Richard Roeper

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Roeper
Born October 17, 1959 (1959-10-17) (age 48)
Chicago, Illinois
Occupation Film critic, screenwriter
Nationality American
Subjects Film

Richard Roeper (born October 17, 1959)[1] is a columnist/film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and, since September of 2000, has co-hosted the television series At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper with fellow film critic Roger Ebert.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Roeper was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Bob and Margaret Roeper, and was raised in south suburban Dolton, Illinois. He graduated from Illinois State University in 1982.

[edit] Career

Roeper began working as a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1987. The topics of his columns range from politics to media to entertainment, and he has written books on film criticism and urban myths, as well as a book about the Chicago White Sox. Roeper was a radio host on WLS AM 890 in Chicago. He also hosted shows on WLUP-FM, WLS-FM and WMVP-AM in Chicago. He won three Emmy awards for his news commentaries on Fox in the 1990s, and was the film critic for CBS in Chicago for three years in the early 2000s. He was bestowed with the National Headliner Award as the top newspaper columnist in the country in 1992, and has been voted best columnist in Illinois on numerous occasions. His columns have been syndicated by the New York Times to publications around the world.

Roeper has been a frequent guest on the Tonight Show, Live with Regis and Kelly, The O'Reilly Factor, the Today Show and countless other national programs. He is the host of Starz Inside, a monthly documentary series airing on the Starz Network since the fall of 2007. Among Roeper's magazine byline credits: TV Guide, Playboy, Maxim, the late Spy magazine, Reader's Digest, Entertainment Weekly and Chicago magazine.

He was once voted one of People Magazine's Sexiest Bachelors.

[edit] Film critic

After Gene Siskel of Siskel & Ebert died in 1999, the series was renamed Roger Ebert & the Movies and featured rotating co-hosts. In what would become an on-air audition that ultimately was whittled down to Joyce Kulhawik, Michaela Pereira, and Roeper, the latter was offered the opportunity to co-host the popular film review show with fellow Chicago Sun-Times columnist Roger Ebert. The series was renamed to Ebert & Roeper and the Movies in 2000 and immediately enhanced Roeper's importance as a film critic. He continues to write his nationally syndicated, award winning general interest columns, and he also contributes long reviews to the Sun-Times and to newspapers across the country.

Like every film critic in America, Roeper has given some box-office hits thumbs down. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl both received negative reviews from him. However, he gave positive reviews to the sequels to those films. He has also recommended some critically panned films like 3000 Miles to Graceland, Basic, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,& The Number 23. This would indicate that Roeper is not afraid to go against the critical mainstream and recommend "guilty pleasures."

Beginning in August 2006, while his cohost Roger Ebert was recovering from surgery for thyroid cancer, Roeper was joined by guest critics, including Clerks director Kevin Smith and The Tonight Show host Jay Leno.

Roeper has given lists of his ten favorite films of the year, annually, since he began co-hosting the show in 2000. Here are the films that each list comprised:

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
1 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Memento Gangs of New York In America Hotel Rwanda Syriana The Departed Michael Clayton
2 Traffic Vanilla Sky 25th Hour Mystic River Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind The New World The Queen No Country for Old Men
3 The Claim Mulholland Drive Minority
Report
Lost in Translation The Aviator Crash Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima The Lookout
4 The Contender A Beautiful Mind Y Tu Mama Tambien 21 Grams Sideways Munich United 93 Juno
5 Wonder Boys In the Bedroom Adaptation Elephant House of Flying Daggers Nine Lives The Lives of Others American Gangster
6 Finding Forrester Amores Perros Signs The Barbarian Invasions Million Dollar Baby Capote Babel Gone Baby Gone
7 You Can Count on Me Dinner Rush Rabbit-Proof Fence The Station Agent The Terminal Brokeback Mountain Notes on a Scandal Zodiac
8 Sunshine Happy Accidents About
Schmidt
Whale Rider Kill Bill Vol. 2 A History of Violence The Good Shepherd Superbad
9 Cast Away The Deep End One Hour Photo Monster Spanglish Walk the Line Little Miss Sunshine Once
10 Almost Famous Shallow Hal About a Boy Seabiscuit Collateral The 40-Year-Old Virgin Blood Diamond Paris, je t'aime

[edit] Books by Richard Roeper

  • He Rents, She Rents: The Ultimate Guide to the Best Women's Films and Guy Movies, with Laurie Viera (1999)
  • Hollywood Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Delightfully(Weeee!) Persistent Myths of Films, Television, and Music (2001)
  • Urban Legends: The Truth Behind All Those Deliciously Entertaining Myths That Are Absolutely, Positively, 100% Not True (2001)
  • Ten Sure Signs a Movie Character is Doomed, and Other Surprising Movie Lists (2003)
  • Schlock Value: Hollywood at Its Worst (2005)
  • Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz (2006)
  • Debunked!: Conspiracy Theories, Urban Legends, and Evil Plots of the 21st Century (2008)

[edit] References

[edit] External links