Roger Ebert, legendary film critic, dies at 70

Roger Ebert, the Chicago movie critic whose weekly TV show with crosstown rival Gene Siskel made him one of the most widely recognized and influential voices on film, died April 4 of cancer at a rehabilitation facility in Chicago. He was 70.

His longtime newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, reported his death.

When Mr. Ebert didn’t like a movie, he said so, sometimes sarcastically and always with passion. He and Siskel, a Chicago Tribune film critic, were accessible and entertaining, forgoing both celebrity flash and brain-busting film theory in favor of simplicity: two guys sitting in the balcony of a fake theater, talking about summer blockbusters and indie films with a passion that occasionally spilled over into personal insults....