This week in theaters, a documentary on a legendary film critic, and one of the worst comedies of the year. My thoughts on both films below.

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    Pick of the Week: Life Itself

    We all have our heroes. Some look up to basketball players, some look up to innovative businessmen. For me it's Roger Ebert who over the coarse of five decades became a pioneer in film criticism history. When he passed away at the age of seventy, I was both shocked and devastated. I grew up watching his reviews, seeing him argue ruthlessly with Gene Siskel on television and to me he was not just an impeccable icon of film criticism but also a remarkable individual. However he also had his share of demons and that is well reflected in Steve James' latest documentary Life Itself, a wonderfully honest and heartfelt look at the life and career of the legendary Roger Ebert. Ebert dealt with alcoholism throughout his life and fought cancer on multiple occasions, eventually causing the loss of his ability to speak and the use of his jaw because of the illness. But that didn't ever stop him from writing brilliantly about the ever-changing state of cinema and he continued to debate about films until the day he died. Steve James is one of the greatest documentary filmmakers working today and I can't think of a more capable director to take on the eventful life of Ebert then James. Ebert himself championed James' work that included the magnificent Hoop Dreams and The Interrupters. There are many talented people who discuss Ebert's legacy throughout the coarse of this film but it's Ebert himself who steals the show, always working hard to make a difference in the way film criticism is represented in our world. There will never be anyone else like Roger Ebert ever again, and this unforgettable documentary shows why. He was a unique, brilliant critic who always cared deeply about how the medium of film was being used and will forever be known as a one of a kind legend.

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    Sex Tape

    Sometimes a comedy can be so bad that you feel like your brain's just being repeatedly stabbed. That's how I felt while watching the painfully awful film Sex Tape, a witness, brainless, lifeless piece of filmmaking coming from the worst corners of Hollywood cinema. When the film's poster said it was from the director of the equally terrible comedy Bad Teacher, I had a bad feeling about how the film would turn out but I kept an open mind and hoped there would actually be some decent chemistry between the two leads. I was wrong. The film happens to be an incompetent mess of a movie thanks to a series of raunchy, sloppy jokes set up in lazy fashions. I should mention the two leads are Cameron Diaz and Jason Siegel, who both starred together in Bad Teacher and this time play a married couple who find their sex tape stolen the next morning which leads them into a stressful search for the video and chaos ensues. Diaz and Siegel are both capable of being funny but the film's brain dead screenplay and poor direction never let them spread their wings as comedians. This may seem harsh to say these things about a movie, however given the incredible possibilities there are with cinema, do we really deserve a comedy that feels this forced and cringe-inducing?

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