Life Itself

Caught the documentary about Roger Ebert – Life Itself… it’s in limited theatrical release and is otherwise available via Netflix streaming. It’s about his life, his career as a newspaper man, his relationship with Gene Siskel, his marriage, and his cancer. It’s not a lot I didn’t know already having read a lot of his writing over the past 30+ years but it was very well done and the end had a bigger emotional wallop than I expected. Nice interviews with Werner Hertzog, Martin Scorcese, and other film makers as well as his and Siskel’s widows. Plus a lot of footage of Ebert himself with his missing jaw which apparently he was more than fine with exposing given that he didn’t want to hide anything (a little disconcerting that you could see through his mouth to his shirt and neck brace below but he was still able to speak given the power of his voice synthesizer and his social media presence). Very solid documentary – highly recommended if you liked Ebert, film reviews, the movies, etc.