georgeorwell

Yeah, I basically agree. His mainstream work is what he's known for, and it's probably why self-avowed intellectuals (academics in film studies or film theory) don't consider him an intellectual. For me it's that even with his online work, he's much more of an everyman than an ivory tower guy, which is why the label of "intellectual" doesn't quite fit. This isn't bad or good, this is just how I see it, and it says nothing about his own intelligence. Finally, I think it's quite possible for depth within a review format. I like the ones in Variety: they're deeper, yet they don't give it away. Then again, they don't have as much mass-market appeal.

gnosis didn't say anything about film or new media. I'd be really pretty surprised if gnosis believed there weren't "intellectual" (read: thoughtful) things to say about film. That said, he didn't explain why it's sad that Ebert was considered an intellectual either, so who knows.

There's nothing wrong with film criticism. Ebert's 4-star ratings are even a good heuristic for picking something to watch. All of his "great movies" are generally recognized as such. And he certainly knew a lot more details about film than probably anyone else.

The problem with Ebert's reviews is that they offer very little in the way of insight, analysis, or depth. Instead, they are generally straightforward expositions of the film crew, setting, characters, and plot. This means that you cannot read them before watching a film, unless you want to be spoiled, and afterwards, if you were paying any kind of attention, you've already grasped everything that he points out. He doesn't usually explain what he thought the central message of a film is, so it can be unclear if he got it or not. He isn't big on interpretation.

He wasn't an idiot, but he didn't do the hard intellectual work of coming up with something new to say about films. Even the most hyper-intelligent person would have a hard time coming up with "intellectual" things to say at the rate he churned through movies. I think he was writing something like one review per day by the end.

Ebert's reviews are to film criticism what Ebert's one-pot cooking is to a full kitchen. He could make something reasonable, and it would appeal to lots of people, but the structural and time constraints meant it would never have the sophistication of an in-depth treatment. Ask someone in film studies, ask someone in culinary school.

The positive side of a lack of depth is breadth, which means we have a massive number of star ratings from a single source, and as such his work is a reasonable encyclopedia of film. Much of what he details in his reviews isn't available in Wikipedia, or appropriate for it.