Roger Ebert Cutting Back Work Schedule To Battle Cancer

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Roger Ebert is not retiring. He’s not giving up, and he’s not complaining. He’s just going to take a few steps back and review less movies in order to devote more attention to his health. The beloved critic announced earlier this week in a lengthy and touching blog post that his doctors have discovered more cancer and are aggressively fighting it with radiation. He’s hopeful, but given his first-hand knowledge, he knows writing between two hundred and three hundred reviews a year simply isn’t possible, especially given all the other plans he has.

As much as Ebert’s message was one of sadness, it was also one of hope. He’s planning to embark on a Kickstarter campaign to relaunch At The Movies, and he’s redoing his official website to bring aboard more writers. Add that to the documentary about his life several high profile filmmakers are currently working on and the bigger release movies he’s still planning to write and we should continue seeing plenty of the famous journalist, which is the way it should be.

Ebert might not be the most physically imposing man in the world, but he’s been a fighter, both with his opinions and his immune system, for the entirety of his life. No doubt he will scrap and claw with a vengeance during his struggle. Selfishly, I hope he pauses as much as he can from that battle to give us some more great insights on movies.

Get well soon, Roger.

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Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.