Roger Ebert’s second act as a Twitter superstar and Internet luminary has been enormously gratifying to witness.
I first realized that Ebert was more than a simple critic when I watched Dark City on DVD with his commentary track turned on. It was already one of my favorite movies in years; his insights took it to the next level.
Apparently Murdock lives in room 614 because the screenwriter was in 614 when he wrote the movie, but it can’t be denied that there’s some connection with the fact that Murdock’s first name is ‘John’ and that in John 6:14 you find a verse that’s about the coming of a prophet or a savior.
pictured: Roger Ebert — equipped with awesome cyborg voice collar — explains memes
Most DVD commentaries amount to the director telling some boring anecdotes about the production — oh, this was filmed in a real shopping mall? and they had to shut down business for 3 days and populate it with extras? huh. The Ebert track is like sitting in on a college film course led by the coolest teacher you’ve ever had.
Fantasy: Ebert could start a second career out of “classes” like this. He wouldn’t even need the studios’ participation: they could be recorded as downloadable podcasts and synced for playback a la Rifftrax or Wizard People Dear Reader.
