![\"rogerebert\"](\"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/rogerebert.jpg\")
\nR.I.P. Roger Joseph Ebert. June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013<\/i><\/p>\n
\nR.I.P. Roger Joseph Ebert. June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013<\/i><\/p>\n
Today, John D\u2019Amico was supposed to wax poetic about obscure zombie movies. That piece has been moved to next week. I don\u2019t think anyone wants to read about zombie movies right now, or read about anything<\/i> to do with movies, for that matter, unless it has to do with Roger Ebert. At least, I certainly don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I expect that over the next few days, weeks, months, I will binge on everything Ebert. Episodes, books, interviews, etcetera. That\u2019s the kind of death this is. A death where you are left speechless and searching, grasping for the artist\u2019s soulful air as though it will wisp away into the ether if you don\u2019t. But of course, it won\u2019t. It will live on forever, and there is all the time in the world to experience and re-experience it. But the impulse is unavoidable.
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\nI went through this when Michael Jackson died. I couldn\u2019t stop listening to his songs and watching his videos. And even when I wasn\u2019t, they were still in my head, providing the backbeat to my every thought. Your whole world takes on a different flavor from the oversaturation. It\u2019s as though you\u2019re carrying two souls within you. Every creative act you make is weighed against what that sister soul, that icon, might do. It humbles you. It reforms and expands your values. And I look forward to that happening to me with Roger Ebert.<\/p>\n
This is not to say that the spirit of Ebert has not been within me, and the rest of the critics on here, from the moment we began Smug Film. It\u2019s impossible for it not to have been. He\u2019s our goddamn spirit animal. Sure, as we got older, we gravitated towards other critics (for me, Pauline Kael and Armond White) but Ebert raised<\/i> us. He was the first person besides my parents to get me to think about movies critically, and damn near everyone around my age can say the same. Like Mister Rogers, he was a godfather<\/i>\u2014someone not blood-related that you can go to for honesty and wisdom, and will be there for you until the day you die. Even when you grow up and don\u2019t think about them as much.<\/p>\n
Watching old episodes of At the Movies<\/a>, I feel that same sort of nostalgia as when I watch children\u2019s programming from my childhood. Something about the colors and the sounds produce a sort of synesthesia where I can smell and taste what\u2019s going on. Even just the name Roger Ebert<\/i> produces that effect. I hear it and I can smell the slightly sweet musk of 90\u2019s movie theaters\u2014stale popcorn and sticky floors\u2014but also, his blazer. I swear to god I can smell his damn blazer. And I almost want to find some goodwill store nearby and sniff blazers until I find one that smells just like Roger Ebert smells like in my mind. Not even because the smell in my head is particularly pleasant. Just because I want to hug something that is him.<\/p>\n Siskel, I definitely feel love and nostalgia for too, but it was difficult to have that same connection with him. He was the Meg White to Roger Ebert\u2019s Jack White. A vital part of the magic, absolutely, but when he spoke, you didn\u2019t feel like he was talking to you. It always felt like he was merely talking to Ebert. With Ebert, you always felt like he knew you were there, sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, mouth slack, eyes glued to his every opinion, whether it be about a kids movie or a movie you won\u2019t be allowed to see for another 10 years, worshipping him.<\/p>\n There is a desire within damn near every filmmaker alive to have a movie reviewed by Roger Ebert. For me, that\u2019s always been how I\u2019d know I\u2019d finally \u2018made it\u2019. And as silly as it may sound, it almost feels like a movie can\u2019t even be considered a movie unless Ebert has reviewed it. That\u2019s how important the man was to film criticism. And there is no film critic out there now that carries that same weight. Sure, I\u2019d love to hear what Elvis Mitchell or Manohla Dargis think about my shit, but I wouldn\u2019t feel an iota of the same elation or validation.<\/p>\n Although we\u2019re sad right now, I think that perhaps the now impossibility of the dream of Ebert one day reviewing your work might actually be a positive thing for us budding filmmakers. Cinema is changing. And Roger Ebert\u2019s death may be the deciding line of the end of an era. Never has it been so blatantly clear that popular things are often the worst things. And I don\u2019t just mean Superhero blockbusters\u2014I mean almost every movie up for an Oscar, or a \u2018Spirit Award\u2019, or whatever. Hollywood is shit. Indiewood is shit, too. And a change is a coming.<\/p>\n A golden age of low-budget, truly independent cinema is just on the horizon. We are already seeing the first sprouts of it. We can smell it, like spring, in the air. And by we I mean us filmmakers. Big festivals and established critics don\u2019t seem to see us as anything worth noticing. And we shouldn\u2019t care. That\u2019s the old guard. We need to be the new guard<\/i>. We need to be the filmmakers, the critics, the producers, the festivals, the theaters, the everything. And that\u2019s part of why I started Smug Film. One cannot be just a filmmaker anymore. Too much needs to be changed in the world of cinema. So let\u2019s all work together, and wear many hats, like that Caps for Sale<\/a> dude.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s stop looking<\/i> for acceptance, and start becoming<\/i> the acceptance we seek. Because the only acceptance that ever truly mattered to us is no longer possible. The king is dead. But his soul will live on through us. We will study his insight (yes, The Brown Bunny<\/a> deserves three stars) as well as his battiness (one star for Wet Hot American Summer<\/a>? Really?) and we will rise, like zombies (phat callback to the first paragraph, sup John D\u2019Amico) and feast upon the non-existent brains and stone hearts of the movie elite.<\/p>\n Roger Ebert, I love you. We all love you. And we will make your proud.<\/p>\n XOXO, P.S. The new guard knows that back in 2009 ya boy Tom Ford shoulda won Best Director and Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Tom Ford, get back to filmmaking. Don\u2019t be mad that people didn\u2019t give you as much props as you deserved. Stop dressing Justin Timberlake and cutting his hair and crank out another masterpiece in spite of Hollywood being dumb. We support you forever. You\u2019re the real deal. And you are us.<\/i> Kindred spirits. We need you fucking shit up on the inside, while we throw rotten fruit at the gates, ya feel me?<\/p>\n P.P.S. The new guard knows that the best documentaries in the past few years have been homegrown amateur porn clips on XHamster or whatever. Fuck a damn polar bear on some melting ice. Fuck a damn political thing. All that shit is propaganda. Frederick Wiseman and Chantal Akerman and Shirley Clarke are alive and well in the tight pussies and big cocks of young people fucking on camera for fun. Shout out to Foreign Parts<\/a> though, which is like one of the only pitch-perfect docs in the last few years. Verena Paravel I fux wit u. Let\u2019s get married and film our children in interesting ways. And shout out to my own doc, Rehearsals, of course.<\/p>\n
\nCody Clarke
\nA Dude You Woulda Had Fun Kickin It And Watchin Russ Meyer Movies With, Also You Mighta Enjoyed Shredder<\/a>\u00a0And Rehearsals<\/a> But Even If You Didn’t That Woulda Been Totally Fine<\/p>\n