I once emailed Roger Ebert during the theatrical release of Eyes Wide Shut (which he admired) if he would give a second look to A Clockwork Orange. After all, it is a film he panned and awarded a two-star rating. His wife loved it and considers it her favorite film, and the late Gene Siskel had tried to get Ebert to re-review it (Siskel himself gave a second look to his initial pan of Apocalypse Now and gave it a positive review). Hell, if Ebert loves The Shining and 2001 so much (they are both on his Great Movies list), surely a revisit to the most controversial film ever made about the nature of violence merits a fresh perspective. Ebert emailed me back and said, “I’ll see it again someday.” I am still waiting.

Such is the brief correspondence I had with Roger Ebert, a film critic who I admire as much as anyone. When I was getting into puberty during the 1980’s, I voraciously read reviews from film books at the local library in Fresh Meadows, NY. They would include the latest compilation of reviews from Pauline Kael, the Cult Movies volumes by Danny Peary, the Midnight Movies book (which opened my eyes to films like Eraserhead and Pink Flamingos), the Leonard Maltin Movie Guides and, of course, the Roger Ebert Home Movie Companion books. Ebert was also on the now defunct Sneak Previews TV show and the Siskel and Ebert show, both of which I watched religiously.

In many ways, Ebert informed my viewing of cinema (and still does). Yes, the late Pauline Kael’s witticisms were unquestionably literary and poetic – you knew that she loved the cinema and expressed it. Danny Peary, Peter Travers, Leonard Maltin, David Edelstein, Janet Maslin and many others were invaluable in their passionate insights – I spent many nights analyzing their words. But it is Ebert who made me see past what I was seeing – how a personal statement by a director could make a critic angry and volatile. Ebert has experienced this phenomenon with films that obviously got to him on a gut level, as witnessed by his pans of Clockwork Orange and Blue Velvet. Then there were films that made him angry because of their putridness. He made me rethink the unnecessary cruelty of Jennifer Jason Leigh’s demise in the unwatchable The Hitcher, though I believe it is not a film as cruelly illogical as he claims. He and Siskel famously derided I Spit On Your Grave, Friday the 13th, thus enabling a disreputable stain on the slasher film through most of the 1980’s.

There were times where Ebert left me incredulous in retrospect. I wondered why neither he nor Siskel made any mention of the graphic violence in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” or in “Gremlins” when they both later admonished the far less grimmer display of tricks in the rousing “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” I love “Temple of Doom” and “Gremlins,” but the violence in both PG films was far more severe than in Costner's “Robin Hood.” I agreed with certain aspects of Ebert’s review of “Dead Poet’s Society,” though I think it is a fine film overall and especially uplifting towards the end. But that is what makes Ebert so wonderful – you feel like you are watching a film right beside him and arguing with him at the same time. No other critic does this.

I also love that Ebert doesn’t play with the current critical taste as often as people think. He awarded three stars to She’s the Man, The Longest Day remake, Necessary Roughness and Tomb Raider when most critics panned them outright. Of course, he did dismiss one of my favorite films of the 1990’s, the misunderstood and critically maligned Lost Highway by David Lynch, with a two star rating (which was used in the print ads). And how he could pan The Tenant, The Fearless Vampire Killers and What?, three truly magnificent Roman Polanski films, I’ll never know. But then I suppose he would disagree with my raving insights on all three.

Roger Ebert made me want to be a film critic. The fact that he is the first critic to win the Pulitzer Prize is astounding. The fact that he cares enough about films to save certain ones from extinction (“One False Move” is a good example) and promote them through his annual Overlooked Film Festival is an amazing feat. I also admire that he stood up to the MPAA and its former president, Jack Valenti, about instilling a reasonable “A” rating for films with artistic merit that showed graphic violence or sexuality (all we got is an NC-17 rating that gets little to no advertising). Plus, if for no other reason, Ebert also co-wrote some Russ Meyer flicks – that is enough reason to make him a hero in my book.

Mr. Roger Ebert, take my word for it – we all need you back at work soon. If President Bush even hopes for your speedy recovery, then you know you mean something to us all. Get well soon.