Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2000
Roger Ebert collects the past few years of his reviews along with interviews, essays, and "Ask the Movie Answer Man" into one sturdy volume--Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2000. The reviews, of course, are the main feature of the book, and they bear the hallmark of a man who no longer worries about censoring himself. (On Robin Williams inFather's Day: "He's getting to be like the goofy uncle who knows one corny parlor trick and insists on performing it at every family gathering.") He also clearly loves movies enough to be vastly irritated when they are poorly or lazily made. (OnThe Wedding Singer: "Did anybody, at any stage, give the story the slightest thought?") But Ebert does not have the snooty tastes of the stereotypical film critic--he gives the deliriously sleazyWild Thingsan enthusiastic review because it is so incandescently trashy that in its own way it becomes a thing of beauty. Ebert is also not afraid to go out on a limb, boldly naming the box-office failureDark Citythe best movie of 1998, and taking the risk of being the only audience member to blast an ultrahip entry at the Toronto Film Festival for being racist. And of course the book functions as a valuable browser's read and video-store companion, providing a list of recent movies and a quick answer to the does-it-suck-or-not question.--Ali Davis