"'The Last Airbender' is an agonizing experience

...in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented." - Roger Ebert, The Last Airbender review, June 2010

I grew up admiring Roger Ebert for his pudginess, snappish demeanor towards Siskel and his character on The Critic. In college I began visiting the movie theater less often and read less reviews. My brother maintained a loyal Ebert following and gobbled up the opinions in books such as The Great Movies and the spectacular Your Movie Sucks, a title inspired by the "greatest" comedic leech of our time, Rob Schneider.  Ebert, love him or hate him, is an author of outstanding imagery and, although I believe he has grown a tad soft over the years, writes even the most shaming of reviews with careful tact.  He has inspired an unknown number of journalists, rooted in his home state of Illinois and elsewhere, to put pen to paper.  Including my brother.

This past March, Esquire came out with the moving article , "Roger Ebert: The Essential Man."  I'm older now, I'm a Chicagoan and smile a little bit when I think that I now live in this man's neighborhood in the midst of his journalistic integrity.  However, the fiery man that once argued with Siskel on a worn-in plush seat is now mute.  Read the article to learn more about his battle with cancer and his relentless ability to continue what he loves.

"On some morning or afternoon or evening, sometime in 2006, Ebert took his last bite and sip, and he spoke his last word."

I don't believe it fair that the web site header says, "what happened to Roger Ebert?"  Roger Ebert may have slipped out of our visual realm but he is very much active.  He still has the Sun-Times page that made him a household name.  More wit shines in freelance writing and his blog, where he wraps his head around current events.  His 190,000+ Twitter followers get a daily dose of sarcasm, insight and of course, film criticism.  Perhaps my biggest praise of Ebert is that he shares the ideas and concepts that others bring to the table.  Each day, he reads and shares the works of people in lists he has entitled the "wise, the sub-continent, the politics and the elites."  He brings it all to the table and encourages others around him to do the same.

 I encourage you to take a page from his book.  Even for a day.

picture from Esquire.com article