In 2003, I wrote to Roger Ebert. Here is the signed book he sent me after reading my email.
Back in 2003, I was 14 years old and obsessed with movies. I had my own film review website (I had started posting reviews to imdb in 2001, then launched my own dot com a couple years in), and quickly idolized Roger Ebert. I found his writing to be so connective between the process of viewing a film and analyzing it, and it inspired me to keep writing.
So one day I found Roger's email address on a random "celebrity emails" website. I fired off a message to him explaining I was a young aspiring film critic and was hoping he could check out my website.
I was shocked when I saw a response in my inbox the next day. It saddens me that I didn't think, back then, to archive my correspondence with him -- but he basically complimented my writing and my website, and finished his message by asking for my shipping address.
My dad worked for the military and we were overseas in England so I had to give an FPO address and was so worried whatever he was planning to send me would get lost in the mail. Then one day about a week later it showed up -- a copy of his recently published Great Movies book with a personalized inscription.
At the time, it was super encouraging and felt surreal. Looking back now, I realize what a great human being he was to do this to some random kid that he owed nothing to. What was probably a relatively simple gesture on his part made a lasting oppression on me and motivated me to continue writing and try to pursue film criticism as a career (although I did abandon that dream midway through a journalism degree, after the head of my college's journalism department basically lectured us all on how the industry was dying, and I soon saw the writing on the wall with Rotten Tomatoes really devaluing the art of criticism and turning it into a game of aggregation -- but I think those years of film criticism really sharpened my critical thinking skills and writing, which ultimately helped shape many other aspects of my life).
I continued swapping emails with Ebert for a while afterward, occasionally emailing him to ask about a particular film or review. Back then, his older reviews had not yet been archived online, so anything before the early 00s was unavailable. I remember specifically asking him for a copy of his Godfather Part II review (after wondering why it wasn't included in his "great movies" essays), and him sending it to me with the note "I liked it, but not as much as the first." I couldn't believe he only gave it three stars. 😂
His tragic death, which seemed to coincide with IMDb's shift away from a user community and phasing out of its message boards etc., really felt like a turning point in my life in terms of how I communicated and read about films. I still love movies, but I don't have the same passion for following them and talking about them like I did back then. I do check Rotten Tomatoes like everyone else, but I miss having a singular voice that I followed like Ebert's. Even when I disagreed with him, he was just so engaging and interesting to read. The only critic I really follow now to any extent is Mark Keemode, but it's not the same for me. I often find myself wondering what Roger would have thought about x movie, and just miss his presence.
Anyway. I was clearing out my bookshelf today and came across it and just thought it would be cool to share here.
I included a second photo of the spine as it's decaying and falling apart. If anyone knows of a way to rebind a book or has a recommendation on where I could go to have it repaired, feel free to let me know!
Submitted November 29, 2021 at 11:21PM by paulrudder https://ift.tt/3I1lUNv
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