Different Slants

Seeing the World from a New Angle

Roger Ebert: Film Critic & Mensch, A Eulogy…by Robert M. Katzman 4/4/13

 
© April 4, 2013
 
Roger Ebert died of cancer today. I knew him.
 
In the late 1960’s, when I owned Bob’s Newsstand in Hyde Park, I sold the Chicago Sun-Times every day, and always read his column. I was a teenager. I loved the movies and would eventually see about 200 a year, both foreign and domestic. When the University of Chicago Downtown Extension offered Film Criticism classes taught by Roger, I signed up for it twice, in 1970. I was 20, he was 27. 
 
I signed up for his class twice, because my newsstand burned down before the first class was over, and I had to rebuild it. Now there’s a note excusing me from class that a teacher would seldom receive. 

(Read on …)