ROGER EBERT. THANK YOU.

Roger Ebert has passed away at 70 years old. He made no secret of his long battle with cancer, and yet he continued to review a breathtaking number of films each year. Just as recently as April 2nd, 2013 he wrote a blog post declaring his ‘leave of presence’ as he continued his fight against cancer, but sadly he passed away on April 4.

I remember one evening during my teen years when I supposed to be asleep and getting rest for school the next morning. Instead I snuck into the living room to watch TV and none of my favorite shows were on. I watched Ebert & Roeper and I was amazed. I didn’t know that people put so much thought into movies. I was a huge movie fan, but it never occurred to me that movies are worth analyzing. I didn’t realize until that evening that sometimes a movie becomes more endearing (or more annoying) when you really take time to think about it.

Another thing I learned from Ebert: keep learning and keep watching. Movies will always be here, even the ones from the silent era. He had a vast amount of movie knowledge tucked into his brain, and I hope to have a little sliver of that one day!

I’ll see you at the movies, Roger.