Rest In Peace, Roger Ebert

My grandfather informed me of Gene Siskel's death during the start of Sunday church service back in 1999.  It was a huge shock and I think it was the first "celebrity" death that hit me.  I think the first "Siskel and Ebert At the Movies" I watched was in 1994.  I watched it off and on until Siskel's passing.  I would read Ebert's reviews every weekend, they were usually in our Sunday paper.  I can't find it right now, but he gave one of my favorite quotes about movies and cinephilia (sp?) - something about how loving movies was like climbing a ladder and we never stop reaching higher.  Watching one movie, means discovering another, and another and another...  Another fave, one I've said to many people: "Movies aren't what they are about, but how they are about it."  As many have pointed out, this feels like the end of an era.  I'll miss reading his reviews, and it'll be weird tomorrow going to his website and not seeing what he thinks about the Friday releases.  One of the reasons I rarely write reviews here is because I don't think I'm very eloquent and sometimes struggle to get out just how it is I feel.  I love reading reviews, especially when someone can thoughtfully and and very simply describe exactly how they felt and it totally matches my own opinion.  More often than not, Ebert could do that.


The Onion, of all places, has a lovely sendoff to a man who changed how we felt about the movies. 

"Until then, the balcony is closed."