It sounds like something Yogi Berra would have said if the quirky baseball manager were a film critic: There are so many people publishing movie reviews on the Internet that it’s hard to find one.
But the truth is, the Internet has made it easy for anyone — trained in the craft of reviewing or not — to express an opinion. And at the same time, there’s so much opinion out there that thoughtful analysis can be lost in the digital din. Who do you trust?
To help moviegoers, the Roger Ebert Foundation, named for the late Pulitzer Prize-winning movie reviewer, joined the Hawaii International Film Festival to mentor aspiring young writers during this month’s festival. They discussed film criticism, met with visiting filmmakers and writers, and wrote short reviews of HIFF films.
"The whole point is for them to experience the festival as if they were professional journalists and take on assignments and report their experiences as a journalist would," said the program’s head mentor, Kevin B. Lee, a Chicago-based filmmaker and critic who has created more than 250 video essays.
On a fundamental level, the program is about not taking an experience for granted, Lee said. And therein lies the lesson.
"A movie is two hours of your life," Lee said. "Do you let it go by, or do you engage your attention and emotions and have a full experience — and then be able to relate it to other people."
Ebert was an enthusiastic supporter of HIFF, and his widow, Chaz Ebert, said the program uses the arts to generate critical thinking.
"I think writers who write about the arts have a way of influencing thought about what is happening in the world," she said in a call from her office in Chicago. "I want them to bring their empathy and their compassion and their writing skills to their endeavors."
The HIFF program was inspired by the legacy of Roger Ebert, a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times until his death in 2013. A critic for 46 years, Ebert earned an international reputation for his insightful observations.
The Eberts married in 1992. A lawyer and civil rights activist, Chaz Ebert became her husband’s caregiver when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2002. Now she oversees rogerebert.com, a website devoted to film reviews.
This was the first time the program was offered at HIFF, but the Ebert Foundation is involved in similar ones with the Sundance and Telluride film festivals, the Chicago Urban League, Columbia College and the University of Illinois.
In setting up the mentoring programs, Ebert stresses the need for good journalism, she said.
"It is important that students be introduced to journalistic standards and journalistic ethics," she said. "I hope that this makes a division between them and the reviewers who are writing and it’s just noise."
One of the problems for review-hungry movie fans is the loss of full-time reviewers as a result of newspaper cutbacks in recent years. Ebert uses some of them at rogerebert.com.
But Ebert told HIFF organizers the program here should be open to anyone, not just aspiring reviewers. Critical thinking is a useful skill for many jobs.
"I think if you write well and you write with a critical eye, you will always be able to earn a living," she said.
The couple always enjoyed working with young writers, Ebert said, and her late husband often told them the same thing: Be curious.
"He would say, ‘You know that curiosity will carry things,’" she said. "There are so many things that go on around you, and you have to be observant. But if you are not curious, you miss the flavoring of what is happening."
AND that’s a wrap. …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
