Lets (Not) Go Out To The Movies: Life Itself (R - Magnolia Pictures - 1 hr, 46 min)

Directed by Steve James

Alo Party Peoples.

Documentaries are a hard thing for me to talk about. Since they aren't a narrative form, at least not primarily, it becomes very hard to review one without falling into a list of stuff they got right, got wrong, or left out, and if the final production falls on the dry side, you probably can't hold that against it, because, dems' the facts man.

As there were few new releases this weekend, I once again turn to on demand cable offerings. This can be a good way to shed some light on smaller scale independent productions, foreign imports, TV specials, and documentary features that didn't make it into theaters. It also has the added bonus of letting me do more of this job from my home.

Last time we did this, it was Clark Gregg's passion project Trust Me, which, while certainly an admirable effort, wasn't exactly a masterpiece. Fortunately, today's topic, Life Itself, is a much better film.

Named after and based on a memoir written by the late Roger Ebert, this documentary chronicles the entire life and career of the influential film critic, from working as the Chicago Sun-Times' film critic and winning the Pulitzer Prize, to his 30 years working on television with Gene Siskel and Richard Roper, to his transition into writing for the Internet after thyroid cancer rendered him unable to speak in 2007.

If it weren't for Ebert helping to turn film criticism from a journalistic odd job into a form of entertainment itself, and putting that idea into the popular psyche, I probably wouldn't be writing this now. So I suppose I owe him a sort of retroactive debt.

The film is composed of interviews with Roger's friends, co workers and family, archive footage of him on At The Movies, and footage of Ebert in a hospital and rehabilitation center after a hip fracture in December of 2013, this would turn out to be his final stay as the fracture had become cancerous.

Life Itself is an informative, well put together documentary, and I expect it to be shown in film and journalism classes if it ever gets a release on physical media, even if it's only as something for this country's overworked and underpaid teachers to slap in the DVD player to fill a gap in their schedule. As for right now, it is available on iTunes, through on demand cable services, and did get a limited theatrical release.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B