Spoiler Alert: This Post Is About Spoiler Etiquette

Not long ago, I was hanging with friends, and I mentioned that I been catching up with a new show on HBO (I’m not going to say which one) in the midst of a conversation about shows that everybody had been watching lately. I said to one of my friends that I wished he hadn’t, at a previous meeting, dropped a Spoiler from the third episode of the series – it was actually just one word that he said when he remarked about how nothing was really happening in the show’s first few episodes, and then - the one word. Now, it was a loaded word – think a major plot point that can be summed up with one or just a few words like murder, or car accident, or divorce. So I was miffed that I had heard that word before I had gotten to that point on my own. 

I had only seen one episode, which was largely set-up, and was still trying to feel out the tone of the show. When that word was spoken by father, my brain noted it, and it greatly affected how I watched the show from then on. Since my friend knew that I had only seen one episode, I would think he’d keep mum, so I told him that when I got to the point where the event happened that he so sloppily spoiled, and that his careless blurting out of the word diluted the impact of the scene.

 

His reaction floored me - he laughed like what I said was ridiculous, and invalid. Nobody else laughed at this, mainly because nothing funny was said at all – just somebody offering their opinion on something that they found important – the experience of viewing a program or movie with somebody who has already seen it obnoxiously spoiling a key moment.

 

Which brings us to the Urban Dictionary’s definition of Spoiler:

The thing that maybe bothered me most is that my friend reacted as if this was the first time anyone had ever voiced this opinion. Now, I’ve been a big fan of film since I was a kid, and the idea of not ruining people’s experience is one that has been big in the pop culture conversation that I’ve been in for over four decades. I’ve worked in video stores, and movie theaters where I’ve had thousands of conversations with co-workers, and customers, about keeping important plot points to yourself unless you know that the person you are talking to is caught up with whatever TV show, movie, or book you may be discussing. I seriously, but stupidly thought this was something that everybody knew - in fact, I hesitated even blogging about this because these points feel so redundant, so obvious, and so universally relatable.

 

But instead of being reasonable, and respectful to a world that he knows his son has passion for and has written about for decades, my friend just said, “I don’t care about Spoilers.” In all of those previous conversations, and the many many many that I’ve had or read online, I’ve never heard or read or seen that statement. That’s because it’s a bullshit thing to say. Everyone I’ve ever known or talked to about this cares about not having their experiences spoiled, and I know there are shows that it would’ve highly annoyed him if, say, someone spouted out who was the murderer in in a show he had invested a number of hours viewing. 

I mean, that’s why we watch these things in the first f-in’ place! We want the real storytellers to reveal this stuff to us, not somebody who says that they don’t care about other’s experience. This is major common courtesy stuff! I comfort myself in thinking he just said that in the defensive. Some people just can’t concede a point in the moment, you know. Even one as rock solid as my argument.

 

It was also sad to me because in the 18 years of maintaining this blog, I’ve referred to Spoilers hundreds and hundreds of times (Google it). I’ve started many reviews with Spoiler warnings, and I’ve highlighted the word Spoiler in red so that readers will be aware that they might be coming. So I guess I learned that my friend doesn’t read my blog although they've often said they did. I’ve long suspected that they just skimmed it, and now I know for sure what’s up.

 

Fun fact: The phrase “Spoiler Alert” has existed long before the internet - it has been traced back to a review of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN in 1982.

 

I received an invite to the latest Marvel movie, DOCTOR STRANGE: THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (love that title), and it had this request for critics:

 

I mentioned this to another friend – sent them the screen capture above – and they replied, “Hmm. You’d think that would go without saying.” Well, apparently not. I mean, again, I hesitated to write this post because I would think that everybody reading a movie blog would know this drill. But, yeah, apparently not.

 

So millions and millions of people care about spoilers. Movie studios spend a lot of money and time trying to hide the things that DOCTOR STRANGE request specified so that audiences can have a fresh experience going in. Iconic film critic Gene Siskel (of Siskel & Ebert fame) notably would wait in the lobby while trailers for other movies were playing because he didn’t want to see anything from upcoming movies before seeing them himself. Siskel passed away in 1999, so I wonder how if he had lived, he would maneuvered during the internet age when a glance at any social media platform can reveal something from some current film without any warning. I bet he would and just not go on the internet, just like he didn’t enter the theater until after the coming attractions.

 

Here ends my rant. Good Gawd, that felt good to get out of my system!!!! I guess I was triggered by the shocking event of somebody being so clueless to something that’s so embedded in our pop culture experiences. Revealing spoilers to somebody, especially without asking or acknowledging where they are in viewing said show or movie, is a definitive cultural taboo. The rule of respecting other’s experiences by not spouting out spoilers is something I’m very glad exists for the people that do care. You know, everybody, but my so called friend.

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How COP AND A HALF Divided Siskel & Ebert More Than Any Other Film

The legendary movie critics Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun Times, and Gene Siskel, of the Chicago Tribune, may be long gone (Siskel died in 1999; Ebert in 2013), but their legacy remains strong particularly among film geeks like me who still watch their old clips on YouTube.

Siskel & Ebert (this is the official order of their names according to law and/or PBS branding), disagreed on many, many movies but none was as hilariously divisive as Henry Winkler’s (that’s right, The Fonz) 1993 comedy COP AND A HALF.

This family-friendly buddy cop flick, which paired a tired-looking Burt Reynolds as a Tampa detective paired with 8-year Norman D. Golden II, as a kid who witnessed a murder and wants to be made a cop so he can help solve the killing.

It was a wacky premise, and one that looked pretty crappy via TV spots and the poster, especially considering how dire Reynolds’ film career was at that point. Definitely not an appealing prospect for most movie-goers.

Then this happened: On April 3, 1993, the weekend that COP AND A HALF was released, Roger Ebert led off he and Siskel’s popular syndicated series At the Movies with his review of the film (watch the clip). Usually they show a few clips before airing their opinions, but before offering up some excerpts from the film, Ebert called it “entertaining.”

After the montage of clips was over, Ebert rendered his review: “COP AND A HALF is not any kind of a masterpiece, but on the other hand, it’s not dumb and not boring either. And a lot of the credit for that goes to little Norman D. Golden II, who is a natural actor, very bright and very funny.

But, credit must also be paid to big Burt Reynolds, who takes what might’ve been a thankless role and plays it just right here, finding the right balance between toughness and humor. This movie has the kind of chemistry between the grown-up world and a smart kid that I looked for and missed in ‘HOME ALONE 2.’ It’s amusing, it moves, and somewhat to my surprise, I liked it.”

Then with perfect timing, Siskel replied: “Wow-ee, where’s your big red suit and beard, Santa? You just gave them a gift.”

Following that hilarious response, Siskel went on to say that Norman wasn’t “a particularly charismatic actor,” and that he didn’t think there “was any chemistry” between the two leads. Siskel ends his thumbs down segment saying of Ebert’s favorable review of COP AND A HALF, “I’m stunned, Roger.”

At the start of 1994, Siskel & Ebert aired their annual “Worst Movies” of the previous year round-up, and Siskel took the opportunity to again dump on COP AND A HALF. Siskel said that Reynolds performance “makes my skin crawl,” and concluded that “the only thing more unnerving than this picture is that my esteemed colleague, across the aisle, so wise, so often, is the only major film critic in America that actually recommended COP AND A HALF.”

Ebert responded: “Norman B. Golden was just wonderful in this film. Now, you have to admit it.”

“No I don’t have to admit it,” Siskel said. “He’s an okay movie kid – he’s a Hollywood acting kid.”

Siskel then barked about the script, the money, and Burt Reynolds has done too many cop pictures.

“Maybe you got up on the wrong side of bed that morning,” Ebert postulates.

“As did the rest of America,” Siskel concludes.

Ebert then said that he doubted he was the only major film critic that liked the film, but later that year, on Late Night With David Letterman, he complained to the host that “Burt Reynolds always bad mouths both of us, and I gave COP AND A HALF a good review, and I’m the only critic in the world who liked that movie. And he goes on some talk show and says ‘Siskel and Ebert don’t like anything I do,’ and, you know, why did I go out on a limb for him?’” So it seemed Ebert had accepted by then that he was the movie’s only fan as a critic.

COP AND A HALF came up now and then on At the Movies, but the most notable occasion came during the duo’s review of John Woo’s 1996 action thriller BROKEN ARROW (watch it here).

After giving a lukewarm, but positive review, Siskel does something he has never done before: he changes his mind on the film turning his thumb up to a thumb down. “I’m changing my opinion, now do me one…I know you’re amazed, do me one favor, look into the camera and say ‘I was wrong about COP AND A HALF - it wasn’t a very good movie.’” Ebert refused saying, “I won’t do that, I saw things in COP AND A HALF that I admire.” “That no one else did!” Siskel responded while laughing.

A half a week after this aired, Siskel & Ebert re-hashed this conversation on another of their many appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman. Siskel discussed his opinion change on BROKEN ARROW, then again needled Ebert: “Roger, do you want to change your vote on COP AND A HALF, with Burt Reynolds and a little boy, and, of course, Roger, being totally insecure, said ‘no, I don’t want to.’”

The spat was notorious enough that this quote was featured in obituaries of Ebert, after he passed in 2013: “Gene didn't like APOCALYPSE NOW, and I was appalled. I liked COP AND A HALF, and Gene was appalled.”

For his part, I can’t find a single interview in which Reynolds spoke of the film. It did little to slow his career decline, something even his acclaimed Oscar-nominated role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s BOOGIE NIGHTS failed to do (it didn’t help that he hated BOOGIE NIGHTS, bad mouthing it often). Reynolds passed in 2018, sadly leaving behind a legacy in which his many bad movies may be remembered better than his few good ones.

As I mentioned at the top of this post that Siskel & Ebert are no longer with us but there’s a wealth of their great stuff on YouTube: full episodes of their series from their original show on PBS to the syndicated At the Movies franchise, plus tons of talk show appearances.

So that leaves the last leading player in the COP AND A HALF, the A HALF. Norman D. Golden II, who also goes by the name Enormus as a rapper, was asked in a 2014 for the site, “Little White Lies,” about the criticism the film received back upon release in 1993: “Critics can be cruel but that’s what they get paid to do! I honestly wasn’t really exposed to much of what the critics were saying mostly because my parents did not want that to affect my creativity.”

After all of this critical hubbub, I must say that while was roundly panned by everyone except Ebert, COP AND A HALF was actually a mild success (largely due to a small budget) and even a quarter of a century later spawned a sequel entitled COP AND A HALF: NEW RECRUIT, starring Lou Diamond Phillips, and newcomer Lulu Wilson, which was rightfully ignored presumably because it was a direct-to-video release.

It seems fitting that part of Ebert’s legend is that he would often stick up for the little fluffy movies that could, even when everyone else thought they couldn’t. Siskel disliking APOCALYPSE NOW or some other well received film, just doesn’t have the same likable impact as Ebert’s going against the negative flow for such a silly forgettable kids-themed comedy. COP AND A HALF may be forgettable as a film, but this funny feud between Siskel & Ebert made it one of the most memorable movies they ever argued about in their 24-year career together.

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LIFE ITSELF: The Film Babble Blog Review

LIFE ITSELF (Dir. Steve James, 2014)

Roger Ebert, arguably the most famous movie critic ever, gets his own movie in the form of LIFE ITSELF, Steve James’ affectionate documentary adaptation of the late Chicago critic’s 2011 memoir, now playing at an indie art house near you (it’s also available on Demand and on iTunes).

James began filming the biodoc a few months before Ebert succumbed to cancer in 2013, so we get to spend some quality time with the great writer who didn’t let thyroid cancer taking his voice and his lower jaw stop him from turning out scores of film reviews, blog posts, and assorted other articles up until his death.

With the help of hundreds of archival photographs, tons of television clips, interviews with colleagues, and the audio of impressionist and voicematch impressionist Steven Stanton providing narration, James takes us through Ebert’s humble beginnings covering sports for his high school paper to his rise as a Pulitzer Prize winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times to his fame as a television personality who famously bickered with Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel on several popular TV programs from 1975-1999 (Opening Soon…At a Theater Near You, Sneak Previews, At the Movies, etc.).

After Ebert quit drinking in 1979, at an AA meeting he met his future wife Chaz, without a doubt the great woman behind the great man. Through their communication consisting often of just gestures, we get a good sense of their loving relationship. Mrs. Ebert’s assisting her husband in getting to the movies, sometimes in defiance of doctor’s orders, is adorable, and their ability to joke together (Ebert through hand-written notes and his laptop) through his struggles with sickness makes for some of the most touching moments I’ve seen on the big screen this year.

The most entertaining segments of this documentary unsurprisingly deal with Ebert’s caustic clashes with Siskel through the years. Richard Corliss of Time magazine said their show could be seen as “a sitcom about two guys who lived in a movie theater,” a testament to their Old Couple appeal.

Classic clips of the duo arguing over various movies through the years, plus hilarious outtake footage from the filming of commercial promos, illustrate how these two men’s hatred gradually grew into respect and love before Siskel died after battling a brain tumor in 1999.

Then there’s the films themselves. Key quotes from Ebert’s reviews of such milestone movies as BONNIE AND CLYDE, CRIES AND WHISPERS, and THE TREE OF LIFE are highlighted, but it’s the mention of his 1967 notice of a small independent film, WHO'S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR, made by a first-time filmmaker from Queens, N.Y., who Ebert predicted would in ten years be “the American Fellini,” that most got to me.

That filmmaker was Martin Scorsese, who executive produced LIFE ITSELF and appears here as an interview subject. Seeing Scorsese get choked up about Ebert had me, well, a bit choked up, and its seriously affecting to see the master filmmaker bristle at the critic’s harsh criticism of THE COLOR OF MONEY in 1986.

Now, I grew up on Ebert’s writing, and his TV appearances, so this material often got me very emotional. It’s difficult to watch the man fading in his final days, his mouth nothing more than a hanging flap of skin, but his wit and inspirational spirit ease the pain and sadness considerably.

James, whose seminal 1994 basketball documentary HOOP DREAMS Ebert was a huge supporter of, has constructed a vital glowing portrait. Full of warmth and humanity, LIFE ITSELF is an extraordinary and essential biodoc about a man whose love of movies influenced many movie-goers, including me, to seek out a lifetime of meaningful cinema.

Ebert says at one point in this film, “Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound.” LIFE ITSELF will undoubtedly be loved by a lot of people, but very few will have to look very deeply to find its profundity - it can be felt in nearly every frame.

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R.I.P. Roger Ebert (1942-2013)

Had I not been so busy covering Full Frame 2013, this would’ve been posted a lot earlier.

A week ago today, one of my biggest writing influences, world famous Chicago author/critic/former television personality Roger Ebert passed away at age 70 after a long public battle with cancer. I learned the sad news of his death from the Facebook status of a fellow local critic, Kenneth R. Morefield (1morefilmblog.com):

“Somehow it seems fitting that I should hear of Roger Ebert's passing in a press room full of people who love film. May we all be blessed to be able to do what we love until the moment we can't do anything at all. Rest in peace.”

I was in that same press lounge with Morefield at Full Frame when he wrote this, and I immediately lost interest in the screener I was watching. In fact I thought about blowing off all the documentaries I was going to see, just so I could read all the many memorials that people were posting online. But the spirit of Ebert reminded me that I had a job to do, one that was extremely inspired by Ebert’s thrill and passion for discovering new films and their makers.

Now, I’m back at home with a box full of videotapes, a few of Ebert’s movie guides, and I’m pouring over the man’s prolific career. I’m happy that the man left so much behind - from thewrap.com: “Roger Ebert by the Numbers: 7,202 Reviews, 3 Screenplays, 1 Pulitzer...” plus all his blog posts and tons of YouTube clips including hundreds of segments from his shows with the late great Gene Siskel (Opening Soon at a Theater Near You, Sneak Previews, At the Movies), and lots of the man doing comic bits on Letterman, and many other programs – that we can have to refer to forever.

I don’t think Ebert was the first film critic I ever read (my family got Time Magazine so I think it was Richard Schickel), but he was the first that I felt I had a connection to, mainly because of his work on television. When I got to reading his reviews, I loved how conversational and unpretentious they were. The writing in film magazines such as Film Comment (a mag that inspired the name of this blog) was often above my head, but Ebert never was. He used casual talk, sometimes the parlance of our times, like when he wrote that the ending to Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE was “really off the wall.”

Over the years I’ve read a number of his over 2 dozen books, and thumbing through one, a beat copy of the 1990 Edition of “Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion,” I was reminded of a long going argument I’ve had with the man. I should say it’s a very one-sided argument, but it’s about his 1972 review of HAROLD AND MAUDE.

In my copy, 20 years ago, I checked off by movies I’d seen (or had on VHS, I forget which) with a black pen, but by HAROLD AND MAUDE I also added a big question mark. I was obviously baffled by Ebert’s one and a half star review of what I still think is one of the greatest movies ever, and that led to me writing to him several times through the “Movie Answer Man” department on his website about whether he still disliked the film all these years later.

I figured that he’s changed his mind about his initial reaction to a number of later well regarded cult movies, most notably BLADE RUNNER in which he wrote in a “it is time to cave in and admit it to the canon,” but then that movie got 3 stars the first time around. Still, I thought he may come to see the light about HAROLD AND MAUDE, as its grown such stature over the years, and he loved the work of film makers who were very influenced by it like Wes Anderson. If he stood by his original review, which also bothered me by not mentioning the terrific wall-to-wall soundtrack by Cat Stevens at all, then that would be interesting too. So hoping that I’d someday get an answer I kept posing this question to him in different ways, but I never got any reply. Maybe, that’s the real answer, I dunno.

Writing this, I realize that my trying to engage with Ebert about whether he still held the same viewpoint says a lot about this big conversation about movies that I love taking part in.

Ebert’s reviews always felt like a guy casually, yet with complete concentration, starting a conversation about the most recent movie he saw. He was always full of ideas and insights even if the films he was talking about sucked, and his everyman humor spread a lot of warmth even if you strongly disagreed with him (hello, HAROLD AND MAUDE).

I will miss cyber-needling him about his 42-year old opinion of a hippy dippy era Hal Ashby movie that did pretty damn well without his endorsement (it was released as a Criterion Collection Edition Blu ray last year, for Christ’s sake!), but seriously I’ll really miss his amazing weekly output much more. It was so amazing that being unable to speak due to illness didn’t rob him at all of his voice as a writer. Ebert wrote several reviews a week, along with lots of blogging, and 31,260 tweets (!), so for much of his last decade with us it never felt like he had been silenced.

That’s what makes it so hard to deal with, that he is really gone now.

I just know that I’ll still have that instant reflex with whatever movie of the moment to go to his site to get his take on it for a long-ass time.

R.I.P. Roger Ebert

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