Don't feel bad I had the wrong Ravi Shankar and I let Syung Myung Moon drop off the radar.

Yes, you did, but the right one did die eventually.

What? When did that happen? Was he on my list?

OH NOV 2012! *checking my 2012 list*

Crap. He was 2011

Reg Presley of The Troggs

All my childhood sitcoms!

Richard Briers!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21498077

Aww, shit, man!

Harry Reems died.

Fuck.

Richard Griffiths. Probably best known for his role in the harry Potter films, but for me will always be: Uncle Monty

Indeed, always Uncle Monty to me too.
"I mean to have you, even if it must be burglary!"
A more innocent time, when male rape was a good subject for humour.

The fruitiest voice since Mr Kipling.

G'bye, Roger Ebert.

RIP, Roger Ebert. To paraphrase a friend: he had no choice but to be unflinching about what cancer had done to him, and so we didn't flinch back. Well done, sir.

I'm even more impressed by his comments on joy. Well done, sir, indeed.

I read this:

"We were getting ready to go home today for hospice care, when he looked at us, smiled, and passed away. No struggle, no pain, just a quiet, dignified transition," his wife, Chaz Ebert, said in a statement Thursday.

I thought that was nice. I'm a movie buff of sorts and I always enjoyed Siskel and Ebert. I hadn't really seen any of the later stuff with the guy who replaced Gene Siskel.

Love his critques or hate them, he was an icon.

Here are some great quotes from him:

Ebert: The film philosopher
-- "Every great film should seem new every time you see it."

-- "No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough."

-- "If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't."

-- "If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy."

--from his review of Tom Green's 2001 comedy "Freddy Got Fingered" of which he wrote one of his most scathing reviews:

"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels."

--Reviewing "Crocodile Dundee II": "I've seen audits that were more thrilling."

See you at the movies, Mr Ebert.

Two Ebert quotes in my quotes file.

Note: The paintings in the Hamptons house are by Jack Vettriano, and the
drawings are by Paul Cox. I have no reason for telling you that, but I
couldn't stop myself.
- Roger Ebert in his review of "Something's Gotta Give"

But if you do not have some secret place in your soul that still responds even a little to brave cowboys, beautiful princesses and noble horses, then you are way too grown up and need to cut back on cable news.
-- Roger Ebert (Review for Hidalgo)

"Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way."

—from Battlefield Earth review, May 12, 2000


"If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination."

—from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen review, June 23, 2009


"I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."

—from North review, July 22, 1994

Armageddon (1998):

“Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. Armageddon is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you’d have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they’re charging to get in, it’s worth more to get out.”

Battle: Los Angeles (2011):

“Young men: If you attend this crap with friends who admire it, tactfully inform them they are idiots. Young women: If your date likes this movie, tell him you’ve been thinking it over, and you think you should consider spending some time apart.”

The Last Airbender (2011):

“The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.”

Good ones, IM. He had a sharp tongue and wasn't afraid to use it.

I didn't always agree with Ebert, but I generally knew whether I wanted to see a movie after reading his review. And that's what you want a review for.

I'm not sure who I'll be reading now.