Roger Ebert Dies At 70

Above, Roger Ebert (left) and Gene Siskel during their heyday.

Movie critic Roger Ebert lost his battle with cancer at age 70.

He teamed up with Gene Siskel for the long-running At The Movies (which later became Siskel and Ebert At The Movies) that originated the "thumb's up" or "thumb's down" jestures on whether they liked a particular movie or not.

I usually found myself agreeing more with the late Gene Siskel (who died in 1999) than with Ebert.

Back in 2004, he drew the ire of Godzilla fans when he panned the original Japanese version of Godzilla (1954) that was released to U.S. theaters in celebration of Godzilla's 50th anniversary.  The review was written as if he watched some other movie and got many facts wrong.  Some even questioned whether or not he had a ghost writer writing it as it was so badly written.

He and I locked horns years ago over something political (I don't even remember what the subject was, I just remember it was political).

Now that Ebert is gone, the balcony is definitely closed.