Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

Kind of a mess right now. Roger Ebert was a huge, huge influence on my writing as a film critic and he was just a generally decent person to boot. And now he's gone. Two days ago he posted that he was doing something new in his life and only reviewing the films that he wanted to review. I cracked to my mother on the phone this morning, "I guess he only wanted to review Ingmar Bergman's new works."

Ebert intersected my life twice. The first time he, unknowingly, put me back on the right course after I detoured. The second time, he helped me clarify my convictions.

( 2002: A Film Critic's Odyssey )

.

( The Discreet Charm of the Dead Teenager Movie )

That got really long. I apparently have a lot of feelings pent up on various things. Ahem.

Anyway. I'll miss you, Roger. The way you communicated your feelings on movies was unparalleled. When you loved a movie, it was sublime. When you hated a movie, the flames of enmity burned through your words. But where you really were different was when a film bored you. There you were able to riff on movies in general and the expectations we hold for them and any number of other subjects, all loosely tied to the film under the glass -- and somehow all of that divergence from the movie communicated exactly your feelings on it.

Ebert posts the link to the 100 Greatest Dead Teenager Movies (permalink).

And he posts my URL again.

Although Roger Ebert published the URL to Classic-Horror on Friday, we haven't noticed any significant increase in traffic -- it's been steady as a rock, in fact. Disappointing, perhaps, but somehow not unexpected.

However, we have had two requests to join the staff in the past three days. So I'd say the exposure does have its perks.

Based on Roger Ebert's assertion that I will no longer want to watch "dead teenager" movies after having seen all 100 of AFI's Greatest American Movies EVAR, I present the list of all 100, with those that I have seen in bold, those that I own in italics, and those whose very presence makes no freaking sense to me appended with several question marks. Once the list is all bold, we'll see whether or not I don't want to watch slasher movies ever again.


I've seen 65 films on the list. So, 35 to go before we find out if Ebert's assertion is true.