baseball beat to the writer who thinks all sports are a waste of time?) And, unfortunately, I still remember Gary Deeb, the Jay Mariotti of the 70s; he would provide useful information about how the TV industry worked - sometimes - as long as it didn't get in the way of his myriad vendettas. As a kid, as a teenager, as an adult, I wanted to know how the Nielsen ratings worked, why shows got canceled, why they got put on in the first place - but I knew that the last place to look for that information was in the TV column. I wanted to know how the shows were made, how they were cast, the connection between TV and movies, how it all was done; the 'TV critics', then as now, were less than no help. After all these years, newspapers still consider television 'the enemy', just as the film studios once did. The studios got wise and co-opted TV for themselves; the papers - even those who own TV stations - still haven't learned. /*/*/ I thought I had a few more points ("Just give us one off the top of your head, Mike.") but my gorge has run dry for the moment. I'm doing this on an office computer that I had to learn how to work myself (which is why I still can't figure how to make proper paragraphs), so I won't see any response to my modest diatribe before Monday. I would only ask that you (and any others) would consider what I've been writing here, and not just dismiss it as the ravings of a lowbrow crank. Thanks for the use of the hall.

"The simple fact is that, in 2008, people get their opinions from thousands of sources and not from the monolithic dinosaurs that print media has become."

Re-read that. I thought the goal was for people to form their own opinions. Who first convinced you about monlithic dinosaurs, and did they also convince you that Adam and Eve shared their garden with these beasts? You've just sold a sequel idea to the makers of the TRANSFORMER movie: Newspapers turn into noble monoliths and battle televisions which have turned into slobbering monoliths with shinier bodies.

"Movies are products (BTW)."

Well, obviously, the movies you watch. Myself, I wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre showing 300 or TWILIGHT.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, honestly. Of course we all gather information from everywhere. If YouTube is the source you choose (really?), I'm not going to have a hope of enlightening you. As long as seriousness still seems "relevant" to you, it's all good, I guess.

Ebert: I'd just like to point out you're not quoting me.

Roger,

Your excellent article reminds me of an art history course I took while attending The School of the Art Institute. The class was taught by the great James Elkins, and one of his very favorite topics was Andy Warhol.

Elkins' take on Warhol was very dependent on knowing the dates of the paintings that Warhol was working on. The paintings of Elvis and Marilyn were not done during the height of their careers- They were essiantially jokes by '63 when the paintings were made. (a modern corlative would very much be someone making huge iconic paintings of Brittany Spears.) During this time Warhol was also working on the car crash series: paintings of front pages of Newspapers featuring lurid dramatic car crashs.

Elkins theorized that Warhol was commenting on the newspapers' need for operatic drama; and indeed on the viewer's need for operatic drama. Elkins speculated that Warhol was also commenting on how we like to build characters up, and then savagely brutalize them.

Warhol, shockingly(to me), was a lifelong devout Catholic, and was very concious of iconography. It's not too far a strech to imagine those silkscreened repeated visages of Elvis as folowing the tradition of Icon making that his Childhood Eastern Orthodox Church supported. But what do these Elvis as Religous Icon paintings mean?

Is it about the emptiness of pop cult-ure? The basic human need for drama, for the beleif that we can be larger-than-life? The need to take those who are larger-than-life down a peg or two?

Anyways, it seems that the concerns you voice are not entirely new to our culture, but by saying that i do not mean to suggest that they are not REALLY IMPORTANT questions to ask, and it's nice to see that there are living breathing people asking them so succintly.

Reply to: Ebert: The celebrity culture is infantilizing us. We are being trained not to think... Many comments here reassure me that other channels exist, that all things must pass, that I must be reconciled. I am not. I usually don't even describe myself as a journalist but as a newspaperman. Tell me about the internet. I love it, but as Kipling told us, A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

Yes, Roger, other channels exist.

Why would you sit on the sidelines, giving thumbs-up or thumbs-down, when you can be in the game?

"Beyond The Valley of the Dolls".... a good start.

If Chris Nolan had walked away after "The Dark Knight," no one would blame him. He raised the bar for a certain genre of movies, and that would allow him to coast for five or ten years. But... no, he's huddled with his brother and a few selected advisors, planning his next triumph.

Nolan says he needs a story that will keep him interested and entertained for the one or two years necessary to make the movie. His goal is to make a third movie that is "head and shoulders above" the previous two. He points to other famous trilogies and points out that #3 has never been the best one.

When I read that Johnny Depp would make a good Riddler, or Angelina Jolie can play Catwoman, I think, "Why would Nolan make the same movie again?"

I think... writing a movie is "head and shoulders above" writing about movies.

In your years have a critic, what have you learned about story and character?

Can you raise the bar... in the same way Chris Nolan raised the bar for... well, Nolan was asked to make "Batman." The last Batman movie had George Clooney driving a convertible Batmobile (never a good idea when you're fighting crime in Gotham City) and Nolan gave his Batman a Tumbler, a tank with off-road and rooftop capabilities.

That's what I call "raising the bar."

I've tried to raise the bar in the area of religion, but I'm frustrated and discouraged. People don't want to think. People want a fantasy because they need hope.

Right now, you might have some wonderful insights into why people need hope in their lives. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and Frank Capra did "It's A Wonderful Life" on that theme... and today, with all the dumbing down, we get Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in "Meet Joe Black."

The original story "The Greatest Gift" was written by Philip Van Doren Stern in November 1939. After being unsuccessful in getting the story published, he used it for a Christmas card, and mailed 200 copies to family and friends in December 1943. In April 1944, RKO Pictures bought the rights to the story for $10,000 hoping to turn it into a vehicle for Cary Grant. RKO created three unsatisfactory scripts before shelving the planned movie. Grant made another Christmas picture, The Bishop's Wife.

What's the difference? You won't have to send your story out in Christmas cards.

The best Christmas movie ever made... was filmed in 1946, in 90 days, and shown on December 20, 1946. I have to think that, today, with so many film schools and film criticism magazines, there's a better Christmas movie about the journey between hope and despair... somewhere.

When did this slippery slope begin, I wonder? Any ideas? I know The Beatles could not have had dinner at a restaurant and waited for valet parking.

Speaking of the Fab 4, there was a local incident in which I used them as an example:

A few years ago, the editors of our local paper (The South Bend Tribune) made the error of placing who might win that season's American Idol on their front page for TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS.

I looked up the archives to find out what the SB Tribune had placed on their front page during the week of April 4, 1964. (That's the week John, Paul, George, and Ringo had the first 5 positions of the Billboard Top 100.) The Tribune's headlines for that week included the death of General Douglas MacArthur, a coup in Brazil, and a local murder. No Beatles. I wasn't the only one who wrote in complaining, thankfully. The editors apologized to their readers later that week.

To be contrarian for a minute, is it not possible that the population seeking celebrity news has been under-served in the past, and the population craving 2500 word film criticism over-served? I think it's reasonable to assume that if everyone had cellphone cameras and 24 hour internet access in the 50s that Marilyn & Joe (and lesser lights) would be just as hounded and overexposed as celebrities are today.

To parallel the explosion of celebrity news, the internet provides more access serious cultural criticism than at any other time in human history. Rising water lifts all boats.

I used to love the Tribune's long-standing pseudonym for its film critic(s) -- May Tinee. It reminded of W.C. Fields' character in "The Bank Dick," Egbert Souse -- "accent grave over the 'e.'"

What bothers me about our CelebCult world is that you're almost not even allowed to opt out of it. It seems almost everyone I know is preoccupied with the doings of Justin and Jessica and Jennifer and Miley and Brad and Angelina and Tom and Katie and on and on and on. If I mention to them that I don't even know who half these people are, and certainly don't care about their wardrobes, diets, pregnancies, or bitch fights, I'm an outcast. I'm an elitist. I think I'm smarter than everyone else. I'm insufferable because I'd rather read things that stretch my mind than things that anesthetize it. I can't have an intelligent conversation about film or books because no one knows what I'm talking about.

How should I cope with this reverse snobbery?

Spot on (as usual) - couldn't agree more - but would it be heretical for me to say so with the caviat that perhaps modern life is not so dismal as it may seem?

In the immortal words of Sci-Fi writer Ted Sturgeon's Revelation:

“Ninety percent of EVERYTHING is crap”

Sturgeon explained his epiphany this way:

“I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud."

As a Forty-ish person, I've been around long enough to develop a healthy skepticism toward running around, hair on fire, claiming that the latest profusion of pop-culture schlock marks the end of civilization. Every "great books" program or nostalgia movement benefits from the fact that time is an excellent and insightful editor. It's not reasonable to assume that all ancient Greeks could tell a story like Homer, or all Elizabethan Englishmen were worsmiths on par with Shakespeare or the King James Bible. Not every jazzman was Satchmo or Duke Ellington. For every great Beatles or Stones hit there were a hundred other forgetable (and largely forgotten) contemporary ditties rounding out the Top 40 at the same time.

When we're standing in the rubble of the present, contemplating the riches of the past, it's easy to forget that even the richest mines take tons of ore to produce ounces of gold. Since time has a way of leaving the dross behind, we generally don't have to see the tailings and slag of any other time but our own, but that doesn't mean they weren't there.

The other thing "editor time" does for us is give us room to discover and reconsider. How many four star reviews have you given in the moment to movies that haven't held up well in the long run? How many movies on your "Great Movies" list initially got a lukewarm reception from you? Some of the "All Time Greats" - even some of the biggies like "Casablanca" or "It's a Wonderful Life" - were not particularly well regarded (popularly or critically) in their own day. Ditto for "modern classics" like "Groundhog Day" or "The Shawshank Redemption". Sometimes the cream can't rise to the top of the homogenized mass until the churning of the moment has stopped.

All that being said, I think our collective love affair with the immediate availability information has come at the cost of having to do our own editing and programming for ourselves. In the mythical "good old days" when all we had was a newspaper, a couple of local TV stations, a couple of local movie screens, and maybe a national magazine or two, EVERYTHING we got was pre-selected for us by an "expert" - an editor, programmer, librarian, theater owner, or critic - that supposedly knew more about separating the wheat from the chaff. We had very few options, and because the opportunities were so limited, they were precious. This may be why there was so much more value placed on "quality help" - good writing, editing, reporting, analysis, and yes, criticism. Scarcity made us care more about quality.

Not so now. The modern prediliction for having every possible option available at all times may sound like freedom (it's certainly been marketed as such) but is it? I don't honesly think that the amount of dreck is much higher percentage-wise than it has ever been. Sturgeon's Revelation seems pretty timeless. But does having the ability to access a boundless library of cultural content on demand (via gadgets in my car, on my desk at work, in every room of my house, and even in my pocket) really provide me with a non-stop stream of hidden gems, or does it just dump bigger and bigger loads of ore for me to sift through?

Tough questions, and I certainly don't have all the answers. I think it's true that there are many more voices (including many more excellent voices) available to a much wider audience these days. Unfortunately the demise of the traditional sources of "professional help" (the editor, the critic, the analyst, the programmer...) means that finding those voices now takes a much more concerted effort on our own individual parts, usually without the guidance of someone who is not trying to sell us something.

It's true that "old media" like newspapers can't compete in terms of efficiency and immediacy when it comes to the simple delivery of information, but it seems to me that we need more information like we need another hole in our heads. Perhaps papers would benefit from providing the things that the "new outlets" can't (or won't): focus less on the What, Where, and When, and more on the Why and How. Other "old media" outlets have found success in this way - Public Radio continues to thrive on this model, regularly surpassing commercial pop-radio ratings in many markets.

One last thought (clearly I would do poorly in a sub-500 word world... my apologies):

Sturgeon's 90% need not be cause for despair. The "quality" we're talking about here has always been the province of the fringes. Whether or not this is lamentable is an open question, but there's little doubt that it is true. Indeed, when one of our semi-private alt/indie/cult/classic pleasures gains mainstream popularity, we're likely to grouse about "selling out" or the evils of going too commercial. The gold is the gold largely because it is not the rock or the dirt - if all the world was made of gold, gold would be worthless.

When I think of my poor daughter - doomed to grow up an only child in the household of egghead parents - I'm tempted to be sad that she has to grow up in these times. As she starts to navigate her teen years, I know she's having to deal with some social fallout from the fact that most households aren't lined with books and perpetually suffused with music and movies that considerably pre-date her (not to mention her parents). It's not always helpful in the day-to-day Junior High scrum to speak in lines from old movies or know that Beyonce can't hold a candle to Aretha Franklin.

Fortunately for many of us, there can be life - really REALLY good life - after Junior High if we're willing allow our tastes and understandings grow to encompass such a life. That's my hope for her, and (knock wood) so far, so good. Sure many of her peers (an many of mine) don't seem to want this for themselves, but ultimately that is not my concern:

All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird,—like a flower, hangs furled,
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

Robert Browning
"My Star"

Thank you, thank you, for a penetrating article. The total war declared by American newspapers on coverage of the arts is abominable and tragic. The next generation of arts journalists is being wiped out. (One great disaster that did not get the press it deserved was the lamentable demise of the New York Sun and its first-rate arts and culture section.) It was always my dream to be an arts and entertainment critic. Little did I know that when I graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism in 2003 I would be entering a dying world. It's like having the great misfortune to visit Krypton on the eve of its destruction, and yet I've managed to do something comparable. Who's to say what will become of me? Newspapers have wantonly abdicated their leadership in coverage of the arts to the anarchy of the blogosphere, where different rules apply. But maybe it's fair to say that something had to fill the gaping hole American newspapers have created. What I have witnessed is not a pell-mell race to the bottom, but down the toilet.

"There is a young lady who will find joy and happiness."

I thank you, sir, and she will as well when I tell her. She is often a social pariah due to her vast vocabulary and focus on grammar. She needs to know that there are people out there that still respect and care about such things. And she loves Shakespeare to the point I think she would be stalking him if he were alive and online.
And, by the way, saying Shakespeare inspires your writing is in no way pretentious. It's just a sign of how smart you really are. Any writer worth their weight will admit to being influenced by Shakespeare. It's like rock music- everyone was inspired by the Beatles, whether they admit it or not.

Ebert: When she is among people she *chooses* to spend her time with, rather than those fate has dealt her, her abilities will grace her and enhance her stature. Just because you don't know anyone else who loves Shakespeare doesn't mean you have to love Stephenie Meyer. It is better to be intelligent in privacy than stupid in company.

Oh, man, did you hit the nail square on its head, side, and everywhere else! I've written free-lance movie reviews for a local newspaper for 11 years. After twice-consecutively winning a state press award just five (and four) years ago, this year I was told that I was not to submit movie reviews unless the majority of them were upbeat and positive, since "that's what people need in these hard times." This, for a free-lance position that doesn't even get my name on the paper's masthead. I wrote a whole column about this very subject for another local publication last year; nobody cared, of course. When you and Stanley Kauffmann die, so dies a large chunk of quality in American movie criticism.

It's my fault. I read lots of (real, not celebrity) news and could buy a paper, but I don't because it's all printed for free on the web. Budgets are shrinking and film critics, and lots of other things, are getting cut. There may have been a lot more serious critics before, but they were not more widely read because most people couldn't read outside of their local papers. Now things like this are national. I'm in Ann Arbor, MI, and choose to read your reviews, because for several different reasons I like yours the best. Sometimes I'll read 2 or 3 other reviews because I'm curious about something. But film reviews are not local, there is no need for the 124 different reviews of "Australia" I can find on rottentomatoes. I'm optimistic and think the best, or near best, will eventually win out and be national. Like every other industry, the rest will have to find another job.

The news is still big. It's the nation that's got small.

That's my point; he's NOT known as a writer of detective fiction, because he wasn't very good at it. So what's he doing setting the rules? (I'm referring to Ronald Knox.)

Ebert: For that, all he needs to be is a great reader of detective fiction.

To be honest, I gave up on newspaper critics some time ago. There's those I already read, like you Roger, (which is an understatement), but I see a lot of our great new voices coming from film blogs. Now this is sad on some level, but then again, some are pretty good. They love film so much that they're willing to do it for free, and still bring a level of professionalism to it. It doesn't matter to me if you're not; as long as you have something to say, like most of us in here do. To Roger I reccommend ANTAGONY & ESCTASY and FILM AS ART. Both are great and run by devout Ebert readers, where your influence is unquestionable.

Response to a post by Grant on 11/26: "Ebert's buddy Jim Emerson did a few article on the death of the professional film critics after one round of layoffs. It's worth a read. He gave props to bloggers, and acknowledged that he read plenty of interesting stuff on them. But then he pointed out that pro movie critics see something like 400 movies a year. That provides both more breadth and depth than the blogger who probably only sees on average one new movie a week in the theaters."

Just yesterday, I had a conversation with a family member who expressed a sentiment similar to the one expressed by Jim Emerson, who is paraphrased above. This family member is a poet, and she had just attended a book conference in Portland. While there, a fellow writer had expressed the fear that bloggers were replacing serious literary critics. My family member shared this concern. She later told me that while she feels blogs provide wonderful venues for individual readers to express their thoughts about specific books, she worries that their popularity will mean the demise of the professional critic’s training and depth of knowledge. Many bloggers, she said, do not possess the training - or simply haven’t read widely enough - to provide properly contextualized analysis of certain books.

I should say that I see her point and share her concern – and I say this as a guy who truly enjoys the world of blogging. Now, I realize that these concerns about bloggers, and whether they're "real" critics, could strike some folks as elitist, and that some might interpret this anxiety as a shot at the sophistication of the average blogger. But I don’t think it is.

A brief qualifier: I like blogging. I do it myself, and I look at the experience as a wonderful opportunity to develop my thoughts about film. But, while I’ve flattered myself into thinking that I’m learning, I can’t kid myself into thinking that I have the experience or knowledge to call myself a real critic. For that experience and insight, I turn to the pros.

A final (brief) note on a slightly different matter: a previous poster expressed frustration over the politics that occasionally enter films and film criticism. I would respectfully disagree: I don’t mind if a film engages in a bit of politics – even if I disagree (sometimes vehemently) with a film’s message or politics. Now, I don’t mind the occasional bit of silly fun (like, say, Brendan Fraser’s The Mummy), but isn’t one of the great pleasures of cinema the discovery of a work that is intellectually involving?

"It is better to be intelligent in privacy than stupid in company."

Roger, as someone that was often an awkward social outcast growing up (I was diagnosed with Asperger's back in preschool), I just want to thank you for that piece of wisdom. I've done well in school, but often lacked for a consistently active social life. Even today it's hard to find peers that appreciate the things I appreciate. There have been times in the past where I've regretted who I am as a result. I'm very grateful that people like my teachers and you embrace intellectual and creative thinking and encourage people to be proud of it however limited their present company may be. I have a renewed feeling of optimism that people that are smart and don't hold back can be rewarded for their abilities. Thanks for the reassurance. It means a lot, and it's rarer than one would think.

As for this blog entry, as aware as many people have been of a lot of the things you address here, it's still a very sad and harsh reality to read about our culture's downfall. May there always be people left in the world that encourage us to think.

P.S. I also love Shakespeare for much the same reasons you and others have mentioned. It's a real pleasure to read so much of it in college, though few other students truly enjoy it or are willing to speak up about it in discussion class.

What's happening to film critics in the media is just part of a much-larger trend that has permeated journalism for a couple of decades now. It's just that it has taken time for it to wend its way through all the various spheres of reporting.

What it's all about is a very human compulsion known as "taking the easy way out." I first noticed it back in college (in the 80s) when I saw that a lot of scientific stories in papers were really not much more than press-releases. Someone comes out with a study on something; (back then) they faxed press releases on it to various outlets; and much the same story appears the next day in papers around the country.

Trouble is, none of the reporters who regurgitated it, was knowledgeable enough about the subject to know if the "discovery" was valid or relevant, and even if it were, to explain it fully enough that the laymen who read their papers could understand it. They did no analysis or investigation. At best they would merely consult some other scientist, get some comments, then tack them into the article.

Yawn.

The emphasis on "celebrity news" that you speak of, Mr Ebert, is merely another version of this same "lazy reporting" phenomenon. Celebrities are all well-known, and they're identifiable. What's more, they often make themselves available to reporters, and even if they don't, it's often hard to miss their antics. If you need a story, you grab a camera and follow them, or hire a freelancer to do it for you, then you get a photo which takes up real-estate on the pages of your paper, in lieu of actually rooting out some information for people to read.

The public has by and large accommodated the "lazy journalism" phenomenon, because in its own way, the public also "takes the easy way out." People don't want to have to think about what they read. They much prefer fluff and bother to real information that they must cogitate on and digest. If a truly "thoughtful" newspaper, for example, were to be founded today, it would be next to impossible for it to gather a readership, since most Americans no longer are willing to tolerate such a thing. It would be dismissed as "elitist" or something, and even derided rather than soaked up eagerly. Anti-intellectualism is now deeply entrenched in the US -- and elsewhere -- and this movement is not going away any time soon, since any effort to reverse it will be condemned reflexively.

Together, the mass media and the mass of readers/viewers have thus launched a "death spiral" in which journalism will become increasingly lazy and the people will become increasingly intolerant of anything substantive. In other words, the people want "stupid," the media are providing them "stupid," and neither one is able or willing to want "smart" any more.

Welcome to the beginning of the end of our civilization.

The global popularity of the PodCast "Filmspotting", which typically runs over one hour per week, is an indicator of the new trend in serious movie reviews. Although it could never replace the detail, prose and pith of a truly great printed review, it uses the Siskel & Ebert style of duelling reviewers to discuss, at a length and with a passion that could never be allowed on TV or in print, the complexities, greatness or otherwise and sheer enjoyment of cinema that its hosts display, even if they (occasionally) vehemently disagree with each other. So as one of the comments noted, there is already a burgeoning interest in going far beyond the "Entertainment This Week" style of reviews that are now invading the newspaper world.

We do need critics, because everyone sees a film in a different way, and takes home different things from it. One man's poison and all that. The aggregator sites like Rotten Tomatoes depend on it, and its users do to. It is reassuring to read a critic who agrees with your point of view of a film when many others seem to be in opposition. How tragic if there were only a handful of credible reviewers!

Hey Rog, great to see that you got a P.T. Anderson movie reviewed in your Great Movies section. Punch Drunk Love is my favorite movie of all time and love seeing him get his place alongside Scorsese and the other greats.

Sorry to sidetrack from the CelebCult but a word about your review. The Aimee Song in question that they sing in that awesome sequence is called "Wise Up" not "It's Not Going To Stop". Excellent soundtrack either way, and a very talented artist to pursue if you liked that tune.

Well, I just spent about two hours reading through both your blog entry and the 160 plus comments, and I have a few things I'd like to say. The internet it the best place for every person to get a word in, so if you don't mind, I'd like just a few. On November 27th, Chance posted this brilliant insight: "You know what I've learned about extended hypocrisy? It's insanity buried under a guilty smirk." I want to meet Chance, but since I probably won't, let me say that her entry, along with yours, opened my eyes in a strange but profound way. I just got back from "Rachel Getting Married," and although I want to debate with you whether Anne Hathway's character was really going home on a weekend pass or indefinitely, I'll resist. What I do want to ask is if you think Demme's and Lumet's movie represents the death of post-modernism? You tell us that the movie shows our multicultural society growing comfortable with itself, and I think Chance's post suggests this at well. What I like about Chance's entry, and the movie, is how representative it is of our ability to see how beautiful our flaws are. A post-modernist wouldn't give Chance's entry a glance once he/she found out that Chance worked for "The Man" and promoted "His" control over society. Chance, "Rachel Getting Married," you, and all of us have to look in the mirror and find a reason to smile, even if it is a guilt smirk!

The newspaper as a medium is fighting for its survival. It cannot afford to be lofty, because it will be eaten by its web rivals. Its rivals are free and more varied than ever before - everybody's taste can be considered now, because people of the same taste are free to publish. The newspaper is forced to seek out and appeal to its readers. Even worse, as it's losing its audience, it's forced to appeal to a wider group of people, to the class of readers it did not have to care about before - to the gossipers. Gossipers have always existed, right along with porn and prostitutes. However, I doubt if ever so much effort was put into satisfying the gossipers.

A much stronger argument will be needed to show that we have become stupid. All that Ebert's observations are showing is that the newspaper is dying and in its desperation to hold onto life it is robbing itself of any worth by appealing to dumbness. I am not sure if we are more stupid or less educated. Maybe the stupid are too educated. Maybe never before could so many stupid people read and write. Never before could they do well enough in society to gain the buying power that can sway the media to cater for them. Modern education coupled with the Internet gives us a lot of power - to all of us. But 'us' includes the stupid, in overwhelming proportions.

Before the village idiots could not publish. Now they can and we all hear them. Now they can demand and people listen. That does not indicate there is more of them. It only indicates that their voices are strong, loud and clear.

But there is good news. In the web world it is very easy to ignore.

Reply to Raveen Sharma: "One particular niece is very bright and does well in school but she seems ashamed to discuss anything that does not relate to whatever the TV or the other girls at school tell her she should like. She's resistant about saying anything about the excellent books I catch her reading. On books like "The Scarlet Letter" or "Of Mice and Men" beyond "I enjoyed reading it" or "It was a good book".

Then she quickly changes the subject back to the Jonas Brothers. Even there, I try to encourage her to analyze what it is about their music that is appealing to her, but she's resistant to even that. Sometimes I worry she'll never feel comfortable expressing any kind of critical thinking outside school assignments."

One of the things we have to do with our younger generation is to not just cave into the "It was a good book" argument. WHY was it a good book? WHY did you enjoy reading it? What made it enjoyable? We have to keep asking these questions or we're never going to encourage people to think critically about anything, and take everything at face value.

Yesterday at Thanksgiving dinner I was discussing film with some of my family members, whose philosophy on film is "Why can't we just go to the movies and have a good time? Why do we have to be subjected to real life experiences and non-happy endings and why do film critics not simply say that the films they enjoyed are the best films of the year?" It took me aback slightly, because I have been as guilty as anyone of this. Most of the films in my collection could be considered "great" but I also have a large selection of films that are merely enjoyable. But the enjoyable films are the ones that I share at parties or social gatherings or I watch to unwind in the evening, not the ones that I watch with close friends to have an intellectual experience. Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way.

The thing is, I don't necessarily enjoy films like "Requiem for a Dream" or "Picnic at Hanging Rock," but when I watch them, I feel like I have been satisfied far more than I am by a film like "Cloverfield." I saw "Rachel Getting Married" on Wednesday and wished I could have stayed to see it again. After a relatively meh year for movies, it renewed my faith in film, made me cry, laugh, and just feel the possibility of the medium. The film is ALIVE. It has a pulse and it left me feeling euphoric and contemplative ever since I saw it.

I think we have to encourage people, as hard as it is, to start seeking out experiences such as the ones provided by films such as "Rachel." One of my favorite films of 2006 was "Shortbus," and I have yet to show that to a group of people and not have a long conversation afterward. If we can instill this value in our children, I think that the newspaper film critic could survive long into the next century.

I am a film critic. I do not get paid (as of yet) for what I do,
and there is a chance I may never. But, I have a growing number
of loyal readers. And they all enjoy my 1000+ word reviews !

To be fair, I became a critic not only because of my passion
for movies (shared equally with my passion for writing), but
to put a new perspective on things that one doesn't see from
many in the field today. If I had a dollar for every person
who has told me they don't agree with critics anymore, I would
be a very rich man. In my opinion, a vast majority of critics
have lost touch with the average Joe. To this day they go see
a film with a set criteria, and if the movie is not "A" "B" or
"C" it is not good per se. Often, movies that are huge at the
box office have been panned by critics. Large numbers of loyal
readers see these aforementioned "bad reviews", and loose faith
in the people that bash what they enjoy.

A good film critic should be able to convey his honest opinion.
Nothing more, nothing less. But when the opinions are based off
of a "guidebook" of sorts, it spells trouble.

If you ask me, a lot of movie critics try to write just for each
other. Until that stops our craft will continue to get swept
under the rug.

Ebert: Regarding your reviews...I wonder if all readers know that when the name of a comment's author is underlined, that means it's a clickable link to that writer's web site, blog, or online presence? If you started clicking on names in this thread, you might be amazed by who is online here. You, for example, not only have a splendid taste in films, book and music, but an enviable long-term goal.

As a commentator of sorts on New Media, i think this web page, with all this wonderful and educating commentary, should be on the "To Read" list of every Journalism/New Journalism/New Media curriculum in schools around the world.

As a wannabe filmmaker, I must admit I have learnt a lot about the art of filmmaking by reading critics like yourself, Roger. And, might I add, that I read all of it Online. That has much to do with availability of great writing in print in India and of course, matters of finance.

Is this, perhaps why 'The Balcony' is now permanently closed? I miss it, you know - though it was never the same after you left. Oh - I liked Roeper well enough (very astute man) - and he brought on some interesting sparing partners - but you and dear Gene were the gold standard. Everyone else just falls short.

But back to my point. This is why, isn't it? The powers that be insisted on trivializing the reviews. Suddenly gossip must needs be included as part and parcel of each. So Richard consulted with you – and the decision was made to exit, stage left (gracefully, and with heads held high). Pity. I don’t even bother to turn it on these days (Mankiewicz being too much like ‘lite’ beer for my tastes). I get my reviews from ‘Entertainment Weekly’. At least there, time is spent and attention lavished. Oh – you get the gossip with the goods – but there’s meat on those bones.

So what’s the answer (if there is one)? Where to go? The idiocracy is really taking over, you know. What you complain of is only the teensy tip of a very large iceberg. Books, both fiction and non, have succumbed to the same wasting disease. Less and less literature, more and more gooey filler. ‘Chic Lit’ – what in gods name is that, anyway? It sounds like one of those 60’s beach movies.

Film criticism on the whole is a lot like a game of "Telephone", the original message was perhaps dismembered to the point of having no resemblence to the original messenger. As a result, the message becomes a sad clone of itself to the recipients: AKA: the movie going public.

I recently saw Baz Luhrman's new film "Australia" and was surprized to discover that many so-called critics hated the film. I for one enjoyed the movie immensely. Not only did I find it hugely entertaining and emotionally stirring, but it also showed me that there were still unique ways to mold an epic. New ways in which to weave a series of great themes into one dynamic and involving thrill ride. For the unintiated, Australia is a genre picture but it is so much more than that. It is also a director's film, Luhrman has filled his canvas with such a unique storytelling style which infuses every frame, all the way to its brilliant scenery, set, pieces and acting. And while if this sounds like a personal plug of the film's greatness from one person's perspective, I confess that it is, since I find it necessary to point out the wrongdoing this film has received from the critic community. I have no actual evidence of this, nor do I seek to prove my arguments or disprove the arguments of others. I only seek to call attention to the absurdity and meaninglessness of what has taken place. For that reason, I cite "Australia", a wonderful, unapologetically engaging movie about one unique storyteller's ability to create something totally original (despite feedback to the contrary). Something which, I repeat, is NOT simply your run-of-the-mill Hollywood blockbuster/romance of the week dreck.

The opinions of those in a scholarly position will always be welcome, but you'd have to be a fool not to notice that it is just plain wrong here. Australia is a great example to use, since I feel that critics have become so trapped in their scholarly status of being confined to an office, having their DVDs in the mail, while being persuaded by their 'friends' to vote thumbs up or down, one star or 4 stars, good or bad. They might even have their screenings in an isolated balcony, not taking part in the organic experience of total strangers responding positively to the movie. I do not speak for all critics or journalists, many are brilliant, some even have something special to say, but they have lost touch with the reality of a movie going public. The joy received from having spent the evening with a group of truly unaffected observers, whom are simply there to soak in all the fun.

I am using an awful lot of words today, without much success of actually saying what I think I'm trying to say, but I will say that I believe many critics to be stupid, stupid, STUPID.... They do not understand what goes into making movies, nor do they understand the beauty of films and film-going any more than they do about fornicating (AND YES, that was a reference to "Patton" for all you film nerds out there who still actually think the 70s is still considered worthy of being referential).

Continuing with Australia... I could cite a scene by scene anaylsis of the movie, explaining to people why this film is such a classic and why it defies convention and puts shame to its onslaught of criticism regarding the use of clichés; but that would not only waste my time but fail to illuminate yours. In order to make my point clear about the whole flaw of film criticism in general, I will try to bring to light, one specific issue. That issue is, the discussion of an assumed form of correct film practice. Which, if I may, suggests to the viewers and readers, the idea that stories have to be subdivided into several acts. A system which constitutes a film pocessing a quality of symmetrical harmony.

NOTE to self, repeat after me: This quality of storytelling harmony can often be acheived by a 3-act system, however, that mold alone is not suffient for the telling of a good story. An abstract, intangible thing must take place in order for a film to work. It is the director's thumbprint, his soul's stamp on a film which is the key ingredient to make a story work. This is everything, which comes solely from the collaboration of his artists as well as his unique vision. It is impossible for any person, regardless of intelligence, to decipher how much of director or artist went into creating the end result. However, just because the end result did not meet with personal vision or expectations, is not a sufficient excuse to exclude or deem incompetent the goals or ideas of the storyteller; whom is the sole authority on everything.

I am fed up, as of this moment I am boycotting the reading, usage, acceptance and emotional machinations of all critics in hopes of considering my potential movie going experience. For indeed, in most all its inherantly trivial forms; criticism I feel has turned on itself, becoming obsolete in the process. Emerging as a harsher enemy so to speak, of its own original conquest for greater understanding.

I proceed with a quote from this blog's entry of Andrew Polino, to paraphrase: "It is better to be intelligent in private, rather than to be stupid in person". This to me, could not be a more concise statement to use when describing the current practice/business of film criticism. And make no mistake about it ladies and gentlemen, it has, or for lack of a better description, become just a business. This is of course, a term thrown around a lot these days to discuss and compare the nature of evil. And while business itself is not inherantly evil, many of its qualities can bring upon the heavy burden of reducing what was once a free spirited journey of ideas, into a complicated and depressing-mixed bag of artificiality; which in turn, is ultimately bent on achieving nothing in particular other than the survival of the established order.

Putting aside the fanboy/internet mental masturbation rants for just a moment: Criticism has ruined people's ability to truly questions things. It has replaced those questions with an illusion of authority, which seeks to exist on an intangible plain of academic referentiality. Instead of letting people ultimately decide, the giant well-oiled machine (and nobody complained that it wasn't very well oiled indeed) has created this arena of b*llshit (no offense) where only the key players in the commerce of distribution, wealth and survival of the industry have taken it upon themselves to drastically confuse the consumers, into believing that their own conscience, their own judgments and their own intuition is wrong.

I come to the determinent factor, the "fun" in movies is judged by the intangible magic effect it has on you. They harmony of sight and sound and perception, merging into a kind of kinetic ballet which achieves the story-making harmony unfolding before your eyes. Each person creates their own based on their memories and it is not the scholarly library of a so-called informed conceit which supplements this reality. In plain terms, there is no amount of information or intellect which can hope to identify or pinpoint these elements which makes a film good or bad. By simply critiquing the intended vision of the artists we deny ourselves the exploration of open ended observation.

The reality of the film is a complete result of the collaborations of artists and visionaries involved, each one seeking to deliver the best possible end product. As much as it is impossible to judge how much of this process is forced or genuine, it is also impossible for anyone to draw any personal conclusions as to the who, what and how of what is actually emerging on screen. In turn, there is no set mold as to the right and wrong, what matters is the personal effect the film has on you as it unfolds. Which is, of course, an uncontrollable and intangible symmetry of motion and ideas. Part created, part suplemented by personal observation and memory. In the end, movies defy critique, since they are not deserving of it in any tangible form.

And yet, one might be thinking this nonsense: No siree, you're absolutely wrong, everything created on the screen is a lie, since none of it can every be truly genuine or organic, it must be molded and transfixed by the creators to the point of being unrecognizable as true or genuine. This brings to attention, a question answer response anaylsis of "Australia".

1) The acting in the film has been described by critics as horrible. They say that Nicole Kidman is terrible in the film, using the same emotional and rigid techniques she always uses. She is at once, cold and harsh. A sad carrier of the pathetic comedy attempts during the onset of the film:

ANSWER: The acting in the movie is not horrible at all, in fact it is emotionally involving and technically impressive. The whole 'humor' and comedy element of the smirking at the camera style, which BAZ LUHRMAN has perfected in films like Moulin Rouge is a result of story telling aesthetic and NOT thematic pandering. Actors like Nicole Kidman are incredibly talented and they are acting comedic and broad on purpose. Make no mistake, she is in on the joke. Indeed, the film does not unfolds as a sum of its parts but rather as a calm and sweeping journey from a comic sensibility to a more dramatic one. Just because a film changes tones, during its storyline, does not constitute a director's lack of establishing a 'correct' tone. In this way, Kidman and the director are playing off the idea of spoofing the British epic. Starting off in broad comedy and then progressing subtley into more artistic and abtract territory. But note, this is one ripple of possible description in an all too big ocean of thought.

Film Critic Alison Bales of REELTALK TV criticized Lurhman for not having a set way of values for establishing the film as a drama in the beginning. She says it starts off as romp comedy and then moves uncomfortably into harsh drama. And while I respect Bales as a critic, she is neither intelligent nor receptive enough to take into account the points I brought up in section #1. Many or all movie goers will at least ponder elements resembling these points I've mentioned; then again, perhaps they won't even think a wince about it. Regardless, any or all such anaylsis signifies the reality of the fault of film criticism. There are just certain finite elements which a person can NEVER reduce to simple platitudes. They are in fact, far, far more subtle.

With respect to those who might feel a certain way about "magic" in the film, I go to Number 2.

2) The "Magic" or "Voodoo" of the Aboriginal people in the film has been criticized as being NOT realistic, detrimental to the movie's believablity.

ANSWER: This is again, a storytelling choice. Luhrman is using the mystical and the abstract imagery of the Aboriginal elder to make a storytelling point. The fact that he can 'magically' achieve all these things, and communicate with the boy is part of the film-making aesthetic of the movie's artistic landscape. In plain English, the magic in the film is not to be taken literally. Each key character moment in the movie, compliments the overall scope of the emotional crescendo, which brings all the characters together. If you cannot understand this element for what it is, you my friend are indeed lost as a film goer. I am sorry, but this is what I believe.

Then again, thats the beauty. I am allowed to act stupid in public... I keep my REAL opinions to myself. I suppose that's democracy. God help me when I say this, but movie appreciation should not be limited to a democracy. There are just certain set rules that good movies must follow, that must continue in general in order for them to be precieved as a success. Money, sadly seems to be high on that list.

I will tread no further. For those who don't understand anything I've said. Watch the movie for yourself, then understand why all the critique behind it has been without merit.

In my opinion, the very nature of verbal delineation undermines the movie watching experience. Movies should be watched, not written about.

-"Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet from "Hamlet")

Ebert: Wow. You sent me back for another look at my own review. I think I got the movie about right.

Mike Judge's Idiocracy is a great movie.

What is the horizon like past CelebCult and Reality shows? Is it even vaguely possible that there could be a celebrity per household and the world gets over all this? Then question, "Okay. Now what?"

First: Happy Thanksgiving.

Second: I don't know one person who admits to being a tabloidphile, but clearly those magazines are outselling the newspapers for a reason. From 7 to 8 p.m. Eastern Time, the major networks start cycling their celebrity entertainment shows. They have been on for years, and I vaguely remember the novelty factor of Mary Hart's legs when I was a kid. I despise the culture now, though I love the internet, and I believe that the internet has caused this fascination with celebrities by having pages devoted to near real-time photographs and locations of where these people are. People get the "real news" from the internet so there is little or no importance to actually paying for it anymore. News is on 24/7 on television. In the "olden" days, the newspapers were resources. Now they are something that I have to recycle every couple of weeks.

Third: Now that you are older, Roger, what do you and your peers in the newspaper industry think about what has happened? I can't imagine devoting my life to something as noble as writing to see it transform into some bastardized version of what it has become. My father is a retired auto-worker, and he is melancholy over the state of affairs in the auto industry. Economy aside, he has seen the once-proud American auto industry get shredded by foreign competition, bloated unions and negligent management. It reminds me of the poem Ozymandias by Shelley, when describing a crumbled-statue of a pharaoh: Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair! We are living in times that I don't think 10 years ago we would be living in. It is almost Shakespearean.

Ebert: This may be insanely optimistic, but I think we make take some of our tone from our presidents. Now that we have an adult in office, maybe we'll grow up?

It's worth remembering that film criticism is a fairly recent phenomenon. In the early days of movies, EVERYTHING was celebrity-driven. It took decades for movies to be seen as anything but disposable entertainment. In the heyday of magazines like Photoplay, do you think the New York Times was reviewing movies?

I think we're just seeing the end of a golden age. Celebrity worship has always ruled. Thanks to the Internet and citizen journalism, there will always be a place for serious criticism--you'll just have to look harder.

Great use of Sunset Boulevard. I heartily agree with you as to news versus gossip. I stopped reading my local newspaper except for the local and business sections and even then I am finding little reason to continue to support the waste of space they want me to pay for.

While there has always been a certain ammount of ink given to the celebrity gossip columnist, it has grown so important in today's culture that it outweighs everything - including more "traditional" news, which is disturbing. The oversensationalizion of our culture has collectively dumbed us down to the point where we can't even separate political inquiry from tabloid style gossip mongering.

It must be scary to work at a newspaper these days.

As with any trend or occurrance in history, you can't pinpoint a beginning exactly, but can only examine various threads and origins and determine the significance of each. CelebCult. Where did it start? Who is responsible? If those responsible have been dead for seventy years and could never have guessed the consequences of their decisions and influence on others, are they really responsible? Let's say one factor is urbanization. Which in turn is a result of industrialization. We have pulled millions in from rural agricultural lives and given them this city life, this manufactured plastic life where people get...bored. They work for set hours at a job which may or may not matter and then go home to an electrically/artificially extended day where they have control over their time but nothing to fill it. The idea of partnership with nature, where there is a mutual surrender, we subduing and submitting, moving with its rhythms but teaching it to help us too, is completely lost. We don't know what to do with ourselves. So we make stuff up. We make art and then pay people to talk about it and then pretend to care. Art which is completely divorced from man's relationsip to nature, which is removed by seven degrees from anything resembling the life God meant us to live. God? What God? Nevermind. Evolution, I guess, has just taken a downswing; but under this construct there is no meta-anything to even declare that a downswing is bad, so we get CelebCult. The city is man's greatest invention, greatest protection, and undoing. Like a certain tall tower in the book of Genesis. We draw together, but then find we've encircled the mere void of our greatness/nothingness, and we scatter again, unable to communicate with those who moments before shared the vision. Saint Paul stumbled upon a crowd of philosophically-minded folks on Mars Hill in Athens who delighted in nothing more than the hearing of something new. Not something meaningful. Not something true. Not something helpful. Just new. CelebCult.

How can we go backwards and undo this or that, and let go of things we now take for granted? Tolkein thought the combustion engine was an evil invention. Maybe it is. Can we admit that and let go of it? Can we undo the industrial revolution? Can we return? Can we switch off the computer? Can we retire into farming communities and once again engage in the mutual surrender with the natural world? No. No, we cannot. We are swept along now by the momentum we have created, flickering lights and info-flashes and processed food and convenience-culture all swirling through us and around us. Do the builders know what they have built? Are we together or are we alone together? Is there a prophetic voice in the darkness?

Kathy, I'm lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. I'm empty and aching and I don't know why.

All necessities provided, all anxieities tranquilized, all boredom amused.

I admire your work, Mr. Ebert, and have for years, and understand your concern for your profession. In this particular blog entry, you're scratching the surface of a great mystery, which is so close we can't even see it. Like the Force or the Matrix: in us and all around us. The fact that I'm typing this means I'm as plugged in as anyone else. Viva la Nueva Orden Mundial.

Roger, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks for all you have contributed to the film industry. You also helped me survive the movie experience when I had young children. I always knew I could count on your reviews to warn me if there was inappropriate content in a movie. You have a knack for writing your reviews that warned yet did not give away spoilers. I have always appreciated that. I consider you the gold standard for film critics, and you are the first one I turn to. Take care of yourself Roger, and continue writing. You may not think you have a voice anymore, but I think your writing has only gotten stronger. As far as I am concerned, you will always have a place somewhere.

I always liked those Hemingway characters who started the day reading a newspaper over a cup of coffee, and now it's true, as you say, Roger, the newspaper just isn't what it used to be. I agree with many of those who have responded to your article that worshopping the stars has always been with us, and I don't think that is what is destroying newspapers. Probably the internet is, because it's taken away much of the advertising.

At any rate, I deplore the decline of the newspaper. Still, I feel there is enough good reporting and opinon that I find the Chicaago Tribune readable. I'm happy to say that I just started the Joliet Herald News subscription too, as I dicovered your reviews there on Fridays. It's worth getting the paper just for that reason.

You and Gene are the gold standard, indeed, and it sounds as if your influence is still alive in many ways on internet forums and podcasts. I'm going to look up some of these that were mentioned in the remarks here. I loved the TV Show and miss it very much.

"Worse, the AP wants its writers on the entertainment beat to focus more on the kind of brief celebrity items its clients apparently hunger for. The AP... has been hit with some cancellations lately, and no doubt has been informed what its customers want..."

To me this seems like a man in a leaking boat, trying to drain the water out by drilling another hole in the bottom.

Likewise, the limit on 500 words will only worsen the exodus of readership, as articles contain less substance. It's usually _harder_ to write something worthwhile with such a short length limit. But I assume the AP won't allowing writers more time to craft their pieces, or pay more per word to reflect the amount of work it takes.

Thank you, Mr. Ebert, for this thought-provoking blog post. Happy holidays!

Reply to: Zeiram: The acting in the movie is not horrible at all, in fact it is emotionally involving and technically impressive. The whole 'humor' and comedy element of the smirking at the camera style, which BAZ LUHRMAN has perfected in films like Moulin Rouge is a result of story telling aesthetic and NOT thematic pandering. Actors like Nicole Kidman are incredibly talented and they are acting comedic and broad on purpose. Make no mistake, she is in on the joke... Kidman and the director are playing off the idea of spoofing the British epic. Starting off in broad comedy and then progressing subtley into more artistic and abtract territory.

I wanted to mention "Australia" again after more people had a chance to see it.

Yes, I agree, Nicole Kidman was in on the joke.

But the problem is, there shouldn't have been a joke. (Mild SPOILERS from here on.)

The opening of a movie serves a purpose. Here are five people, five incredibly different people with agendas and motives, and we have to decide which ones are going to serve as our viewpoint characters.

In most movies, something bad and unfair happens to one character. (Uncle Owen tells Luke that he's going to have to stay on Tatooine for another year before joining his friends at college. Scarlett learns that Ashley Wilkes is going to marry Miss Melanie.)

In "Australia," Nicole Kidman gets a telegram. Bad news. Sends her off to Australia where her husband has bought a ranch larger than some European countries. A wonderful, epic place of great adventure...

and then... bam! pow! splash! crunch! Everything that could possibly make us like and feel empathy for this woman is taken away. She arrives with suitcases full of underwear. Even though her husband invested their financial worth in Australia, she knows nothing about it. Nothing. Why? (She asks, when are we going to reach the ranch? Jackman says, we've been driving across it for the last day.) Our curiousity makes us ask, "Why doesn't she have the faintest idea why her husband bought such a huge ranch?"

No, it's not a joke. No, it's not cute, or epic, or good screenwriting. It's just self-indulgent nonsense. The director says, "I really enjoyed stage plays making fun of British manners, so I'll throw in ten minutes of schtick."

The problem with "Australia" is a writer (and a director) who don't understand screenwriting. Who don't understand that the early scenes have to serve the story, and it's just the wrong place for the self-indulgent jokes.

Also, there was no SURPRISE. This is the hardest element to add to a modern movie. When you play the tape recording backwards, you hear the name "Merrin." Sends shivers down your spine. "We're gonna need a bigger boat.'

You have to craft the script to lead the audience in one direction, so they will sit up straight when the story takes a right turn.

In "Australia," Nicole Kidman watches Hugh Jackman give himself a sponge bath with a bucket. Was there any surprise after that scene? That's about the point where I walked out, because I had a puzzle. Should that scene be in the movie? It pulls the audience out of the movie, but it makes us understand what Kidman's character is FEELING. After a bit of thought, I'd leave it in, but I would change everything leading up to it. I'd take out Jackman's character starting a fight in the bar, and go back to Casablanca. Instead of a Drover who has grown up with a certain type of woman, and would have absolutely no interest in Kidman because she's so strange, I'd give them something in common.

That's what I wanted to write on the comment cards. Basically, every act that gave us information about Kidman's character prior to the sponge bath should be re-done. By an adult. Because the joke wasn't funny enough, and it didn't gave us any insights into her character. And yes, there was a point where I anticipated the rest of the movie would get better, but I was there to provide feedback, and they wouldn't give me a card and a pencil. There were 400 other people who were going to fill out the cards after seeing how the movie ended. They needed one person to tell them why the opening didn't work. In order to sell the romance between the two leads, you needed to "sense the inevitable" and it wasn't there.

I think there is a place for celebrity gossip and fluff but a clear distinction should be drawn between that and real news. Brainless entertainment shouldn't be allowed to seep into mainstream news media and create this sickening brand of "infotainment" we have on every channel today.

I love pop culture, read celebrity gossip magazines once in a while and love Richard Roeper's column but I'm appalled that, say, Britney Spears' new music video had its premiere on ABC's 20/20 (the same show that devoted *an entire segment* to covering "Twilight" a few weeks before it came out! ABC, how far you have fallen!) and that her son being taken to the hospital recently made the 11 o'clock news.

What? No music videos should be premiered on news shows! A great artist's great new song, maybe. If Britney was a Janis Joplin or Bob Dylan caliber performer and she released a new single, that might be news.

Her kid being taken to the hospital has no place in national news! If she had murdered her son, now that might have been legitimate news. Until then, "Eyewitness News" should put the "News" in quotation marks.

Roger,

I think you're looking at the situation the wrong way. You started to touch on the real issue it in your last sentence: "The news is still big. It's the _newspapers_ that got small."

The issue here is that we live in a period where mass media is changing faster than we can keep up. As one form of media starts to die out, another takes its place. Personally, I'm much more excited by the potential the internet holds to provide in depth, meaningful, and interactive content for the masses.

Newspapers are dying and in their last few gasps they're crying out just about anything that will garner attention. You can't blame them, it's just survival.

The film critic isn't dead, he's just finding a new home.

Does Jay the rat have a mouse trap pressed against your back telling you its a gun, or are you indeed in despair a bit that newspapers are dead? I, of course, don't think you do think that. I, although am native american and love trees who would probably like to see newspapers in text form on the computer rather than paper, has also had dreams of reading the finest newspapers delivered to my doors, but am now finding it harder to envision with this article. What are the 3 or 4 finest newspapers you see now, or have the potential to be, being a newspaper man, or, instead, what would you think if all newspapers were all only available on computer screens, even if looked exactly as they do now--staying true to the spirit--if that makes sense--where they only print a handful of actual newspapers, scan them on the website, for instance, and display it a la "actual size of newspaper"?

I think with the advent and inevitable dominance of the internet as the media/networking/communication epicenter, printed news is on the way out as it is. The days of Pauline Kael-esque reviews are sadly out the door, but I think that only opens up the possibilities of online reviews, blogs, etc.

I tend to read most reviews online anyway, mostly because they're not filtered through a thousand editors. I particularly am fond of Harry Knowles over at Ain't It Cool News, Slashfilm's variety of reviewers, and of course Mr. Ebert's online reviews/blog.

It's a new era in journalism and even more specifically movie criticism. Anybody can be a film critic, that's for certain, but only a few can do it exceptionally well. I'm sure printed media has felt the strain and that's why the sudden change of heart.

Honestly, they're probably beating a dead horse.

I did a word count on your article. If it had been limited to 500 words, you would have been cut off somewhere in the midst of the 7th paragraph.

Ebert: The photos of the dogs and the belly button kept 'em reading.

A great read, held my attention even past the 500 word mark. Cross out film critic, substitute TV critic and you get the same sad story. We are canaries, too, birds of a feather, with many great voices in TV criticism silenced in the last two years.
When I was with the Toronto Sun, I tried, in an end of the year editorial department meeting, to suggest that our annual "Entertainer of the Year" section front should be a drawing of a big dump truck pushing all the Bradgelinas and Britneys into a giant pit. That we were so over the CelebCult thing. I was shouted down, of course, but not without some debate. That was four years ago.
There does seem to be some evidence to suggest, however, that the AP is on the wrong side of this star hustler trend. Tabloid circ is down and, in Canada at least, interest and ratings for the suppertime entertainment magazines are in sharp decline. People seemed to start looking away at some point, bored with the same rehab/pantiless/scandal stories about the same seven people.
The lust for tabloid trash in the mainstream press is just the desperate act of an industry in big trouble lunging at any quick fix. Do you not get a sense, despite the AP's folly, that the pendulum is swinging the other way? That change is in the air? Yes We Can demand more substance from our media?
What is also interesting is watching to see whether critics who now find themselves blogging without the constraints of editors or editorial direction can lead the way out of the CelebCult bog. How many are working "Paris Hilton" into a headline or a lead just to attract more hits?

Ebert: Damn! Think of the hits I could have gotten just by subbing "Film Critics!" I googled Paris Hilton (57,200,000 pages) and then Barack Obama (3,850,000). Well, Obama is sort of recent. George W. Bush: 24,900,000. Britney Spears: 56,700,000. Look out, Paris. Someone is gaining on you.

This is depressing stuff, but necessary. In college, I wrote for our daily. I also got a few freelance reviews for both of my daily metro papers. Now, those papers are firing people like crazy for a host of bad economic realities, and it looks like the arts sections are going to take big hits.

The best "quote" I know on this subject comes from a teacher of mine in college, himself also a former film critic. He said that art cannot exist without comment.

My feeling is when we stop commenting and talking about what we see and hear, we lose a little bit of art in the process. There are many who hate film critics solely because "I don't agree with what he/she said," and that's the damned point.

I like critics to help challenge me to change my opinion, to point out something I didn't see, or to point out that they didn't see what I saw, etc. And the interactive nature is just plain fun: For example, there's a key shot near the end of "Quantum of Solace," after an attempted rape scene, that to many clearly shows a woman's, uhh, personal area exposed. Was it real? Was it just underwear that was colored to exactly match her skin? Do we just let these urban myths (or realities) sit alongside the curb without someone to go to? For the above 007, we need an EXPERT to tell us!

There really are no newspapers these days; Americans are now forced to read FOREIGN newspapers to find out what's going on in OUR country.

Mr. Ebert, I miss you, and I miss Mr. Roper. Don't care for the lightweight critics who have replaced you guys. Frankly, I've stopped watching.

I feel the problem is that American's don't read. They get all their news and information from SOUND BITES. That is all they can handle. Fluff pieces sadly suit the general public. It's about all they can handle.

And why has the media made such a big thing about the weekend box office? Who cares how much films make? A lot of my favorites haven't made a dime, but I love them just the same.

Wishing you the best, sir.

Ebert,

This has to be addressed - why in the world would you dare claim that Sarah Palin was "the CelebCult candidate?" The CelebCult DESPISED her. Every article was negative, every baseless rumor endlessly flogged. Browse some of the hundred blogs linked from TMZ.com and show me one that supported her in any way.

On the other hand, as James Hawk posted above, they did indeed fawn over Obama and his high Q-Rating. I suppose I'm just a "troll" for pointing out how celebrity and politics are equally failing in terms of flash and soundbites.

Ebert: You're confusing two categories: Members of the CelebCult and members of the Elite. We do not have to approve of CelebCult stars. We just have to hear about them all the time because they are famous for being famous. Why did Palin dominate the media during the campaign? Not for political reasons.

I get "bitch-slapped" for this all the time with friends, but here goes: today's culture is geared towards women, gays, and teens. I'm not cynical, and don't feel threatened by this but the people who own and run things are and do. The biggest movie of the week is the one most advertised to teens. The mags and tv shows that are the most successful are the ones most advertised to women and gays. It helps that they are more likely to be available in prime-time than men are, since men still outnumber any demographic in terms of night workers.

The people who run things have discovered in recent years that with equality comes purchasing power. Women, gays and teens now run their own lives. They have their own money now. "Mad" money. And wherever they take their money, the advertisers and "people who run things" follow. Unfortunately, those three demographics aren't apt to creating relationships with newspapers. Newspapers are so yesterday. Why read the Sunday NY Times when you can go online and read it for free? On Saturday!

Women, gays and teens are such lucrative demographics because for whatever reason, they find the time to consume. And advertisers love, love, love consumers, especially those demographics since they are "impulse buyers".

Sitting around, reading the newspaper over a cup or two of coffee is perceived as an old gentlemanly affair. Besides, the news in recent years, if you haven't heard, is dreadful and depressing. It's all about this war or that war, the collapse of the economy, higher gas prices, etc. Women still don't earn as much as men, teens can't or mostly don't vote, and gays are still finding it tough to get married. So why would anyone expect them to be interested in the old-gentlemanly-straight-man idea of sitting around contemplating the newspaper?

I'm surprised at your surprise, Roger. You're only the first traditional and important film critic to have made it online. You beat everyone to it. I remember reading you every Friday online at a time in my life when my junk folder count would remain in single digits even after a week of not checking into my e-mail account. And who's online, anyway? Yup, geeks and nerds and eggheads at first, but now the internets don't discriminate. Anyone who loves to consume goes online to find anything they need, from the news to electronics to whatever, and always a day or two or a week before all those other pitiful souls who wait for things to come to them in newspapers.

Women, gays and teens. Like the once powerful demographic of straight men before them, they have power now too, but with it comes the burden of being handled and manipulated by those with schemes that play on their fragile emotions and hormones and status as new 21st-century power players. In a couple of years we'll be headed into the 50's again economically, except straight men won't be the only mighty power-consumers they used to be.

I don't buy all this crap about the culture being worse off, or pendulums swinging. There are just as many enlightened folks out there than ever, it's just that we're being drowned out by impulse-consumption that plays on the fears of those three demographics. That's why we hear so much of missing belly buttons, why bulemia is such a great diet, and who's sleeping with who; those who own things are playing on the anxieties of the very people who have more power now than ever but who haven't fully harnessed or realized that power yet because it's oh so new to them. And those demographics are wrestling with their anxieties and are not lost, since they came out and voted in large numbers for getting out of the war and getting off the oil, once and for all.

The best way to spread the light is through blogs like this, of course, but also by visiting other places online and leaving your two cents for free. There's an entire world of people out there just yearning for some light and soul food, and it's up to those who enjoy thoughtfulness to bring themselves down a peg or two, precisely the way Obama did, to reach out and nudge people in a way that invites them to think again in a way that doesn't seem at all condescending.

Thoughtfulness, learning, and reading haven't gone away. And they won't be snuffed out as long as you and everyone you know get the word out about it.

Word out.

Brilliant and accurate of always. I'd just like to take this opportunity to make a connection between the "celebrity" culture and James Bond. I for one totally agree with your view that Bond is not an action hero. But the product placement too... They're exploiting the "celebrity" power of Bond and Daniel Craig to hawk their cheesy wares. He's pleasing the masses, and what the masses want is generic action with you constantly being bombarded with advertisements.

Personally, I loathe everything to do with "celebrity" these days. It is horrible, pretentious and utterly boring. I just hope that other brilliant writers too take up the struggle for what is right rather than what an idiot minority wants.

I think you may overstate the case when you write: "Ten percent of the words in his works were invented by Shakespeare."

As this site (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0419_040419_shakespeare.html) observes:

Despite Shakespeare's apparently considerable contributions to the language, Macrone and other academics are quick to caution that it is almost impossible say with absolutely certainty when a word or phrase was first used—or even whom to credit for creating it.

In Shakespeare's case, many of the words and phrases attributed to him merely debuted in their modern permutations in his writings and can actually be traced back to older forms.

In addition, this site (http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~wbriggs/qr/shakespeare.html) says Shakespeare used 31,534 words in his plays, nearly twice as many as the figure mentioned in the site you referenced.

Still, the point you made is well-taken even if the facts you back it up with may be wrong.

Digressing from the blog-theme, I have an occasion to thank you for being such a great "movie-scout"-----I'm on the 30th minute of Last Temptation-----what a movie, what depth !!----what starkness of direction and what a novel.....

Roger,
You, as usual, have shone the light so as to reveal the truth. However, the very presence of this blog, and of all the intelligent and passionate comments gives me hope for the future of journalism specifically, and for considered thinking generally. There will always be those of us who seek challenge, who hunger for complexity, who want to stretch and reach for something just beyond our grasp. Thank you for continuing to provide excellent commentary, both on films, and on the culture at large; thank you, too, to fellow posters who warm my heart with their incisive and acute comments.

There was time when reading the daily newspaper cover to cover (The Boston Globe was my rag of choice) was practically a religion for me. Now? Virtually the only column I ever read with any regularity-- and indeed, with joyful anticipation --is Roger Ebert's movie reviews at the Sun-Times. Why? Not just to get an idea about what's worth watching, but because, as you say, your columns can unequivocally be relied on to "encourage critical thinking, introduce new developments, consider the local scene, look beyond the weekend fanboy specials, be a weatherman on social trends, bring in a larger context, teach, inform, amuse, inspire, be heartened, and be outraged." In an age when everyone seems capable only of Twittering, you are one of the few who are still Writing. Thank you!

Ebert: Of course Twitter played an important role in the Mumbai tragedy, but somehow, I dunno, it didn't sound serious enough for a role like that. "Eye-witnesses reports are Twittering in..."

Your article summed up feelings I have had for some time now. I share your opinion and am often called a dinosaur for not keeping up with the times and the technology.

I truly think there is something missing. Several other readers mentioned the demographics and those marketers who chase after them.

Thoughtful, patient, analytical consumers are not good consumers.

Impulsive, impatient and emotional consumers simply spend more money. They are "good" for the economy.

Pandering to teen culture is much more prevalent than in the mid to late eighties when I was in my teen years.

A good example off the top of my head are the teen characters in such 1980's teen movies as Risky Business, Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink etc. They were thoughtful and the characters seemed to aspire to be grown-ups who were interested in finding out how they would fit into the adult world.

The popular culture in the eighties seemed to want to lift the teenager into the adult world whereas today's pop culture seems to want to reduce the adult audience into the teenage mindset of being discontent and impulsive.

Ebert: John Hughes was a hell of a better director than was realized at the time.

My heart wants to agree with you but my mind cannot. Yes, newspapers are failing, and yes, they are turning to dreck in an effort to attract readers. But that isn't anything new. There was a golden period of journalism in the mid-to-late 20th Century, but certainly prior to that, newspapers weren't particularly reliable, honest, or well written. They did publish a lot of words, of course.

The AP movie critic(s) probably won't do a very good job with 500 words. But that isn't a failing of the words; it's the failing of the critic(s). Have you ever read Hemingway's six-word story? ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.")

There are potential advantages to a 500-word review in an internet world. Those readers who want it short (and they make up the majority) can get it. But any reviewer worth his/her salt can have a blog for elaborating on the review, read by those who like more depth. And an advantage to the blog is that those who love discussion have a forum for discussion with like-minded readers. If the critic is so inclined, s/he can engage with the readers in a way never before possible.

Oh wait. You already knew this... ;-)

Ebert: Oh, you can write a review in 400 words. It's more the idea of the limit that bothers me. AP has a good critic in Christy Lemire. Why put her on a leash with every single review?

>>

Newspapers and wire services have always had leashes. The leashes used to be longer than 500 words for critics and columnists, but the leashes were still there. I've read a lot of writers who should have been on much shorter leashes - but that's another discussion...

Of course I don't think a good critic/writer should be limited to 500 words! But the news business as we know it is really struggling to survive, and this move apparently is something that the AP believes will help it survive. I approve of survival over death. So. Five hundred words is better than no words, and a lot can be done with those words, in the right hands. The rest can be done on a blog. You can reach a lot more people with a blog than with a newspaper, people who are specifically and enthusiastically interested in what you write.

I miss you and Roeper; heck, I still miss you and Gene. Things change. Newspapers aren't what they were 20 years ago, and much of that is due to the internet and the internet generation. But - I can click on http://www.world-newspapers.com/ and read newspapers from all over the world any time I want. This is also because of the internet. Fair exchange? Is an apple better than an orange?

Liz

Ebert: You know, you really can't reach more people with a blog than with a newspaper. This blog has more readers than most, maybe a lot more, but my daily average is a fraction of the Sun-Times circulation.

I was talking about this very phenomenon with my grandparents the other day, and they went as far as to say that overall, apart from film criticism, the quality of writing among the elitist newspapers, such as the New York Times, is in decline. Would you agree?

Ebert: I think it's improving, freer, more adventurous, more first-person, less formulaic.

>>

Not everyone who reads the S-T reads movie reviews. Maybe not even most? (I really have no idea.)

In any case, you can reach more people with this blog than you can with a defunct newspaper/wire service. That's where the industry is heading, unfortunately. Whatever rear guard action it takes to save it, I have to favor, though the carnage may hurt my heart.

Ummm, got a little serious there. Apologies.

Liz

Dear Mr.Ebert.

I'm a long time reader and your point about the "Snuffing out" of intelligence (Did i spell that right?), is spot on. I'm Canadian, so I don't get your paper, so I make do with your website, and to tell the truth, you're right. The newspapers up here have stayed true to their form and provided news, in a thoughtful way, though the entertainment section seems to expand monthly. Reading here about the state of your papers, just makes me sad, and I wish some editors and bosses down there would just get with the silent majority and put some more "Thoughtful" pieces everywhere, you know, just to let us know that society hasn't been given over to the one-hit wonders.

I generally do give a hoot about what you guys say, though most of my friends just say "i don't listen to critics because they keep giving bad reviews to good movies". I Check on your site every Friday just to see your take On the latest films, and past ones that my family is thinking of getting. I also check on metacritic. My opinion of you guys/gals is that you're simply making a recommendation for how to spend our hard-earned money, and you're right a good deal of the time.

I dream of becoming a film director one day, and reading reviews is one-step to learning how to become one, learning where I could go wrong, where i could get away with certain things (Should it be a nuclear weapon as a crisis point, or just a simple bank robbery?).

I hope to read one of your reviews, of my films.

Ebert: When we're at the Toronto festival, Chaz and I have all four Toronto papers delivered to our hotel room: The National Post, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and and Toronto Sun. What a bonanza! All of them covering the festival like crazy. Canadians in general read more than we do, maybe because the educational system is better.

The 500 limit does have a certain rationale. The stand and stare days seem gone. Time is the thing. As a person who relishes reading,many books I would regret dying withut having read--Paradise Lost,Faust,Dante----remain decoration pieces on a shelf and will remain so .The purchasing compulsively continues.

At the age of 55 ,with a gap of 20 years to account for,I realised movies were more time effective and starting with the BBC Shakespeare ( my gratitude to this series is most profound)and jumping into the Godfather,I plunged into a cinema based crash course to catch up with times,relying largely on your judgement,For that again thanks.

Even your reviews of classics I rarely get to read properly.I start with your "reccommendatory paragraph" , see the movie ,and then scan the whole review to consolidate the experience,along with a wiki or two.

But though the woods of cinema and literature are "lovely,dark and deep" I am ever aware of the sand slipping and the fish that remain to be fried.

500 words is a convenient size.To paraphrase Othello, it is the time ,the time, my soul....

I am 40 (*sigh*) and I have known for more than half my life that I lacked the celebrity-tropism that most people seem to have. For instance, I don't know what Britney Spears looks like (except that she's a pretty young white girl whose hair is not black) nor what she's famous for (music? being pretty? being famous?). I cannot name the members of any music group that has ever been, apart from the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkle. Color-blind people must feel this way.

I'm also intelligent, or at least intellectual, and a firm believer in the random page test-- open a book to a random page, and if the first thing you see is muddy prose, flawed logic or anything else you dislike, throw the book away. Check two or three pages if you like, to be sure. There might -- might be some gold in there, but you'll have to sift through plenty of dross to find out, you won't get that time back, and better books beckon. (For this reason, and others, I fully support your "8 minute" review.)

Put these two together, and maybe you'll understand why I rarely watch TV news or read any part of a newspaper. After I filter out the uninformed opinions, irrelevant quotes and mushy text (or audio/visual glitter) there is so little left that I can't justify the expense of time. You'll also understand why celebrity stories, celebrity-story sections/segments, and celebrity-story shows/publications are of absolutely no interest to me.

And yet there is a narrow vein of gold there, and I think it illustrates an important point. Interviews with artists (e.g. actors, directors, musicians) can be wonderful, provided they're talking about their art and maybe their lives (which may be the same). I have read and seen wonderful interviews with Katherine Hepburn, Steve Martin, Charleton Heston, Christopher Reeve, Sting, Yo-yo Ma, and actors I like but whose names I can't remember (see paragraph 1). I've also seen a few seconds of an interview with Adam Sandler, and that was as much as I could stand; if that man has anything going on upstairs, he hides it well. Katherine Hepburn's love life is a very touching story, and it enriches the experience of watching her and Spencer Tracy on film, but I do not care whom Brad Pitt was seen with last night.

I am not interested in seeing Tom Hanks eat a sandwich; I would be interested in hearing his take on eating a sandwich in character.

Quote Ebert: When we're at the Toronto festival, Chaz and I have all four Toronto papers delivered to our hotel room: The National Post, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and and Toronto Sun. What a bonanza! All of them covering the festival like crazy. Canadians in general read more than we do, maybe because the educational system is better.

I am British (and my girlfriend is Canadian - and smarter than me!) and I live in California. It seems to me that people in most countries I have visited read more than the average American. I agree that the educational system plays a part, but so do parents and the entire culture. I fear that I may be leading you off track so I will stop and simply report that I've watched, downloaded and READ your musings for years. It has been and increasingly is, a pleasure.

Thanks to you - and Chaz!

Rob

Mr. Ebert,
I agree that the limitations imposed by newspapers is wrong and the dumbing down of America is so prevalent that the intelligent people have no choice but to flee to the Internet with others who wish to discuss things like film in an intelligent manner with word counts be damned. So many of these so called critics haven't seen a lot of the classics of film and whne you discuss movies with people who have never seen, for example, Cool Hand Luke, you just want to scream and stop talking to them right then and there because they don't have the proper background to be discussing certain types of film at all.
Keep doing this sir and I will continue to read it.
Have an excellent day.
Sincerely,
Douglas Waltz

Dear Roger,

It seems that there is a bigger problem looming ahead other than the cri de coeur that you have set forth in this blog.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html?_r=1

No offense to your Indian readers, but I find this piece of news very disheartening. We are told to keep up with the times, but it makes me wonder if, given the chance, we would also outsource our very souls (seeing that the very idea of it actually sounds preposterous).

Thanks, Roger. I've been a newspaper writer/editor for 32 years now (in a city 90 miles and one inferiority complex north of yours). For two years now I've noticed the car is out of gas and rolling slowly toward a full stop. I've been a tad more insulated, being in Sports -- which is a whole 'nother branch growing briskly off your "CelebCult" tree.

When things started falling apart, the bosses -- like Kevin Bacon during the riot in Animal House -- told everyone to remain calm. They said we would win out because we were the experts at gathering and presenting good, solid, intelligent information. Reporting, writing, comprehending. That's what would keep us going, no matter the format.

I'll be damned: The newspaper bosses were dead wrong. Has that EVER happened before???

The culture shift -- the CelebCult, as you say -- has changed the entire playing field. More and more, people no longer seek out and cherish real, solid, balanced information. It's so rare in our media world these days that it's jarring and off-putting. Fox News uses the words "fair and balanced" as code for "conservatives, you will agree with our point of view."

What people want -- what they have been trained to want -- is two-fold:
1. Something that's titillating or funny or embarrassing to others, damn the news value. Everybody remembers that the elder Bush vomited on somebody. Few remember where it was. Nobody remembers why he was there. But Chocolate Rain and LOLcatz and what's up Britney's skirt? Everyone knows.
2. If it's a serious issue, they don't want an honest stab at the truth. They want "information" they AGREE with. That's why message boards and talk radio -- both righty and lefty -- have such a stronghold. It's why critics are going extinct. It's why blogs are gaining in popularity (no lefties read a right-wing blog, or at least they would never give credence to a valid point found therein).

It's as if we've all suddenly grown so brilliant that we no longer need to put forth effort to comprehend both sides of a vital situation. Because our current point of view is perfect and any influence to the contrary is blasphemy and anyone who thinks otherwise should be shot on sight, yee-hah.

As a result, pure information -- reporting, writing -- has lost its value. Idiot bosses reacted by doing what works now (gossip in the paper or on the TV news), thus speeding the whirlpool along. Our reason for being has been pissed away. Perez Hilton is rich and I'm about to take the next buyout. It's NOT survival of the fittest. It's survival of the most popular. There's a difference -- one is long-term, the other is short-term.

The information business is in the late stages of a Ponzi scheme that will eventually be crushed by the weight of its own stupidity. God help us when we eventually have to deal with the government, the educational system and the society we will have brought upon ourselves when that happens. We are the dumbest geniuses in the history of the world.

On the other hand, screw it. I mean, isn't Samantha Ronson's gal-pal a hottie?

I am not sure it is as simple as wanting to pander to the lowest denominator. I think that newspapers are gasping to fight against the very thing this blog represents - free community exchange. The Sun times has had the foresight to host this discussion, but there it doesn't fit within its print pages. It costs me nothing to come and read this. They get some ad revenue but not as much as my daily subscription to the paper. You might be interested in Bruce Sterling's rant about the effects of Craigslist and Wikipedia on traditional media outlets.

http://www.listeningtowords.com/lecture.php?id=885

This proves what I've been thinking the last few years....newspapers are going to kill themselves in their print/paper form and will eventually appear strictly on the internet. As a print journalist major, this kind of news sickens me. There is so much emphasis on AP style and to obey it, we never stop to think what the hell we are actually writing. This celebrity news industry (also called the news industry) is for amateurs. It doesn't take any kind of talent to talk about what a celebrity was wearing or whom they were walking with, it does take talent to describe a man saving a woman's life from a burning building, to describe a movie that touched you emotionally, and the sound of gunfire over in Iraq, to have the reporter be so talented that they what they write gives the reader a visual image from strictly words is what real talent in journalism or any other form of writing really is. Leave the celebrity news and sitings to YouTube and let's do some real journalism, and yes film critics are a part of that real journalism.

The lowest common denominator rules the day. When television programmers create visual sludge like TMZ, which begins with a meeting of paparazzi planning their daily stalking fests, then proceeds to show us "Seen with's" or "Spotted with's" as you mentioned, we are witnesses to the lowest common denominator of so-called entertainment.
When "ET" gives us 8 minutes of teases for a 30 second non-event like the missing navel story, one must have a tabla rosa mentality to sit and watch day after day. Yet they obviously do.
And it is sad.
Celebrities who don't play the game are crucified for it. Others bear it with obvious incredulity and anger management.
When Jay Leno does his street interviews with average people, it is scary to face the reality of our dumbed down public. Basically, the majority of our people are clueless cattle, being led around by the latest fads and rock stars being fed to them by the cable and broadcast networks.
And yet, while talented newspaper critics become extinct as their vessels do the same, what we have emerging in the new world of the internet are the next generation of gifted individuals with the power of the written word.
The unintelligent masses will continue to be fed by the networks, while the computer generation will continue to evolve and find places for the true literate to express themselves.
Your blog is an excellent example of that, as is www.ain'titcool.com and others.
Rest assured, those that are intelligent will seek out like minds online, as the rest of society blindly follows the rock star jumping off the cliff.

Jason Marcel: Women, gays, and teens?
I think I'm with you on 1/3 of this, fence-sitting on another 1/3, and in total opposition to other 1/3.
Teens I can buy. The studios churn out monumentally stupid movies aimed at this demographic every weekend. Women, maybe. I think it is a big leap to write that studios aim their products solely to one gender.
Gays, though?!? I can think of more movies that feature a hooker with a heart of gold, more movies that feature an older cop near retirement who gets a new partner who is heavy on instinct but naive on how the system really works, more movies with a teacher who inspires his students to be themselves, more movies that feature cars smashing into fruitcarts, etc.. than I can movies that feature positive gay characters that are anything more than being the gay character.

I welcome the return of the thumb! It's been gone for too long.

But why, oh why, have you appropriated the other thumb? You never gave a movie "two thumbs up" before. One of the thumbs was yours, the other belonged to Siskel/guest/Roeper (later Roeper +1).

As nothing much else of consequence is going on in the world right now, I had plenty of time to get worked up about this.

Ebert: I am impatiently awaiting the website's full implementation of the online thumb system. In theory, Two Thumbs Up® means "I'm sure Gene would have liked it," and one thumb up and one down says "I think we would have split." I do not implicate Richard, because he can vote with his own thumb and will, on our forthcoming show. But the graphics on the system have been inexplicably delayed. All the films will continue to get stars.

The increasing diminishing of film critics really saddens me, as does the overall direction modern film criticism is taking. I consistently try to read intelligent reviews like yours, Sir Roger or Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune to get a detailed analysis of not only what is right or wrong with the film but also try to get in the mind of a filmmaker and see what could have been done better or not done better. So many reviews I read, however, in print or on TV just use descriptive words like "flat," "uninspired," or "dull" without properly backing them up (which perhaps explains why the people feel that the reviews can stay at 500 words). I think the job of a real film critic is to not only gage the pop culture but also to inform and inspire them how to find true artistry in cinema (like a visual interpreter, if you will). As you rightly said in one of your past reviews, "All good art is about something deeper than it admits." I really hope the masses perk up and protest before the celebrity culture really causes the papers to self-destruct.

I always watch John Hughes movies when they come on television--even, in repitition.

I never thought I would see a movie be more accurately prophetic than "Network", but I'm ashamed to say that "Idiocracy" will probably end up having it beat. My wife and I have earned a total of four college degrees between us, and now it's too late for us to safely reproduce because we've both been concentrating on our careers. Meanwhile, the younger people in our neighborhood who do have kids can't be bothered to discuss current events unless they have to do with Ashton, Justin, Britney, or Lindsay. Oh, and don't get 'em started on Brangelina, or the "conversation" will never end. They voted for Obama, not because of any of his stated values and objectives, but because he's a good-looking dude, and the other guy with the white hair was just a mean old man. They couldn't care less what happened in Mumbai last week, but this afternoon they'll be up in arms about how some young "actress" dissed somebody else who's famous only for her famousness while clubbing over the weekend.

Yes, this is a great nation, and its citizens have the right to be as stupid as they want to be. I just wish they didn't get so much encouragement.

I'm not one given to dire pronoucements of doom, but I fear it's just a matter of time before the answer to "Can I have a drink of water?" will be "Water? Like in the toilet?"

Much respect to you, Mr. Ebert. You are among my favorite film critics, and your site is the first I go to when I want to know whether a film (new or old) is worth seeing. I'd rather like to become a professional film reviewer myself, but I fear my blog is as far as that will ever get.

I agree with you; all this fascination with celebrity has become destructive to our society. I still for the life of me cannot figure out why shows like "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" or "The Hills" exist. Don't we have better ways of spending our time, money, energy?

Maybe it's just a phase, right? ... Right?

Damn... one thing you can't do with newspapers is make it disappear with the click of a button like I did just now before I finished my comment... LOL.

Just one final thought: if we're going to be consuming more informationn via the web, could there be some traditional thinking in web design? Newspapers have narrow columns to make reading easier on the eye. But everything on the web almost always runs from the extreme left of the screen to the extreme right. I loved reading all of the above, but man, after a while, it does strain your eyes...

Keep writing and keep sharing. And I say that to everyone!

It's true that new media has hastened the demise of the newspaper, and in extension, the demise of printed film criticism. My question is, in our new electronic universe where everyone has a voice and an opinion, how does the professional "voice" survive? Waiting tables maybe? I don't think blogging will cut it in the long term.

Though it's a sorry state of affairs, it has a facet that shines with excellence - the diminishing quality of newspapers drives those that want criticism somewhere else.

After all, the French New Wave was a response to the shoddy quality of big studio films, right?

Yes, I've stopped reading newspapers, but I've only ramped up my reading!

I had the task some time ago of reading through the editions of a local Irish newspaper from 1917-18. Because of the Defence of the Realm Act (Ireland still being under British rule) newspapers were very restricted in what political news they could report, a huge obstacle in the short years between the 1916 Rising and the declaration of the Republic. The ingenuity with which they overcame this, raiding approved mainstream sources for information and often obtaining items that had slipped through the censor's net, was admirable. It was also edifying to compare the high standard of the news items of the time, even in a small local paper, with the P.R. and soundbytes that pass for news and analysis today. The contrast is very striking.

On the other hand, those were the days in which P.R. was born, and newspapers in general were almost as obsessed with royalty and statesmen as they are with today's celebrities. Woodrow Wilson's domestic affairs were a topic of discussion in the American papers, and one thing completely missed by Neil Jordan's film Michael Collins was the extent to which both he and Éamon de Valera became huge celebrities, de Valera especially so in the U.S. and Collins in England. This was almost certainly relevant to subsequent political events. (Lawrence of Arabia cleverly made use of Lawrence's media status.)

The argument that newspapers are merely answering a demand is nonsense, because of course they are part of a media that deliberately fosters that demand. It is not enough for corporations to survive. They must also make enormous profits.

I have little to add other than the obligitory(though very sincere) thanks to Mr. Ebert for reiterating this problem. I am only begining my foray into serious film viewing, going over older reviews of Eberts, Rosenbaums, and Ray Carney just to name a few.

As for this topic, I have always wondered what the line is between fascination for a stranger via a biography or film, and gossip. Depth, obviously, but the fundamental attraction to tabloids and most documentarys concerning a single person is the same.

I guess the point needs to be made again: The Decline Of The News Media is not new; it's not even news. I hope that the following tale out of the recent past will illustrate. /*/*/ You will recall when the much-respected Carol Marin left her nightly anchor post at Channel 5, citing her indignation at the station management's offer of a commentary post to the much-less-respected Jerry Springer - indignation echoed by all the local "media critics" (none of whom seemed to care, or even to know, that news commentary is what Mr. Springer did for a number of years in Cincinnati before getting his "crazy talk show", as he himself describes it). When Ms. Marin susquently relocated to Channel 2, she made a number of well-intentioned pronouncements about how her 10 o'clock newscast would not be the mixture as before; it would take on stories in depth, steer clear of fluff, and avoid self-serving promotion of CBS network wares. /*/*/ Now fast-forward to the night of the final segment of the first cycle of SURVIVOR, which took up all of CBS's prime time that evening. The series itself had been given coverage in all media commensurate with a genuine breaking news story (including a regular weekly two-page spread in the SUN-TIMES) pretty heady stuff for what was as most a glorified game show. I mean, flying people to the other end of the world and having them perform BEAT THE CLOCK stunts to determine which one would "survive" to win prizes - this is news? Apparently so - because Carol Marin's 10 o'clock news that night was almost completely given over to that last three-hour spasm of SURVIVOR. (As memory serves, they did clear a bit of time at the end for weather and some late sports scores.) It was left to John Calloway to provide the one note of sanity, pointing out "It's a GAME SHOW!" But CBS owns Channel 2, and the home team prevailed - not that it did much good, since most of the viewers switched over to Channel 7, as usual. I wondered then if Ms. Marin realized , as she gave her "new kind of newscast" over to network promotion, that it was the beginning of the end - and that perhaps she had been just a bit hasty in judging Mr. Springer. Maybe she'll write a book about it someday... /*/*/ Looking back over this , I seem to have gotten a little snarkier than I intended, and I'm sorry about that, but I do hope I made the point.

Hi, Roger.

Your blog entry on the death of critics and what the AP is doing to further kill them struck a cord of horror with me at first. But then I realized, is it the AP that is killing critics, or is it really there are very few articulate and sensitive critics.

Roger, I have long enjoyed reading your reviews. While we don't see eye to eye on all movies, the fact that you have a similar taste to mine is not why I read your opinions. You can dislike a movie that I like but speak of it so eloquently that usually I can decide whether I'll like it.

You've introduced me to movies I probably wouldn't have caught without your revies (The Fall and Synecdoche New York come to mind). And you've dismissed movies I've considered brilliant (Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai or Southland Tales come to mind). But you try hard to like movies even if they don't deserve it, and that means that when you do write a review, it's honest and worthy.

Very, very, very (very) few critics are this way. I've come back from movies like "The Happening" excited about what I saw and wondering what the other critics said. I'd hit rotten tomatoes to get lots of reviews, and almost no critics but you liked it. Other movies such as Irreversable or Holy Mountain or whatnot likewise are rarely liked by anyone but you (and me and and a few others).

I'm not convinced that major newspapers and the AP are the death of critics. I think critics in general have been getting shallower and stupider, losing the desire to actually appreciate art and only ever judging by their gut rather than their intellect.

Some movies are very subtle. Those where I think you missed the mark you write that you watched them 3 or 4 times at least trying to appreciate it. How many critics do that? Perhaps just you.

It's a dying art, Roger.

Ebert: Actually, more like two times...then, if it works, more times over the years. I'm not sure a movie can survive if it needs to be seen 3-4 times, although if it deserves to be, that's another matter.

1,200 words and i liked reading them all. i abhor the celeb stalkerazzi and the filth that accompanies the pics.

i also enjoyed this comment of yours: Ebert: Yep. When editors cut, they leave the words but chop the music. The words are the venue, the music is the performance.

i fear our society is falling fast and may never recover the grace, manners and eloquence we once held as a standard. i only know of one man who still opens doors for women. he had to retrain me over several dates. gentlemen are a lost art form, perhaps so follows journalism.

Ebert: Good gravy! Even when I was still limping on a mending hip, I started opening doors for Chaz as soon as I could. And she, being a Lady, graciously accepted, while keeping an arm out in case I fell and busted the other hip.

Wilde: A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.

Plasse: A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the accordion, but chooses not to.

"Idiocracy" was prophetic.

I see this happening in so-called real news as well. I avoided following any political news for 6 months before the election because there was hardly any news about real issues, but who said what about who, who slept with who etc.

A post about Scorcese would be ( if I may plagiarise a word ) a wow!

A few good signs: a friend runs an environmental non-profit for teens and teachers and recently debuted a new redesigned website to a local class of 8th graders. The kids were listless, the teacher said, because they are so saturated with electronic media they would rather go outside and play.

Ricky Gervais' series "Extras" touched on many of the points you made.

A celebrity show, but, it's something: Dancing with the Stars promotes ballroom dancing, and gives very little time to the fluff and much time to the skills involved with the Vienese Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, and much much more.

Sadly only Rupert Murdoch seems to realize that newspapers may not be direct cash cows, but they carry INFLUENCE. Somebody somewhere will figure this out and throw money at their newspaper, pull in great writers, and provide a service to we who are so exhausted from reading 100 blogs everyday. We will be so happy to turn to this new technology printed on parchment and we will be freed from the tyranny of the screen for a few glorious minutes every morning.

I was getting ready to take umbrage at your statements since as a 23 year-old I feel they are aimed at my generation more than any other. However, while meandering the internet in the course of the day, I stumbled (via Wikipedia, bless it's electronic soul) onto this item: http://stateoftheart.popphoto.com/blog/2007/06/nick_ut_exactly.html which tells of the Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Nick Ut, who took one of the most iconic photographs of the Vietnam War, only to have his photograph of a spoiled heiress receive as much press coverage thirty-five years to the day after that indelible Vietnam War picture. I had this unsettling feeling of the cosmos telling me to shut up, and so this is all I will post.

Forgive me if someone's already made this point; there's a lot of verbiage above and I have promises to keep.

It strikes me that there has been no time in history when those at the top of the cultural tree (I don't mean this disparagingly) were not complaining that the barbarians were at the gates. Compare today's newspapers with an issue of (say) the London Times from 1850. You would find it, I suspect, unreadably dense. At the time, the complaints were about the inclusion of lithographic illustrations in the news.

Society is not stupider today than in 1850. Gossips still love gossip, intellectuals still love intellectual discourse. Most like a mixture of both. Where you find your cultural sustenance, and the form that it takes, will inevitably change with the times.

If you seek out evidence of a dumbed-down society, you will find it in spades, as our forefathers did in decades past. And yet here we all are, in a better world than they inhabited. And, I hope, a worse one than our children will inherit.

Thank you Mr. Ebert for recognizing a problem I am facing. I am finished a book on film history due to be published this summer. I think it is an injustice to the art of film, critics, and film buffs, when film is not discussed with the same seriousness given to all the other art forms (painting, music, sculpture, literature). Would one, for instance, discuss and analyze "The Great Gatsby" by commenting on where Fitzgerald was spotted dining with Zelda? But that is exactly what is happening thanks to the lieks of Star magazine and others in that vein. The saddest thing about this new trend you brought up is the mixing of the work of art with the private life of the artist. Of course, elements of their private life should be discussed as long as it contributes to the analysis. Often works can best be analyzed by relating them to the artist's state of mind.
Now here is my problem. I remian determined to make my book a serious and stimulating analysis of the art of film, but often find myself unintentionally falling for celebcult analysis in my writing. But I am fighting that (thanks to help from you Roger) and I hope my book will contribute to a change back to the glory days of film writing.

Ebert: Sadly, at the time, Scott and Zelda were themselves a form of CelebCult, what with dancing in the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel. Celebrities have always been with us. It is said that Dickens and Twain, because of their popularity as speakers, were two of the first.

Let's keep hope alive, one movie at a time: Click on my name to see the film list for a three-week course I'm teaching on "The Gothic in Film." I've managed to find 10 students willing to spend half their term break watching and thinking/writing about movies. We're covering a number of topics related to the Gothic; feel free to visit my site and add your own suggestions and comments--and you don't even have to write the required three 1200-word essays!

Ebert: This are excellent film excellent choices to illustrate the theme, and of course "Citizen Kane" is Gothic to its soul, from the opening shots. "The Dead Zone," often forgotten, is a very good film. What an excellent blog you have overall, and with an obvious regard for b&w. Your students will be fortunate to have you.

The death of the American newspaper film critic, it seems to me, is just a symptom of the death of the American newspaper. Celebrity gossip is cheap. Running syndicated reviews is cheap. And, honestly, if the same movies are running coast to coast, why not run Roger Ebert's review for a few bucks (sorry, Roger) and save the cost of a dedicated film guy?

It's true that the internet changes everything (if you think it's been tough on newspapers, take a look at the music industry), but the daily papers have been an accomplice to their own demise. They spent the 80s and 90s ratcheting up ad rates and gutting their editorial departments in order to maximize profits to a ridiculous degree. What was left was mostly national news and fluff and, if you have an internet connection, you're now pretty well covered on those fronts.

However, I'd argue against the trend as a reflection on society at large. The gossip hounds have always been with us. It's just a lot cheaper to print newspapers for them than for people who want to read journalism or critical thinking.

The good news is, I haven't read a print newspaper in years, and I don't have a hard time finding well-written, insightful film reviews. The writers are there. Only the business models are changing, and I think film criticism is pretty safe. I worry more about local, investigative journalism -- it's a beast that was hunted almost to extinction even back when the newspapers were only worried about profit margins.

Moments of black and white poetry....the Raging Bull walks in as the bulbs smash; the panting train,smoking at the nostrils puffs into the camp in Schindler's List;the mesmeric No Tresspassing sign that opens and the smoke emerging obliquely at the end of Kane.... three only ones in Movieland..... black and white is to color what poetry is to prose......in India it was Barsaat and Suchitra Sen's Devdas.....Ray apart....

Here's the problem, as I see it. There are two competing philosophies regarding culture and its possible decline, and both are in play among those who deign to talk about such things - I think there are about 35 of them.

The first idea is that every new birth of culture will seem like horror, inquisition, and leaden souffle to those enamored of the older, receding culture they are used to. But that will give way as the older generation's bodies do the same, and each new culture would be another startling facet of growth and rebirth. (i.e., once everyone who votes on legality in Washington has smoked pot, it will no longer be stigmatized as the stuff of "jazz cigarettes", and everyone will be a lot happier.)

The second idea is that cultures rise and fall, generations distinguish themselves or they don't, and nobody said the good times weren't gonna end some day. Ray Davies asked a long time ago, "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", and I think the reason he never got an answer is because it was all to depressing to admit.

While the first idea probably is quite appealing to those who have birthed, encouraged, and are currently rolling around in this new culture of knowingly lazy, shallow and hateful thought, that second idea doesn't niggle at the back of their brains as much as it ought to. To people my age and ten years younger, this exposed-vagina, hate-all-celebrities-because-they-are-famous-and-you-are-not vibe is the clear, ultimate truth that older fingers scraped away at but never saw. (I worked for E! for years... you could say I spent time in this culture's rancid, festering womb ticking off days in the sludge on the fleshy walls)

For the WW2 generation, their Boomers must have seemed to have been slouching towards Bethlehem with bad intent, birthing a culture of shattered morays, race-mixing, etc. They were wrong, as it is indeed possible to BE wrong about such things (just as, essentially, it is also possible to be right.) The burgeoning culture they feared turned out to be the cherry blossom of their efforts, an American peak that I truly mourn not having been a valid part of (I was born in '73, just at the tail end of the last Golden Age.)

But I think things like counter-cultures and youth revolutions occur only once in a long while, not once every generation - so my generation had to deal with the fact that we simply got a raw deal when it came to the zeitgeist. We didn't get Elvis, the Beats, The Beatles, Kubrick, etc. We got warmed-over left-overs, or even worse, we got the 80s, the lowest of the low in terms of significant artistic cultural output. John Hughes is not Nick Ray, Duran Duran was not David Bowie, and on and on we go from there.

And what did this lead to? Not a generation inspired to mark their time with an equally vibrant culture, but instead a group of knuckleheads (and I'm right in there) who could only cling to rule #1 (see above), and assume that their parents' brayings about the 60s was a bunch of idealistic nonsense, and that every generation must have felt the same about their glory days, and that we would, too. (Indulge me this addendum: Just because the flower-power dream was too fragile and sweet an idea to survive aging and billy clubs, that does not make it a bad dream to have had in the first place. I look at footage of that crowd at Woodstock, and I can't imagine there was ever a time when enough people agreed about something upbeat. To judge our parents for not achieving Utopia on Earth is a little bit of sour grapes, coming from a generation whose most outrageous dreams involved faking concern for Ethiopia in order to score more ass.)

But as the 80s died slowly, and the 90s sort of imitated their limp, it became clearer and clearer that there were no more John, Paul, George, and Ringos waiting to explode. We had only the echoes of that great, inspired era. Why was it great and inspired? What made it so? Elvis's hips? Who knows? Do those of us who loved it or live it blow it out of proportion? Take a listen to RUBBER SOUL and then try to find something as vibrant today. Or watch DR. STRANGELOVE - it's a little better than TROPIC THUNDER, isn't it?

So we soured. We got used to commercialism, to being hustled and marketed to, and then we committed spiritual suicide and sin and began to assume that ALL enthusiastic fervor was simply hype, that ALL things could only be bought and marketed, that only underground things could be true. This may seem sensible in our era of breakfast toys and edible action figures, but it's hard on the soul.

This, then, leads to the idea that only one's close friends can be trusted, that only one's close friends are even human, and that everyone else is to be hated, feared, dismissed, or thought of as simply soldiers in some pre-paid hype machine. This is why, as the years went by, my cries of "But Ebert gave it four stars!" were met with "Oh, those critics just get paid off to say what they say, it's all just hype!" This is why your friends told you to go see GHOST and nobody told you to go see SHORT CUTS, and this is why we are where we are, and this is why critics are losing the shaky spot on the faltering ground they've had for even the last decade. It's not their fault.

But you know what? The worse it gets, the more vile the tone of the culture gets, the more we hate Nicole Kidman because she's rich and because she's been on the cover of too many magazines (ignoring her estimable talent), the more we select celebs to focus on simply to feel superior to, well... the more all that happens, then the more the true believers (that's you guys on this blog, I think) dig in and prepare to fight the goodest fight (intentional, that typo), the "fight for love and glory" that I know gets Roger humming.

The less of us there are, the stronger we get, and the more open that stage is for someone who understands that heart and soul and intellect belong on the same plate, not parsed to different moments in life. The more dull-eyed and insincere the culture gets, the louder the hunger pangs for sincerity and warmth roar. So maybe the next generation comes back fighting, full of soul and fire and intelligent, upbeat ideas. And maybe my generation ends up a footnote, like the generation after the Civil War.

All I know is, I can't recommend RACHEL GETTING MARRIED to anyone I know, even though it's one of the best movies of the year, and that's a problem. Because everyone I know (my age, at least) has their eyebrows raised at any peculiarity, and they've had their interesting bits and thoughts sanded off by this ugly new culture. But again, it's all just the setting of the stage for a new rebirth in some distant land of ideas.

In the micro point to this article I will say that there was a time when filmmakers and film critics had a dialogue. Pauline Kael, for one, was a critic who's views on film making have inspired and informed many prominent directors and writers. Now critics are seen as either enemies of art or pushovers who cam be counted on for a positive blurb on the movie poster. The decline of critics, I believe, started when studio found a way to exploit them. The mass proliferation of amateur film critics on the web has had a disastarous effect as well. Dilatants are the enemy of art and artful criticism. For every A.O Scott or Roger Ebert we have 20 Harry Knowles, who is self-referential to the point of parody (every review starts with 200 words about some childhood fixation or his wife). Another part of the decline is people's perception of what it is that good critics do, which is not just to praise or pan but to give perspective. To put that film in a larger context. The application of starred reviews was, I think, the beginning of the end of serious film writing. When a review begins with an arbitrary rating why continue to read.

I believe this point was made very elegantly in a movie called "Broadcast News."

Having read your column, and many of the comments here, Roger, I have little to add except my voice to the chorus of those recommending Idiocracy to you highly. When I finished reading your post, I searched for your review of it, only to find that there wasn't one! As a denizen of the apotheosis of contemporary America, Las Vegas, I can genuinely see the gradations in our deteriorating, idiocratic society, and I have little hope that that will be reversed by having adults in charge of the government. Quite simply, the nation has been utterly and, in my opinion irreversibly, infantilized.

This is why newspaper film critics are dying: No one thinks to put in the time to learn and educate themselves now, in order to better enjoy films in the future, cause no one considers or cares for their future.

I know this is going to sound wrong, but about the one thumb up and one thumb down where you say think you and Gene might have split--well, first of all I like it a lot and I know it is the next best thing: but how do you do this? Was he more forgiving than you, for just one example?

I have been opening doors for ladies since I was a little kid, and I don't know where I learned it. But I remember when I was about 4 or 5,i followed my mom outside pleading with her if I could go with her to wherever she was going, which didn't go well and the car was facing our apartment where I was stopped and was standing, waiting for her to look back, and then I raised up both of my middle fingers in the air high as can be and she said "hey, where did you learn that!?". I still don't know where I got that from, but I had some weird pride about me while doing it. We should be passing on the excitement of education to our children, not trying to turn our kids into people we want to have a beer with, they may become our president...malicious, bribe-taking presidents with an administration that takes Saudi money that leads to us getting into a recession.

"It's not how good you feel, it's how good you look." I once had to write a user guide. My boss wrote a red line through every "use" in the guide and told me to replace them with "utilize". Why? Because it looked more professional. Not because it WAS more professional, but because it LOOKED more professional. Measuring the values of something by how substantial it is takes time and mental effort. Measuring the value of something by how much money it made you is much quicker. As I write this I notice that you have 230 responses to your blog. The guy who wrote about Britney Spears' attempted comeback got 300. He must be a better writer than you.

Roger...

I just re-read my comments from a few days ago about Richard Knox, detective fiction and the talentless setting rules and limitations for the talented. Now I feel bad about myself. I hope I didn't offend you or hurt you or anything...I wasn't implying anything about yourself or any of your colleagues, but just making a broad generalization.a

"Citizen Kane" is Gothic to its soul, from the opening shots."

What a sentence.Your relation to celluloid verges on carnality, or better said a pure and sacred passion !! A woman is a woman, but some movies are forever.

India was black and beautiful till sixties till gunned and stormed by gaudy color.

The soul of movies is surely BW......the moist rainy Roshomon,for me a contender to Kane....the same directors witch looming in his version of Macbeth....Ozu with his horizontal poetry....the epic grandeur of Sansho the Baillif.....it just couldn't have been done with the arsenals of color....for much of this I blame Mr. Ebert ...

Edgar Allan Poe might have been a great director...

Ebert: Stan Brakhage once gave a lecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago titled "The Cinema of Edgar Allen Poe," in which he described not films based on Poe, but Poe's stories themselves.

Holy Cow, Roger, look no further than the Sun-Times, for a sensationalized product.

Here, sign-up at blogger.com, set up a better (nicer looking at least) blog in 10 minutes and use google to sell ads.

It might be noble to go down with the ship, if the ships' captains weren't cutting entire departments and down-sizing editorial while maintaining their salaries, swanky positions and titles.

Newspapers are not "losing their quality," they're just returning to their roots. Which is worse, boring blurbs about true trivialities, or clever and entertaining falsehoods? Yes, for a brief portion of the Twentieth Century newspapers started to approach being a useful media, but throughout their early history as well as now, they thoroughly earned Jefferson’s accusation: "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."

For years, Jay Leno has run his "Jaywalking" segment on the Tonight Show. For those who have not seen it, he goes out on the street and questions passers-by about basic knowledge: American history (not tough stuff, but, "Who is the Vice-President?"), geography, grammar, simple math. Most people can't answer the questions at all, and some give answers so inane it is actually painful to watch. Granted, I'm sure they pull out all of the stupid answers for broadcast and leave the tape of those who actually CAN answer on the editing room floor, but there is still a large number of really ignorant people out there.
I know this segment is intended to be funny, but it is impossible for me to watch it without almost becoming physically ill. When and why did stupidity become a point of pride?

Roger,

Thanks for your kind words concerning my blog; here's my favorite teaching-Kane experience: Knox College offers a summer program, "College for Kids," for which I teach "How to watch a Movie." The students range from fourth to eighth grades, so it's tricky to keep all of them engaged. (But what a joy it is to hear children laughing at Chaplin, almost a century away and still winning them over.) We took the plunge last summer and watched Citizen Kane.

During the opening sequence--that deliberately paced approach to Xanadu and the dying Kane--I asked, "What does this remind you of?" and one of littler ones offered, "Looks like Dracula lives there." Who says film isn't transplendent?