Steve James's celebratory documentary about popular, populist film critic Roger Ebert shares a title with Ebert's 2011 memoir, but is able to go where the book was not: to the end of life itself. Ebert is unexpectedly hospitalized almost at the outset of production, and it turns out to be the beginning of the end of the decade-long battle with cancer that has already cost him his jaw. These scenes from the last days can be harrowing, but they are lightened by Ebert's almost unbelievable good cheer and ease of expression, which come through even when his "voice" issues from a computer. Also by frequent forays into the man's mostly blessed past: from his days as a precocious writer-editor-student, to his experience as a hard-drinking reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, to his unlikely career as a televised film critic, and beyond. James casts his net wide but not too deep; the result is a positive review of a charmed and happy life, with cancer and fellow At the Movies critic Gene Siskel providing narrative drama. (2014) — Matthew Lickona
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