Film Critic Roger Ebert Dead at 70 Of Cancer

New submitter AndyKrish links to the BBC's report that just two days after penning a "leave of presence" in which he says "I am not going away," Roger Ebert — "arguably the world's most famous film critic" — has died of cancer. Ebert was a long-time film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as (most famously along with Gene Siskel) for a string of television shows. In the course of dealing with persistent cancer that affected his thyroid and jaw, and which took away his voice, Ebert became a prolific blogger on movies as well as other topics, and drew on cutting edge technology to regain the power of speech.

Comments

Re:Sad Day

[Jeff321]

Dark City! He did a commentary track for the blu-ray even.

Great Writing made him a better critic

[canadian_right]

Not only did Mr. Ebert love movies, but he could WRITE. His reviews were not just excellent and insightful movie reviews, but generally good, to very good prose. This made reading his often lengthy reviews a delight, not a chore.

Did you know Mr. Ebert was also a great fan of written SF? I did not until he recently wrote a guest column for Asimov's Science fiction. It was a warm, charming essay that showed off his writing skills in a whole new light for me who had only ever read his movie reviews.