Alan Zweibel on that Ebert review

In last week's New Yorker, screenwriter Alan Zweibel graciously described the awful feeling of having Roger Ebert say of a movie he wrote, "North," that "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it." Yes, that's a bad review. But there's more:

"North" is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails....

"North" is a bad film - one of the worst movies ever made.

This was in 1994. Zweibel took it about as you would expect.

Because I have a tendency to be a tad hard on myself, I took the time to reread it. Slower this time. Looking for a hidden adjective. Or perhaps the phrase “I’m just kidding” (as in “I’m just kidding when I say that I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie”) that I somehow overlooked the next twenty-five times I read this death notice. But no. There was no getting around it. There was something about “North” that apparently irked Roger Ebert.

To be fair, this was not the only negative review that the film received. There were a number of them. O.K., I’m lying. There was a veritable avalanche of them. But because it was written by Roger Ebert, this was the one that everyone on the planet read.

And quoted.

To me, by friends who called to express their sympathies: “It’s like Ebert stuck two thumbs up your ass and then had a tug of war with himself.”

To Robin, who came home from the neighborhood supermarket we’d been shopping at for years and said, “I’m wondering if maybe we should order in for awhile.”

To our son Adam, who, when he grew tired of defending his dad to his L.A. classmates, asked if I’d be offended if he changed his last name to Sorkin.

Ebert and Zweibel had a later rapproachment of sorts, in a Chicago restaurant men's room.