Oh, happy day

Most of you probably know by now that I'm a great fan of Roger Ebert's skills as an essayist, and I've been checking in on his health periodically. The reasons for this are not entirely altruistic. An artist wanting to please a critic is like a NASCAR driver wanting to please the walls of the track. But he is a critic I would like to please one day, and I want him to live long enough that there might at least be a chance of his picking up one of my works.

A couple of years ago on my old blog I wrote about his book

I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, an invaluable collection of reviews he's written about bad films.

His review of "A Lot Like Love" is a sure candidate for a sequel to this volume (hey, his Great Movies II just came out this year...). He really putts the movie into the water hazard.

"A Lot Like Love" is a romance between two of the dimmer bulbs of their generation. Judging by their dialogue, Oliver and Emily have never read a book or a newspaper, seen a movie, watched TV, had an idea, carried on an interesting conversation or ever thought much about anything. The movie thinks they are cute and funny, which is embarrassing, like your uncle who won't stop with the golf jokes."

Later that same year, but after I'd already switched to this blog, I was driven to an out-and-out declaration of love by his review of of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, in which Roger said:

[Rob] Schneider retaliated by attacking [reporter Patrick] Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind ... Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers."

...Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.

You may well wonder: Why am I telling you all of this? I'm telling you all of this because, earlier tonight, strolling over to Ebert's web page as I do a couple of times a week, I found a New Year's Message from Roger containing this nice surprise:

I am working on the follow-up to "I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie," tentatively called, "Your Movie Sucks."

He read my diary!