By: Sydney Franklin
UPDATE FRIDAY 4/5/13: The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Roger Ebert died yesterday at age 70 from his long battle with cancer.
When determining if a new movie is worth our time and money to see, we either turn to our friends who have seen it, or the newspaper’s entertainment section. Dominating the nation’s opinion in film news is, and almost always has been, Roger Ebert.
So when a man like him says he’ll be reducing the number of movies he reviews, it’s king of a big deal.
Roger Ebert, the Chicago Sun-Times film critic who has influenced the movie business with his opinions for forty-six years, announced Tuesday that he is taking a “leave of presence” from his post.
In his blog on the Sun-Times website, he said that he is slowing down and reviewing “only the movies I want to review.”
Ebert typically writes over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times and his pieces are published in some 200 newspapers. Last year, he wrote a total of 306 film reviews – the most of his career.
The Huffington Post reports that his immediate reason to work less is his physical health.
“The ‘painful fracture’ that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer,” Ebert wrote. “It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to.”
Ebert had previously been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and cancer of the salivary glands. He also lost his lower jaw after several surgeries. But, Ebert has continued to write and will continue to write selected reviews for the Sun-Times.
“At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about he vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.”
Ebert says he will also focus on his Web site, rogerebert.com and possibly begin work on a fourth book in his “Great Movies” series.
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