This might be a little too "insider baseball" or whatever, but I'm going to post it anyway, because as far as I can tell, Roger "The Eeb" Ebert is getting more and more badass as he gets older and older, and watching him revel in it is kind of amazing.

No doubt inspired by recent events (like, say, At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper becoming At the Movies with That Dumbass Piece of Shit Ben Lyons), Ebert has created Roger's Little Rule Book, a collection of advice for film critics who aren't hacks. It begins:

We can't be too careful. Employers are eager to replace us with Celeb Info-Nuggets that will pimp to the mouth-breathers, who underline the words with their index fingers whilst they watch television.

And it continues with advice like:

Be prepared to give a negative review. If you give one to the work of a friend, and they're not your friend any more, they weren't ever your friend. As Robert Altman once asked me, "If you never gave me a bad review, what would a good review mean?" He was a great man. He thought over his words, and added: "But all your bad reviews of my films have been wrong."

Anyway, it's good reading. Also, fuck Ben Lyons. And Pete Hammond, while we're at it.