Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The Great Movies (Great Movies) by Roger Ebert

🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

America’s most trusted and best-known film critic Roger Ebert presents one hundred brilliant essays on some of the best movies ever made. 

For the past five years Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, has been writing biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offers a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to that film with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm–or perhaps to an avid first-time viewing. Ebert’s selections range widely across genres, periods, and nationalities, and from the highest achievements in film art to justly beloved and wildly successful popular entertainments. Roger Ebert manages in these essays to combine a truly populist appreciation for our most important form of popular art with a scholar’s erudition and depth of knowledge and a sure aesthetic sense. Wonderfully enhanced by stills selected by Mary Corliss, film curator at the Museum of Modern Art, The Great Movies is a treasure trove for film lovers of all persuasions, an unrivaled guide for viewers, and a book to return to again and again.

The Great Movies includes: All About Eve • Bonnie and Clyde • Casablanca • Citizen Kane • The Godfather • Jaws • La Dolce Vita • Metropolis • On the Waterfront • Psycho • The Seventh Seal • Sweet Smell of Success • Taxi Driver • The Third Man • The Wizard of Oz • and eighty-five more films.

While I agreed with a few of the reviews in the book, I found my attention wandering during the whole of the book. Roger Ebert writes as if he were a college professor of film which makes for a boring book. He makes even the most exciting movie sound boring. He talks quite a bit about the technical details of the movies that he lists when I would rather hear about why he appreciated the plot and acting abilities of the actors/actresses. He does mention those things but sense I am not nor have I ever been a film student it is difficult for me to comprehend many of the points that he makes about many of the films. I think that this book would be great for film students but it just wasn't something that I enjoyed. I love movies but his writing makes me want to read more rather than watch a movie. He makes movies sound dull. I also disagreed with many of his choices such as Citizen Kane. I will never understand why some people love that movie so much. I think that it is overrated and dull. 
To be fair, I knew that I was going to disagree with many of his opinions which is why I picked The Greatest Movies to represent my nonfiction you feel you will disagree with category for the reading challenge I am participating in. Roger Ebert is famous for trashing movies and having controversial views. He either seems to like things that others think are awful or hate things that other people enjoy. 









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