Ebert's Top 10 -- Er, I mean, 20

Posted by Michael Dance

Roger Ebert's recent health troubles, plus the confirmation that he and Richard Roeper will never be going back to their old TV show, seems to have freed the man. He's started his own blog where he frequently chats with the commenters, his reviews have in general gone off-topic in comedic directions more often, and he's finally made good on his long-standing complaint that it's impossible to rank the "top ten movies of the year." (Heck, he even reviewed a movie recently without having seen it, although he did admit that in the review, and apologize afterwards.)

This year, his list consists of twenty movies. And -- are you ready for this? -- they're in alphabetical order. That means no movie will be able to claim it was Ebert's "favorite" of the year -- just "one of" Ebert's favorites.

The list:

Ballast
The Band's Visit
Che
Chop Shop
The Dark Knight
Doubt
The Fall
Frost/Nixon
Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
Iron Man
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Shotgun Stories
Slumdog Millionaire
Synecdoche, New York
W.
Wall-E

If you only recognize about half of those and have only seen three or four (or less), you're not alone. Seems Ebert has also become more of a realist:

Looking back over the list, I think most moviegoers will have heard of only about 11, because distribution has reached such a dismal state. I wrote to a reader about "Shotgun Stories," "I don't know if it will play in your town." She wrote back, "How about my state?" This is a time when home video, Netflix and the good movie channels come to the rescue. My theory that you should see a movie on a big screen is sound, but utopian.

It's good to know that despite that, he's still championing the tiny films -- alongside Iron Man and The Dark Knight, of course.

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Ebert's Top 10 -- Er, I mean, 20

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