Allow me to be the first regular reader of Scanners to welcome Roger Ebert back.

My favorite part of what Ebert does are the Great Movies reviews. He's rarely better than when he's truly excited by something...even a movie he's seen many times.

Just read Ebert's PLANET OF THE APES review, linked through his Heston remembrance. The last line encourages audiences to give it a try: "You have nothing to lower but your brow." That line alone-- smart, witty, tossed off but wonderfully complex -- encapsulates why Roget Ebert is valuable, and why it's nice to have him back.

I share your sentiment, Jim. The TV show was my gateway drug, and Cinemania shoved me right through those gates. I can't go back; his written word is simply too illuminating. Nothing else will do.

Jim,

Something I've been curious about for quite some time and finaly worked up the nerve to ask you: What is your opinion of Richard Roeper? I ask wonder because I notice he's not on your link list of critics, and I never hear you talk about him or refer to him. You also point out here that you never really watched the show anymore after Siskel's departure. I like Roeper because he's.. likable I guess. He's witty and he never seems to condescend to his viewers or his guests. I tend to find some of the films he liked baffling, but then again I never dislike listening to him talk about movies.. even if he's just sitting there on Top Chef. Your thoughts?

JE: I'm really not familiar with Roeper, so I have no thoughts. I caught him briefly on the red carpet before the Oscars (on TV, that is), but that's about it.

What I always liked about Ebert was his ability to impassion people to watch movies. He must get hundreds of emails each day, but when it came to talking about smoething he loved or reccommending a movie to me he would write back with another movie for me to check out.

Ahem..Of course, I meant Roger, not Roget, although one might need the latter to fully describe him. (:

Roger Ebert's "Great Movies: Volume 1," "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," and two or three of his yearly index books were invaluable to me in my formative years.

I was a teenager when I started watching Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel on the local PBS station. I couldn't believe that a show like that would last very long, for two reasons. Firstly, I thought it was so untheatrical that it would bore people. Second, I didn't think there were enough people like me who loved film enough to just watch two guys talk about it for the show to last. Roger's printed reviews were unavailable to me and I had now idea who either of these guys were. I just knew that they liked movies and had seen alot more than I had. Happily I was wrong about the show.

I found myself yelling back at the screen one day and realized that it wasn't important whether I agreed or if someone was "right"; the thing was to think about film as more than just an entertainment, it was art. Looking at it in this way was what Mr. Ebert taught me, and I am happy to say that I am one of many converts.

I am very glad he is back and hope that he knows how much influence he has had on a generation of people who went from being watchers to viewers.

i might add that since accessing roger eberts reviews through this page, it is the bi-weekly great movies that i've come to appreciate the most. his list, like any good list, acted like a map to the history of cinema - pointing me in so many different directions. as i began to watch more and more movies i found that most of what he would add i'd already seen. sometimes i'd be so glad to see a particular film on the list, and other times i'd throw up my hands in disbelief. i would marvel at how he could include such and such movie, but had never put such and such in the list. perhaps my favorite entry was "forbidden games", a movie that i had seen and loved already. i never expected him to include it, but i was glad to see it there, knowing that with it's inclusion (and a recent criterion release) it would be discovered by many others.

I have a question for you Jim,this is unrelated to the topic but since we're talking about a movie critic and you are one I would like to know what do you think of Richard Roeper?I've read somewhere recently that he is not exactly loved by other movie critics and I was wondering about your opinion on that.

Ps:Welcome back Roger Ebert.

Ok,I saw now that someone else has asked you about Roeper,sorry for repeating the question

Mike,

Your comment about how you didn't think the format of Siskel and Ebert would last reminds me of one of the first movies I saw solely because of their recommendation: "My Dinner with Andre". Just two guys talking in a restaurant? Well, they were passionate so I gave it a try. It definitely changed my mind about what a movie *had* to be.

I do hope everyone here who loves Roger and praises him so much - remembers that the next time they are trashing American Beauty and Life Is Beautiful, and others of that ilk. Since, after all, Roger gave 4s to both.

One of the biggest things I like about Roger is, he's not afraid to call a popular movie a good movie. I thought American Beauty and Life is Beautiful were tremendous movies on many levels - not just simplistic tripe or melodramatic, or whatever other pejoratives people ascribe to them. They consequently became popular and won awards. So what.

I discovered Roger's writing while reading the wire, working at the newspaper that employs me. I had only previously seen the TV show, and I had only previously been a casual movie fan. I started wanting to see the movies he wrote about. I started realizing there was so many good movies out there that no one else ever heard of -- even ones that had big names in them.

I came to love Roger because we were so often on the same wavelength, and because I flat out loved his writing.

He's the direct reason why I love and study movies.

I think Roger Ebert is a huge touchstone in many people's deapening of their appreciation of film. When I first picked up his great movies book at age 13 or so it was like a new world opening up. He articulates perfectly the way I felt about films I had loved my whole life, and films I have since grown to love as I have seen more movies. No doubt he and Siskel were truly two of a kind. And if you can I urge everyone to dig up the article Ebert wrote after Siskel's passing. Truly touching.

Okay, I would only say this since you brought it up in your final paragraph. But I don't think anyone particularly likes the show anymore. The chemistry is practically nonexistent. Should Roger Ebert ever come back I think you would be a better fit. I don't think I'm alone in that thinking. The show is just boring now, and without Ebert there it is damn near unwatchable.

I certainly mean no disrespect to Richard Roeper. Who I think for the most part does his job and does it well: he directs people what is or isn't worth your money when going to see a movie on a Friday night. But I don't think Richard Roeper has opened many people's eyes to great film like Siskel and Ebert did.

No one could be happier than I that Roger Ebert is back at the helm. Thanks to Roger, I think about film. I have realized it's not just entertainment, but it's art when it's at its best. Roger makes me think--and he makes me want to see films I had never heard of, with directors who are unfamiliar (well, not any more!) and actors I have come to love. He's not a snob about film--and he's willing to say some films are degrading and vile. Roger Ebert has made me want to get a Master's in film. And I find myself evaluating everything I see, hoping he has done the same so I can compare.

But no one can compare to Roger Ebert--he has singlehandedly made a generation take film seriously. He has taught us all that the movie theater is also a Temple of Cinematic Art--and we're all the richer for it.

Thanks, Roger, and welcome back to your adoring millions!

The one thing I wonder, and which I'm okay not having an answer for, is if Ebert posts here under a pseudonym.

Curiosity that I don't want spoiled.

JE: Sorry to spoil, but no way. Roger reads the site but respects its independence and doesn't meddle. And if he had something to say -- here or anywhere -- he'd stand by it, not hide behind a pseudonym. To do otherwise would be a violation of journalistic ethics that Roger would never commit.

As much as I admire Roger, I am certainly not going to be dissuaded from liking or disliking a film based on his review. And I doubt he would want anyone to be. I have despised, truly deeply despised, many films that Roger has given 4 stars to. Quite frankly, his picks for "Best Film" of the year the last three years have been among my LEAST favorite of each year.

Conversely, Roger has trashed some of my favorite films. To me, his most inexplicable review is his savaging of Dead Man, this from a reviewer who has long championed Jim Jarmusch. Ebert sees fit to include "Dead Man" in his "I Hated Hated Hated This Film" book - for me it's one of the ten greatest films ever made. And oh yeah, that soundtrack that Ebert describes as sounding like a man repeatedly dropping a guitar - it's the one soundtrack, in fact the one album of any kind, I have listened to more than any other.

And none of that detracts from the fact that I consider Roger Ebert one of my favorite critics, and credit him (as do many others) with fueling the early stages of my cinephilia. When I decided to get "serious" about movies, I printed out his Great Movies list and started watching as many as I could. Through Roger, I discovered Werner Herzog, now one of the primary influences on my own brand of cinephilia. Through Roger, I discovered "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" and later a world of Fassbinder. Through Roger, I discovered Satyajit Ray and even Luis Bunuel.

Roger's work has influenced me as much as any critic, and I wish him all the best. Even if he likes Crash, and doesn't get Dead Man and, for that matter, can't recognize the true genius of Pink Flamingos!

"I do hope everyone here who loves Roger and praises him so much - remembers that the next time they are trashing American Beauty and Life Is Beautiful, and others of that ilk. Since, after all, Roger gave 4s to both."

So now if we love, respect and praise a critic, his opinion is infallible, and we must either agree with it, or be proven hypocrites? I don't think so.

Ebert is one of my heroes. He also loved some terrible movies- Crash, for instance- and missed the boat on some masterpieces.

While I'm glad he appreciates some films I love and find to be underappreciated (the recent King Kong, Joe Versus the Volcano, Mumford), I know he's also liked some films I've loved much less than I have, or even hated them. These things happen.

But to love a critic isn't to love every single review of his. I will not sit through Bagger Vance again. I just won't.

I think Roger likes, and especially, loves, a whole lot more movies then I do. I don't hold this against him--quite the contrary, I envy him. I would say in general that, for him, if a movie isn't bad it's good, whereas for me, if a movie isn't good it's bad. I feel mediocre is a waste of my time but he loves being in that dark theater and searches for the aspects that will appeal to some particular taste; this makes him invaluable as a critic even though I'm probably interested in about 15-20% of his 2 1/2 or 3 star films. Whatever the star rating, his text rarely steers me wrong. There's just that "Raising Arizona" thing that still eats at me...

Anyway, welcome back, Roger. Or Robert Gere, or Bert Ogerer, or Tor Gerbeer, or whatever pseudonym you might be using.

I remember how my mother used to choose movies from the video store based on the "two thumbs up" on the front of the box. I was young at the time and, for whatever reason, my parents let me watch whatever they were watching unless something really nasty happened (which means I've still seen all of "Salvador" except one scene where something awful--to this day I do not know what--happens). In any event, I hated it when she took Ebert's recommendations because, I mean, they were so boring. I was like 8 though so please forgive me. Dry English comedies and German dramas were not my thing. Long story short, a few years later I was grateful for Ebert's recommendations and he was one of the first websites I frequented when my family got online in the mis-1990s. I still remember (fondly) the atrocious turquoise, purple, and white color scheme. And, yeah, I find myself disagreeing with Roger a lot more frequently now than when I was in my late teens, but I still love reading his reviews and I still use his Great Movies to search out movies I might have missed (like a lot of other people here I learned of Fassbinder and Ozu and Malle through him, for which I'll always be grateful). He's a fantastic writer and he's a fantastic writer about film. I'm forever interested in why he liked a move that I found particularly loathsome (Mississippi Burning? Really? Four stars?). Or why he dismissed something I thought was excellent. He doesn't change my mind but he's fairly persuasive and has occasionally come close. I'm so glad he's back and doing well.

The problem with Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, A.O. Scott, John Simon, Jim Emerson, etc. is they, like the rest of us non-critics, are capricious creatures, whose opinions are formed not only by scholarly analysis, but personal idiosyncrasies, pet peeves, and prejudice. Whim.

Anybody who writes a series of film reviews, whether published or otherwise, will eventually find contradictions in their conclusions, if they bother to reread their reviews at all.

For example Roger Ebert is morally offended by "Wolf Creek" yet gives "The Devil's Rejects" 3 stars. Both are about vicious murderers who kill screaming, begging innocents for fun. Neither are very good films, but at least “Wolf Creek” doesn’t snigger at the terror and mayhem like Rob Zombie’s inept and disgusting jokey horrorshow. In “Wolf Creek,” the stalking and killing is presented in a straightforward fashion, raw, and serious. “The Devil’s Rejects” shows the same brutality, except it giggles like a pervert at it.

Yet Ebert, back in 1986, wanted his terror, without a side of campiness. In his 1-star (!) review of “Blue Velvet” he displays shock and dismay at the psychological and physical abuse and goes on to say, “But Blue Velvet surrounds them with a story that's marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots. The director is either denying the strength of his material or trying to defuse it by pretending it's all part of a campy in-joke.”

Another example would be in Jim Emerson’s thoughtful analysis of horror films:

“In his playful rumination on all-things-horrific, Danse Macabre, Stephen King described the self-defeating psychological mechanism that's built into our response to most horror movies, where veiled threats must eventually be made more-or-less explicit. For example: after mounting apprehension about the fear we are about to confront, somebody eventually has to respond to the scratching sound at the door and throw it open -- only to reveal, before our terrified eyes ... a ten-foot-bug! And no sooner do we register that fear -- hairs standing erect on our necks, gooseflesh crawling up our arms -- than we begin assessing and processing it; in an instant, an equal-and-opposite reaction sets in, tinged with disappointment: "Oh," we think. "A ten-foot bug. That I can deal with. I was afraid it was going to be a hundred-foot bug!" No wonder so many horror movies carry with them a slight feeling of deflation the moment that rush of "I survived it!" adrenalin begins to dissipate.”

This quote is very, very true, like what Hitchcock said, suspense is the knowledge of the ticking bomb in the suitcase under the table, not the actual explosion (I’m paraphrasing). Yet the absolute BEST example of a horror movie that transcends this dilemma of the suspense/horror genre is “The Blair Witch Project.” I defy anyone to name me a more primal fear delivered by any other horror film with a malevolent boogeyman, serial killer, zombie, mutant, any scary movie that eventually shows you what the terrorizing force is. This is why it is a singular horror experience – is there any visible monster more chilling than hearing Heather running panicked through the suffocating darkness of the alien woods and screaming “What is that?! What the F*** is That?!!!” about some incomprehensible unseen horror wandering about the woods in the dead of night.

That insightful quote could have come straight out of a film review of “The Blair Witch Project.” So imagine my shock when I read this quote from Mr. Emerson about his opinion of Total Film’s 2005 list of “The 50 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time:” “I could do without "The Blair Witch Project" (more grating than scary).”

But you said earlier…

I personally think ebert is better than Sarris and Kael.I think Pauline Kael is very talented and unique but should be put into perceptive because as Jim Emerson has pointed out that she should be read for insights not opinions.while with Ebert his work can be read for both insights and opinions.I have read recently Andrew Sarris's reviews and his casual conversation style make his reviews lifeless and unremarkable for me but with Ebert there is an inspiration and love in how he analyzes a movie,that make moviegoing and renting fun.The only complaint about ebert is that he can be very generous with his thumbs and three stars,Otherwise I think he is are best living critic.

Well, the fact he writes his own blurbs and doesn't confine himself to only writing film criticism tells me his love for the movies is more honest than other critics. Remember the side of the newspaper delivery truck in the old "Siskel and Ebert" intros that reads "Trust Roger Ebert"? That hasn't changed. Welcome back!!

Absolutely delighted to hear that Ebert is back at it! Looking forward to the 2008 movie guide in the Fall.