And I don’t recall when I started to cry. I don’t recall collapsing down on the sofa. I don’t recall the conversation Elcin and I had then. I don’t recall hanging up. I think it’s Roger.’ Elcin replied: ‘I am so sorry.’ As I picked up the call, I turned to my girlfriend and said: ‘Oh, god. It was Bilge Ebiri, and I made a mental note to send him an email letting him know that I would call him back. Then my phone rang again, and it was Elcin Yahsi, my friend and sometime-editor for Istanbul’s Sabah daily. “I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed on Thursday night when my phone rang. The opportunity to be in the same room-third row back from the front, no less-while a professional inspiration and a favorite director converse is a thrill and, in a way, a kind of graduation as I prepare to pursue film criticism in the ‘real world.'” The movie is so-so, but the post-screening discussion is marvelous, with Ebert holding court in grand style, engaging Allen in a natural, off-the-cuff conversation and encouraging questions from the audience. I manage to secure a press ticket to a special University of Chicago screening of Woody Allen’s ‘Small Time Crooks’ that will be followed by a Q&A with Allen-one of my movie gods-and Ebert. Spring, 2000: I’m in my final year of film school at Northwestern, winding down my tenure as film editor of the campus newspaper and putting the finishing touches on an independent study project that explores the impact the Siskel & Ebertprogram had on film criticism. My first-ever review is of Jean-Jacques Annaud’s ‘The Bear’ and I enjoy writing it so much, I think, ‘Huh…I’d kinda like to keep doing this.’ The following year, I join my elementary school newspaper as an after-school activity and decide what the quarterly rag really needs is a movie column. The writing is elegant, witty and entirely accessible, the words of a fellow film lover sharing his enthusiasm (and, sometimes, derision) in print. ![]() I open the book at random and start reading a review, followed by another, and another, and still another. “While I never had the good fortune to meet Roger Ebert in person, I do have two memories that, in some small way, indicate the impact his work had on my life.įall, 1988: Realizing they had a 10-year-old budding movie enthusiast on their hands, my parents gift me with a copy of Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion - the just-published 1989 edition with Ebert flashing his famous (though not to me, yet) thumb atop a stack of VHS tapes-for Hanukkah. After 25 Years, These Are the ‘Friends’ Characters Critics Love the Most
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