Get Well Soon, Roger

Roger Ebert is having surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland. This is his third such surgery, and he’s expected to make a full recovery.

I love Roger Ebert—and it’s usually when I disagree with him about a movie that he most makes me laugh. Although, if you’re ever in the need for something to make you chuckle, you can’t go wrong by heading over to RogerEbert.com and doing a search for all the films upon which he conferred zero stars. Those reviews are priceless. One of my favorites is his review of Freddie Got Fingered, which is a movie I actually like in a weird way for its brazen bizarreness, yet about which I also manage to agree with most of Ebert’s scathing review:

This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels. …The film is a vomitorium consisting of 93 minutes of Tom Green doing things that a geek in a carnival sideshow would turn down.

But the best one ever is his review of Pink Flamingos.

There is a temptation to praise the film, however grudgingly, just to show you have a strong enough stomach to take it. It is a temptation I can resist.

Ebert also notes he gives PF zero stars “because stars simply seem not to apply. It should be considered not as a film but as a fact, or perhaps as an object.”

Bless you, Roger Ebert. A speedy recovery, sir. I depend on you.