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Roger Ebert: The Great Movies II, by Roger EbertReview by Jeffrey M. Anderson Buy Roger Ebert: The Great Movies II, by Roger Ebert
He includes an appropriate number of silent films (The
Man Who Laughs, The Fall of the
House of Usher, an essay on Buster Keaton)
and foreign films (The Firemen's Ball, The Leopard, Le
Boucher) as attempts to defend cult
favorites like Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. In 1974, Ebert was one of the few defenders of that
film and now he gets to bask in the glory of being right, but without being
condescending. I can even forgive the inclusion of Planes, Trains and
Automobiles, on the charge that it's an
up-and-coming holiday favorite. And I can forgive the inclusion of my least
favorite Powell/Pressburger film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. But I cannot forgive Leaving Las Vegas, a very bad film by a very bad filmmaker that was
quickly overrated in 1995, thanks partly to Ebert. It's too bad that he was
unable to re-assess the film and find its faults today. Indeed, many of the films on this list are inspired by DVD
releases, or current theatrical releases. His review of Pasolini's The
Gospel According to St. Matthew will now be
forever tainted by a comparison with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the
Christ (which Ebert adored). But any list of 100 films will cause debate by virtually
anyone who looks at it, and overall I very much enjoyed reading this book. In
it, I found much of the old Ebert that I first admired when I began to fall in
love with film. Reading Ebert's new reviews today, that old fellow can often
disappear, but when he takes time away from deadlines for The Great Movies, he comes back.
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