I used see nearly every movie that came to town during my high school and college years, til eventually noticing I was seeing a lot of crap. So I started paying more attention to reviews to make sure I was only seeing the best. Taking a couple of post-graduate film classes helped refine my tastes to better appreciate movies as art. However, I’m noticing these days that I just don’t feel like going to the movies much anymore, even to the well-reviewed ones. A variety of factors may be at play (lack of time, energy, money), but I believe it boils down to the fact that I no longer have Siskel & Ebert in my life.

I started watching Siskel & Ebert in the early 1980s on PBS, and was fascinated by their discussion of all things to do with movies. Besides presenting their final thumbs-up or down judgements on each film, they were also pioneers in educating their audience about related subjects such as aspect ratios (theatrical widescreen versus TV-shaped), the evils of colorizing classic black & white movies, and the need to reform the movie ratings system. As I got to know them through their own show and other TV appearances, and by comparing their tastes in movies with my own, eventually I could set my internal movie-going barometer based on their reaction to the movies they reviewed. If they both said thumbs-down, I nearly always passed, and both saying thumbs-up meant I always went. But the split decisions were almost more fun because I got to decide for myself whether or not to go based on their comments and my experiences with their past recommendations.

When Gene Siskel died from brain cancer in 1999, my barometer was broken for a while, but eventually healed as I learned to consider Ebert’s reviews as I always did, augmented by consensus opinions from many other critics as found on such Internet sites as Rotten Tomatos or Metacritic. As I look back now, the early 21st century already almost seems like a golden age in movie going for me…. Many of my current favorites come from this period, such as Amelie, Frailty, Ghost World, Lord of the Rings, Memento, Mulholland Drive, etc.

But now Roger Ebert is having his own cancer struggles, and for the most part has been out of commission since last June, giving an against-the-tide pissy review to Superman Returns on his way to surgery. (In my opinion, that movie is no better nor worse than the first two Superman movies, each of which he gave four stars!) In early fall, he wrote a handful of new reviews from his hospital bed, but nobody has heard anything substantial from him in months. This will be the first time in nearly 40 years where he won’t have a Best 10 Films list for the year.

So being bummed out about Ebert may be contributing to my reluctance to go to the movies much lately. Other than the special experience of seeing Sweet Land in a great theater near where it was filmed in Minnesota, I haven’t been to the movies at all this December, the month in which I normally see the most movies as awards season approaches! Is it just me, or do the well-reviewed movies Dreamgirls, The Good German, The Good Shepard, The Pursuit of Happyness, and Rocky Balboa all seem uninteresting to other people too….? Since I don’t know what Ebert thinks about any of them, they may truly be crappy as I suspect.

I’m giving myself permission to skip these and other movies…. I only want to see movies I want to see from now on. The time saved will be spent with my Benjamin… with whom I intend to go see Charlotte’s Web this weekend!