The Great Movies Amazon.com Review If Pauline Kael popularized movie love, Roger Ebert is the eloquent Valentino of cinephiles. This invaluable volume gathers 100 of the Pulitzer winner's mini-essays composed since 1997, revised and updated, to form a love letter that could only spring from decades of devotion. A feat of superlative analysis, historical reflection, personal diary, and journalistic odyssey, The Great Movies combines an accessible style with an academics precision. Accompanied by photos perfectly chosen by Museum of Modern Art film stills archivist Mary Corliss, the 100 films are irrefutably worthy of inclusion, allowing room for debate (John Fords My Darling Clementine is in, The Searchers is not--arguably a wise decision) while placing each film into its own undeniable context of superiority. Admirably, Ebert recognizes that no critic writes in a vacuum; he dedicates the book to eight master critics hailed as teachers, quotes many of his contemporaries, and carries on the debate with Kaels lingering spirit (Ebert counters her on Body Heat, praises her on Nashville). His appreciation of E.T. is written as a letter to beloved children in his life, and the entire book breathes with an awareness of legacy--the cinemas and Eberts own--that underlies the sobering theme of his introduction. We need these movies (and this book) to remind us that movies can be so much better than they typically are. --Jeff Shannon  From Booklist This book presents a Roger Ebert quite different from the TV personality who offers undemanding moviegoers consumer tips on the latest Hollywood releases. Here he chooses 100 great films--not, he stresses, the 100 best films--and explains why they, not this week's batch of mall movies, are the ones that matter. Rising to the level of his subjects, he writes with an eloquence and a conviction he seldom expresses on TV or in his daily newspaper reviews. Unlike contemporary reviews, these assessments are informed by the passage of time and repeated viewings as well as by Ebert's vast general viewing experience. His selections constitute a nice mixture of American and foreign films and of sound and silent films, including inescapable classics (Citizen Kane, Casablanca), modern masterworks (The Godfather, The Decalogue), and even a few documentaries (Hoop Dreams, the generation-tracking British -Up films). In his introduction, Ebert chides younger viewers--even film students--who lack any knowledge of the medium's greatest works. If his TV fame leads any of them to pick up this book and subsequently investigate his recommendations, it will go a long way toward making up for his years of simplistic "thumbs up-thumbs down" appraisals. Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved               See all Product description