On April 4th I was walking home at about 10pm in the dark, having just got off a train. I was coming from the cinema, where I had just seen the new G.I. Joe movie. As I walked I was checking the news and happened across a title on Google News from our very own WhatCulture! T.J. Barnard was reporting that the great film critic Roger Ebert had died, aged 70. I stopped in my tracks for a wee moment and thought about it: heres a man I have been reading for years, a writer who didnt offer theory and philosophy, instead he offered simple, honest opinion, the basis of all great writing. I continued to walk in the dark, my mood by now matching the sky. I thought as I walked what every single one of us is going to think when we see Iron Man 3, when we see Star Trek Into Darkness and The Wolf of Wall Street, I was thinking what would Roger have thought about G.I. Joe? Im not aware of whether or not he saw it, I can only hope he didnt. I wont run the risk of turning this into a review of the film but lets just say: it was awful. He was and is the only film critic to have ever won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, the grand majesty of writing awards, save the Nobel Prize for Literature. His work was characterized by dry wit, by passion for his job and above all, a remarkable intelligence regarding film as an art form. Ive been looking through his top ten lists tonight, which he has released every year since 1967. Various No.1 spot titles include Apocalypse Now, The Social Network, Goodfellas and Juno all wonderful films. I am currently in that odd state of mind where I am looking at the top spots and I find myself agreeing with the decision to award them first place, I then add: Good choice, Roger. The first review I read by him was of Caligula. He said: "Caligula" is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful You wont be surprise to learn that he offered the picture zero of his prestigious four stars. Since then I have come to love reading him. Every time for a long time, whenever there is a new release I am interested in, I type the words into Google: Roger Ebert Skyfall Review for example. I will miss his passion for cinema, his knowledge of cinema and his influence will extend through me into my friends and from others into other and into others. He is THE film critic. His writing was clear, honest, informed, and intelligent. Even his blind spots are illuminating. He lives on now through his reviews, which I suspect will be read for a long time yet by all serious movie fans. Ebert on Amour: "Amour" has a lesson for us that only the cinema can teach: the cinema, with its heedless ability to leap across time and transcend lives and dramatize what it means to be a member of humankind's eternal audience. Ebert on Dr. Strangelove and 2001: A Space Odyssey ``Dr. Strangelove'' and ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' (1968) are Kubrick's masterpieces. The two films share a common theme: Man designs machinery that functions with perfect logic to bring about a disastrous outcome. The U.S. nuclear deterrent and the Russian ``doomsday machine'' function exactly as they are intended, and destroy life on earth. The computer HAL 9000 serves the space mission by attacking the astronauts.