Current Movie Review: LIFE ITSELF (the Roger Ebert Story)

This very fine 2014 documentary film is about the passionate, articulate, and always courageous Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. We learn about his boyhood in a blue-collar family (his father was an electrician) and early interest with the written word. We also hear of his radiation treatments as a kid to cure an ear malady that later was thought to have caused his fatal thyroid cancer. I was pleasantly surprised by his droll and dry sense of humor. Of course, he co-hosted an internationally popular movie review TV show with his rival Gene Siskel at the higher-brow Chicago Tribune. I remember watching it a few times, but I got my movie reviews from other sources like the Washington Post, my hometown newspaper. But I always liked his down-to-earth manner. Siskel and Ebert are shown to be in friendly competition with each other but also realizing their best success was when they combined their talents on TV. Siskel's widow says she believes they loved each other like brothers. The sad part of the movie is Ebert's death last year. Even so, I found LIFE ITSELF fun to watch, and I went away with a greater appreciation of Roger Ebert's talents and spirit.