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> As good as his four-star reviews were, I still loved reading his 0 to 1 star reviews. He was at great at ripping movies as he was as exalting them.

It's typically harder to write a good positive review than a good negative one. It's often hard to come up with praise and word it so that it doesn't sound like a bunch of thinly-veiled cliches strung together. This was actually Ebert's greatest strength, in my opinion.

>I've read him since I was in junior high...it sounds silly now, but the way he would give four stars to what seemed like just a shallow blockbuster action movie but then justify it for doing shallow action wonderfully...that taught me a lot about how to judge things on what they purport to do, rather than just against what you, the writer, prefers.

Exactly.

As a kid watching one of his reviews was the first time I'd seen a reviewer, or anyone on TV say something like that. Even today, he remains the only example that readily comes to mind.

His "Your Movie Sucks" book (http://www.amazon.com/Your-Movie-Sucks-Roger-Ebert/dp/074076...) has some pretty humurous, scathing reviews.