My undergraduate literary theory professor warped my brain, for better and worse. One item in the Worse category: He ruined my love of Roger Ebert. One dumb morning, Professor Grumpy (not his real name) worked up a full head of steam while berating "evaluative criticism" as a blight on society, and excoriated Roger Ebert for coining and trademarking the phrase "Two Thumbs Up," which taught us all that movies were meant only to be consumed, then either digested or regurgitated.
It's not a bad point, but he's wrong that Ebert amounts to no more than his thumbs. Maybe Prof Grumpy had never actually read Ebert's reviews, which, at their best, are sophisticated close readings of film in the Pauline Kael mode--intelligent and often personal. Ebert is a smart lover of film and also a fine teacher of movie-watching, as evidenced by his recent blog essay on how to read a movie. (If ever I own a movie theater, we'll hand out that essay with every ticket.)
Ebert's thyroid cancer and resultant surgery have left him speechless. Thankfully, he continues to write, and to do it with a renewed joy and vigor. His blog has become a must-read, not only for its smart appreciations of movies new and old, but also for its human warmth and candor. This week's post is a particular good: a model of joyful self-acceptance, as Ebert describes how he accepted his infamous obesity, which taught him to accept the physical disorders brought on by cancer:
I cannot speak, eat or drink, and have lost a lot more pounds, and, believe me, it would have been a more fun doing it the Pritikin way. I was pretty far along toward my Pritikin goal when fate suddenly lopped off these pounds and, for my sins, permanently stopped my next Steak ' Shake Super Steakburger ("In Sight, It Must Be Right!") in its tracks on its way from the grill. Compared to other people, I'm lucky. For example, see how much I'm enjoying myself right now.
I am so much a movie lover that I can imagine a certain (very small) pleasure in looking like the Phantom. It is better than looking like the Elephant Man. I would describe my condition as falling about 17% of the way along a graph line between the handsome devil I was at theripetender age of 27, and the thing that jumps out of that guy's intestines in "Alien."
Read it all.
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I think this is all about perspective, right? How we see things, evaluate things, judge things. I find it very funny that your professor gave Ebert a big thumbs down for giving movies thumbs up or thumbs down. Perhaps he should see the film a few more times. And I find it very moving that Roger Ebert is embracing his changed perspective with all the passion of a man who views life as the gift that it is rather than the right we believe it to be.
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