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Roger Ebert was a great man, a great mentor and a great movie reviewer.
We all have heroes. Every single one of us does. We all look at our parents as heroes. As children, our moms and dads were the ones who protected us, clothed us, fed us, and kept us out of trouble. There are also people who protect us as a nation. America’s heroes, the soldiers fighting for us abroad. These people are the REAL heroes. After them, you could move on to our country’s forefathers: Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and my personal favorite, our ninth president, William Henry Harrison. Sure, he only served 32 days in office, but he did have the best nickname: “Old Tippecanoe”. (Hey, I’m all about nicknames, ok Meatball?)
Now we get into an area where we select our heroes based on what we enjoy. For instance, I know many men and women who live, eat, sleep, and breathe sports. Ask any jock who their heroes are and their answers will be, Jordan, Orr, Teddy Williams, Jackie Robinson (for many reasons with him, he’s in a league of his own.) Bird, Brady, Gretsky, Montana, Pedro or Ken Griffey Jr. And that’s just a few.
There are also a slew of intelligent people out there in the world. I consider myself to be one of these intelligent people. Socrates, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Aristotle, Plato, Carl Sagan, and DiVinci may be heroes to them.
Then some people may get their heroes from the profession that they are in. Take your computer geeks. These nerds most definitely consider Bill Gates, C-3PO, Mark Zuckerberg, and Joshua (the computer from “WARGAMES”) their heroes. But I would be remiss if I didn’t put in their biggest hero, Steve Jobs. He was an innovator and one of the gods of the computer world.
Now we get to my profession. There are so many people I look up to in the entertainment industry. Pitt, Deniro, Fox, (both Michael J. and Megan) Streep, Michael Bay, Scorsese, Ed Norton, The Weinstein Brothers, Julia Roberts (and Eric), McGregor, Beckinsale, Ang Lee, Tarantino, Rogan, (Seth… ok, Joe too) Wahlberg, Franco….. and the list goes on and on and on. There are just too many to name.
But my hero, the man I looked up to growing up, watching on TV, and more recently, reading his columns in The Chicago Sun Times was Roger Ebert. This man was an inspiration to movie reviewers everywhere. He was the godfather of film critics, and he was a mentor to me.
Sadly, my hero passed away this week.
No, I never met him, and no, I didn’t have posters of him on my bedroom wall, but yeah, I made it a point to watch him on his weekly television show “At The Movies” with Siskel and Ebert.
I’m not lying to you, I have LOVED movies for my entire life. I can talk about them all day long, and if you know me, I do talk about them all day long. Roger Ebert seemed to be in the same boat as me. He LOVED movies and he loved talking about them too. I can remember watching him and Gene Siskel at two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon “flick bickering”. I can also remember coming home at two o’clock in the morning, cocked as a fart, and seeing them on the tube talking movies. I’d be so drunk I’d be yelling at the television because I didn’t agree with them on some random film. (Oh, the good old days.)
Well, Roger Ebert is gone. And it was sad to hear that he had passed. Sure, I didn’t know him personally, but I did follow him, and I was genuinely upset. He is who I emulate. He would write his reviews the way he thought he should write them. He wrote how he felt about the film, and he didn’t kowtow to any actors, production companies, directors, or anyone else in the business. His reviews were HIS opinion and he wrote them that way.
I try to do the same thing. I try to write what I feel on a film, and I don’t really care if anyone agrees with me or not. Just like Ebert, this is MY opinion, and that’s what I’ll write. Granted, sometimes I veer off course and write about stuff that has NOTHING to do with the movie at all, but hey, that’s me, and that’s why I’m awesome.
But what Roger Ebert’s passing has done to me is really make me think about death. We all think about it, but we never really talk about it. Well I’m gonna talk about it for a minute.
I learned about death at a relatively young age. I lost someone very close to me… And you know what? You think that you are going to be here forever, but you aren’t. You never know when it’s going to be “your time”. That’s why I never buy green bananas, you just never know when you’re ticket is going to be pulled. I learned that the hard way.
You have got to be happy in life. Life is too short to be miserable. “Live life to the fullest”. I know it sounds cliche, but I believe it. This took me a long time to learn. You can’t be angry, or depressed, or just lost in a fog all your life. Once you learn this, then your life gets so much better.
Here are some things that I have done that seem to have made my life better.
My list of things to do to be happier in life:
-First and foremost, love your brothers and sisters. They are your best friends, and they will always be there for you.
-Skydive. You’ll never know how alive you are until you are almost dead.
-Follow a band around. (Guns’n’Roses is a good start.)
-Learn a secret handshake. Share it with your close friends. Teach it to your nieces and nephews.
-Love someone. Truly love someone. (without utensils) Yes, I have been in love, and that feeling you get at the beginning of a relationship is out of this world.
-Stay in love… I know that’s a tough one.
-Kill someone.
-Go to the movies! Go with someone, or go by yourself. Just go. It’s two hours where you can get out of your head and enjoy somebody else’s imagination.
-Wear a suit and tie to work… even if your a waitress, plumber, landscaper, window-washer, or an astronaut. I’m telling you, you deserve to wear a suit too. (and not just to court.)
-Move away.
-WHOA! Did I write “kill someone” a little earlier? NO-NO-NO, DON’T KILL SOMEONE! I REPEAT, DO NOT KILL SOMEONE! That must be my alter ego, “The Irish Assassin” creeping into my brain and telling me to write that! I’m sorry… and he is too. (“Get out of my brain Irish Assassin!”)
-Hug a cop!
This one may be weird, but…. get punched in the face. This has happened to me three times. One time I was hit so hard, I was put on Queer Street for about five minutes. I was unconscious and definitely concussed. The other two times were great. Sure, I woke up with a broken nose and raccoon eyes the next day, but honestly, it didn’t hurt. I felt invigorated and all fired up! I liked it.
-Stick your fingers in the butter.
-Learn to juggle, take your finger off, and flip your eyelids inside out. Ok, adults may not think this is cool, but you gotta see the faces on the children you show it to… Priceless. (and they’ll ALWAYS ask you to do it again.)
-Travel.
-Call someone you haven’t talked to in years… This will make you both feel happy.
-Kill people with kindness. Not only is this nice, but it is also quite hilarious when when the person you’re being kind to gets even madder when you’re being EXTRA nice to him.
-Put serious money on a football game… And then watch it. And when I say “serious money”, I’m talking $10,000. This is a rush that will make you laugh, cry, scream, vomit, dance, and want to put a gun in your mouth, all at the same time… Let me tell you, its a rush like no other. (Just do that one once.)
-Have children. (Still working on that one.)
-Send someone a card in the mail, just for no reason at all.
-Make someone laugh. If you do that, then in turn, you will become happy. (I really believe that laughter can cure illnesses.)
-Just be you.
-Basically, just do what Andy Dufresne said in “The Shawshank Redemption”: “Get busy living, or get busy dying.”
Now I know that my list may not be the same list that you’re going to work off of, (and I don’t expect you to, because I am somewhat coo-coo.) but honestly, being happy is such a good feeling. And making someone else happy is an even better feeling. Make yourself a list and enjoy life. Like I said before, it’s taken me a long time to be truly happy, (and it’s hard too) but believe you me, it’s a million times better than being sad, angry, miserable, pissed-off, distant, and out-in-left-field all your life.
LIFE IS GOOD…. Said the man who was trying to write a touching tribute to his hero and mentor… Sorry Mr. Ebert, but that’s what you get when have a giant narcissist writing his own column.
Rest in peace, Roger Ebert. And thank you for your years of dedication to something that we both love dearly, the movies… I’ll see you someday at that glorious multiplex in the sky… Unless of course I go to hell… Then I’ll be watching “John Carter” for all eternity…. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Matty W. Kelley
The boys at “A Seat Apart: REEL REVIEWS” (William Daley, Paul Frederick Fortey, Colin Xavier Kelley, and myself) will truly miss the godfather of movie reviewers. R.I.P. to a movie reviewing legend.