test sstuff

ned from the beginning.

If he sometimes seemed too lenient in his judgments, he was also a startlingly acute observer of films. His commentary on the DVD reissue of Citizen Kane — one of the most-discussed American movies in history — is alive with insights about the film (the low ceilings that helped Orson Welles develop his famous deep focus technique; the way the film’s reporters were always pictured at the lower right of the frame) that make it a new experience. A critic for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, Ebert won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for his criticism, a rare feat for a film writer, and he was a brilliant feature writer: His 1972 interview with Lee Marvin is so fresh and alive it could have been written yesterday. In 2005, he received another honour when he became the first critic to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Ebert’s television career began the year he won the Pulitzer, first on WTTW-TV, the Chicago PBS station, then nationwide on PBS and later on several commercial syndication services. Ebert and Siskel, who passed away in 1999, even trademarked the “two thumbs up” phrase.
Ebert was also an author, writing more than 20 books that included two volumes of essays on classic movies and the popular I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie, a collection of some of his most scathing reviews.

His work came to Canada with the launch of the National Post in 1998, which used his syndication service until 2007. His reviews also appeared over the years in numerous Postmedia papers, including the Windsor Star, the Calgary Herald, the Regina Leader Post, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and the Vancouver Province. He used the paper as his base during his annual visits to the Toronto International Film Festival.
Shortly after news broke of Ebert’s death Thursday, TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey tweeted: “Movies are human documents. They show us our soul. Roger Ebert taught me that. Rest in peace.”

“No one loved movies more than Roger Ebert, to whom many filmmakers and some film festivals, principally Toronto, owe a great deal for his early enthusiastic and constantly loyal support,” Helga Stephenson, chief executive officer of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, said in an email to The Canadian Press.

“Unbelievably prolific, Roger was a brilliant critic, an unabashed booster of his favourite films and talent, and a kid in the candy store all at the same time,” continued Stephenson, a former head of the Toronto film festival.