And nobody does it better

If you've been reading this here little bloggie over the weekend, you know that I've been taking a bit of a stroll down memory lane, back to the days when I went to the movies every weekend and then often felt inspired enough to write about them for eight years. Long around 2005 it stopped being fun, and since I had already started B@B, it seemed a logical point at which to say farewell to movie reviewing. While I'm surprised that so many of my former peeps are still at it, I'm disappointed that so many have also given it up; like my longtime colleague ModFab and the great Film Snobs, particularly the Critic Formerly Known as Shimes, who when he drank enough, was in the league with some of the best writers in literary history.

But while there are the Jonathan Rosenbaum cinéastes, and the Armond White fans, for my money there is only one critic who is irreplaceable and that is Roger Ebert. No other critic seems able to evaluate a film's worth within its own genre, and I have a special place in my heart for someone who adores the brilliant Dark City. Aside from being occasionally blinded whenever Angelina Jolie's rack appears in a movie, usually if Ebert says it's worth seeing, it's worth seeing.

But even Ebert has joined the ranks of bloggers, and it's clear his gift isn't just for writing about movies. For perhaps no one really understands the zen, the craft of newspaper journalism quite the way Ebert does.