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The Ebert connection: critic formed a bond with former CHEK host

One of the most endearing things about Roger Ebert was how accessible Hollywood’s most famous movie critic was, with a populist style that made you feel you knew him.
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Michaela Pereira on the set of the CNN morning program New Day. The former CHEK broadcaster says Roger Ebert was a "mentor, supporter, coach and cheerleader" for her.

One of the most endearing things about Roger Ebert was how accessible Hollywood’s most famous movie critic was, with a populist style that made you feel you knew him.

I felt this years ago at Toronto International Film Festival, when we met and shared our admiration for a mutual friend, Victoria-raised filmmaker Atom Egoyan.

My Ebert encounter was dramatically different from my 1979 dinner at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel with Gene Siskel, his “frenemy” and co-host on their game-changing TV shows Sneak Previews and At the Movies.

While Ebert was affable and all smiles, Siskel, while not unfriendly, was more intense and chatty.

“You have to love movies — the good and the bad — and want to be challenged by them,” the slim and balding Chicago Tribune critic, wearing his trademark blazer, plaid shirt and V-neck sweater, advised this neophyte reviewer.

“And acknowledge the unique style of filmmakers, but, above all, be true to yourself.”

The Chicago-based pair, nicknamed “Siskbert,” shared this philosophy at least, as well as a passion for championing indie gems like El Norte and My Dinner With Andre.

While Life Itself, Steve James’s affectionate documentary about Ebert now playing at the Vic, offers an illuminating and at times poignant portrait of how the former Chicago Sun-Times critic achieved what he did before being silenced by cancer last year, it also offers a fascinating glimpse of what it was like for the person sitting across the aisle from him on camera.

Michaela Pereira could certainly relate to that when the CNN personality, who made her broadcasting debut in 1994 at CHEK TV, became Ebert’s temporary co-host six years later.

The former co-host of CHEK Around with Gordie Tupper got that opportunity because of an aspect of Ebert’s life she became well aware of when she began hosting Internet Tonight on San Francisco’s ZDTV. Like Pereira, Ebert wasn’t just a serious movie lover. He was also a tech geek. As Life Itself acknowledges, Ebert even co-wrote, with John Kratz, the 1994 book The Computer Insectiary: A Field Guide to Viruses, Bugs, Worms, Trojan Horses, and Other Stuff That Will Eat Your Programs and Rot Your Brain.

Pereira says her passion for technology was partly why Ebert invited her to become Internet correspondent and guest host on Ebert & The Movies after Siskel’s death in 1999.

“I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” she said, recalling how Ebert gave her a “huge” break that helped pave the way to Los Angeles, where she co-anchored KTLA’s morning show for nine years, and New York, where she is news anchor on CNN’s New Day with Chris Cuomo and Kate Bolduan, and co-hosts At This Hour with John Berman.

Pereira said she’ll always be grateful to Ebert for helping her find her own voice.

“The thrill of having my little brown thumb next to his and sitting in the balcony was almost too much,” recalled Pereira, who regarded Ebert as a “mentor, supporter, coach and cheerleader.”

Pereira proved she could stand her ground opposite the critical giant, including the time she disagreed with Ebert while reviewing Mary Harron’s gruesome 2000 cult hit American Psycho, based on Brett Easton Ellis’s controversial novel. Christian Bale played a wealthy, narcissistic Manhattan investment banker who moonlights as a sadistic serial killer, motivated by contempt for late 1980s yuppiedom.

“I appreciate movies that are creative, thought-provoking and most of all entertaining,” Pereira told Ebert, adding she didn’t find it entertaining and “wanted it to end.”

She said while she appreciated the satirical touch Harron brought to “this dreadful tale,” she thought the film didn’t satisfactorily illustrate why Bale’s character was so unhinged.

Saying American Psycho reminded him of the approach taken in films like Neil LaBute’s black comedy In the Company of Men, Ebert didn’t share Pereira’s view that it was akin to a slasher film.

“The way I approached it was not that this is the story of a psycho killer but a portrait of a personality,” Ebert argued.

“There are people like this — over-achievers, very narcissistic, egotistical, self-centred and greedy, entirely focused on gratifying their own immediate impulses.”

Ebert’s fondness for Pereira was evident, even when she said: “I guess I have a very overactive imagination” in reaction to Ebert’s assertion the violence was “a step down” from slasher fare.

“I doubt if anybody’s going to go to American Psycho and won’t know what it’s about … especially after this discussion,” a smiling Ebert said.

mreid@timescolonist.com

What: Life Itself

Where: The Vic, 808 Douglas St.

When: Today-Thursday, 7 p.m.