Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2012

I got this somewhere and have been reading it off and on whenever I have five minutes to spare. It's only when I read him that I realise how much I miss Roger Ebert as a reviewer. I never read him religiously, but whenever I did, I was struck by how he, as few other movie critics could, combined dry, somewhat snobby intelligence with a deep love of the medium. Yes, he was brilliant at writing scathing, vicious putdowns, as he does occasionally in this collection as well (I can imagine seeing this many movies in a year, I could never imagine having anything worthwhile to say about all of them). But even his most dismissive hatchet jobs always came with a side of we-can-do-better; as if he knew that even the stupidest action movie could be the greatest movie in the world for 90 minutes, and felt almost betrayed if a movie promised its audience something it didn't deliver. I don't know much about Ebert himself, but I like to think it had something to do with coming into his own right about the time modern, more rock'n'roll criticism became the norm, but before movies were forever divided into blockbusters and arthouse. In this, he praises Salt and eviscerates Transformers, speculates on what would happen if he appeared in public with Edward Cullen's eyebrows, and snarks beautifully at fans of Thor ("I know aliens from other worlds are required to arrive in New Mexico, but why stay there?").

Nobody needs to agree with a critic; but we need critics who provide something worth listening to, and perhaps arguing with.