"How do they get to be that way?" Ebert on Race in America

Somehow over the years I never noticed that Roger Ebert could write like this about topics other than movies – touching, insightful, heart-wrenching, angry. This column by him is about race, and it is about as emotionally devastating as anything I have every read. Ebert kicks off from the racist attacks on that school-wall mural in Arizona.

That brings me back around to the story of the school mural. I began up above by imagining I was a student in Prescott, Arizona, with my face being painted over. That was easy for me. What I cannot imagine is what it would be like to be one of those people driving past in their cars day after day and screaming hateful things out of the window. How do you get to that place in your life? Were you raised as a racist, or become one on your own? Yes, there was racism involved as my mother let the driver wait outside in the car, but my mother had not evolved past that point at that time. The hard-won social struggles of the 1960s and before have fundamentally altered the feelings most of us breathe, and we have evolved, and that is how America will survive. We are all in this together.

Ebert magnificently sums up everything I beleive about injustice in this country. The last two paragraphs of his essay will shred your heart.

“How do they get to be that way?” (Chicago Sun-Times)

^..^

h/t Andrew Sullivan

Roger Ebert Does Not Like 3D Movies

Ouch:

3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood's current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches. It is driven largely to sell expensive projection equipment and add a $5 to $7.50 surcharge on already expensive movie tickets. Its image is noticeably darker than standard 2-D. It is unsuitable for grown-up films of any seriousness. It limits the freedom of directors to make films as they choose. For moviegoers in the PG-13 and R ranges, it only rarely provides an experience worth paying a premium for.

Roger Ebert does not like the new 3D wave in Hollywood. I have reservations about it too, which are pretty much the same as what Ebert discusses in his essay.

I watched Avatar for the first time last night, in 2D of course. Very impressive visually, and I'm bet it was quite the show in 3D. But can you see them doing a movie of Hamlet in 3D? As Ebert says, "I'm not opposed to 3-D as an option. I'm opposed to it as a way of life." Time will tell.

As for Avatar, I enjoyed the "blue raver kitties," as a certain figure prominent in the furry world once called them. (Although for all the well-deserved critiques of the screenplay for Titanic, I thought it was a much better movie.) Or, as one wag at Hollywood Elsewhere called Avatar, it's a 450-million dollar furry movie! Yay!

^..^