Watch The Toronto International Film Festival’s Tribute To Roger Ebert

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Losing Roger Ebert is one of the saddest things to happen to film in 2013. I, like many others, probably wouldn’t even have this blog if it wasn’t for Rog.

Most of my love for him still stems back to reading his review of Scream when I was 14-years-old, Rog being one of the only mainstream critics who gave the film a positive review. He give me a vocabulary for what I was watching, making my slasher obsession an entry point into the greater world of film. And I loved this description in his review:

One old standby is the scene where someone unexpectedly enters the frame, frightening the heroine, while a sinister musical chord pounds on the soundtrack. I love these scenes, because (a) the chord carries a message of danger, but (b) of course the unexpected new person is always a harmless friend, and (c) although we can’t see the newcomer because the framing is so tight, in the real world the frightened person would of course be able to see the newcomer all the time.

The fact that he could even say he loved something so blatantly endeared me to him immediately. He was truly a film lovers film critic.

Well, the Toronto International Film Festival kicked off its fest with a tribute to the greatest film critic in my lifetime. And, frankly, I love it. Check it out: