When Roger Ebert took ill last fall, I thought it would pass in a week like his previous cancer scares, and he'd barely mention it. Then he didn't come back to work for months, and I thought he'd announce his retirement, because it's really hard to go back to doing something full-time when you've rested too long, even if you love it like he does. Then he announced that he'd be present at his annual film festival this month, and I thought the recovery was done and he was about to return. Now he's facing the press looking like a man transformed and I don't know what to think any more. (link) Academically speaking, he may be a big fish in a small pond, but I've always considered him one of the wittiest and most accessible of writers in any medium, and he seems like a warm and generous person in private. Whatever else his health has in store for him, I wish him the best, and look forward to his professional comeback in any form.


Two Replies to Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Facial Reconstructive Surgery

Jackie Mason | April 26, 2007
[hidden by author request]

Scott Hardie | May 7, 2007
Just to be clear, since I've heard myself misinterpreted by several people: I don't think Ebert looks bad in these new photos. I just think he looks different, very different, from his traditional image in the press. Maybe I've been lucky in this regard, but I have rarely seen a person transform that much. (The title of this blog post sounds insulting, but I was just borrowing the structure of a South Park episode title.)


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

A Pet Peeve That's Actually About My Pet

How come I can't get through the grocery checkout lane without the clerk or the bagger commenting about how many cans of cat food I buy, which inevitably leads to questions about how many cats I own, how much I feed them, and why I need so many cans? Has nobody in this state heard of stocking up? For their information, I have one cat who eats two 3-oz cans of food a day, which is more than a typical cat but not unheard-of. Go »

Normal Paranormal

This will offend believers in the paranormal, so read at your own peril. Socially, I've tried to keep it a polite secret that I don't believe in any paranormal phenomena, including the everyday sort. Several of my local friends practice feng shui, buy healing magnets, size people up based on their birth signs, and go to dieticians who tell them not to eat foods of certain colors. Go »

R.I.P. Pat

Kelly's mother passed away last week. The event had been anticipated for decades: Pat was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, suffered kidney failure in 1995 and survived on her brother's donated kidney, and had five strokes and five heart attacks and countless operations, including emergency brain surgery in 2007 that changed her personality. She obviously possessed quite an inner resiliency even if she seemed petite and frail on the outside, but it was inevitable that she would someday lose the fight with her own body. Go »

Photos from Milwaukee

Some of these didn't come out as well as I'd hoped (many were snapped from a moving vehicle), but I'm putting them up anyway. complete set Go »

Rowr

For all you Lost Skeleton of Cadavra fans... (If you haven't seen it, rent it, or at least watch the trailer there.) Go »

All King and No Kubrick Make Jack a Dull Boy

I recently got to talking with friends who liked The Shining, both Stephen King's novel and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of it, but who were unaware that King has always loathed the movie, despite its reputation as one of the best horror films ever made. It's hard to imagine that a writer doesn't know his own work better than someone interpreting it, but I think this is one of those rare cases where the writer is just too close to the story to get it. Here are three reasons why I think Kubrick's film better understands the material, and is better overall, than King's novel: 1) In King's version, Jack Torrance is a fundamentally decent man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but who is down on his luck and desperate. Go »