{"id":1542,"date":"2011-06-12T07:01:53","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T14:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2011-06-12T07:01:53","modified_gmt":"2011-06-12T14:01:53","slug":"app-review-roger-eberts-great-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1542","title":{"rendered":"App Review: Roger Ebert’s Great Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI\u2019ve downloaded a new app!\u201d I exclaimed on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, daddy, can I play it?\u201d My seven-year-old daughter asked.<\/p>\n

My wife shot me a funny look. She knows I don\u2019t play games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably another news app, dear,\u201d my wife never missed a beat.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, it\u2019s a movie app from none other than Roger Ebert himself!\u201d I announce proudly.<\/p>\n

Unimpressed, my daughter shrunk back to a corner of our L-shaped sofa, and I could feel my wife roll her eyes. Even the dog retreated to comfort of a rawhide bone.<\/p>\n

Movie reviews have come to my iPhone. And according to Roger Ebert, they\u2019re the great ones. Sure, I\u2019ve got the very fast and helpful IMDB app, and the Flixster one with Rottentomatoes built in, which is nice, but what Ebert\u2019s done actually made me revisit Fellini\u2019s \u201c8 \u00bd\u201d on Netflix\u2014all via the app.<\/p>\n

The speedy iPhone version I bought for all of $0.99 allows me to skip through more 300 of Ebert\u2019s best reviews described as the \u201ccream of the crop\u201d and featuring everything from “Alien” to “Yojimbo,” “Casablanca” to “Crumb.” Many of the reviews have been updated since first they were written and include references to web-based film criticism. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As an experiment, I used the app to add \u201c8 \u00bd\u201d to my Netflix queue, however, it added the film, that was also available for instant streaming, to my DVD queue. I would prefer that the app that is linked to your Netflix account give you the choice of adding it to your instant queue or to your DVD queue. We\u2019ve all accidentally added something to our DVD queue only to get a surprise in the mail of something that was already available for instant play. I can see this \u201cproblem\u201d being remedied in the next app update. After all, some people, I suspect, only have the streaming version of Netflix, which might limit the usefulness of Ebert\u2019s app connection with your Netflix account.<\/p>\n

Also, the Ebert Great Movie app gives you only some movie details including release date, runtime, MPAA rating, director, and basic cast information. Missing is language and country of origin. These facts can be found on IMDB, but I\u2019ll bet that another app update will find them on Ebert\u2019s app as well.<\/p>\n

The fact that the content is available offline is nice–it\u2019s all in the app itself. Of course, it links to RogerEbert.com for additional material for all those not so great or kinda great films he\u2019s reviewed over his also great career. When I was in college in the late 1980s and 1990s, I devoured Ebert\u2019s yearly Video Companion, and, here\u2019s an admission, the books stacked up in the bathroom of the many apartments I shared over the years. Now, the pages have been digitally replaced, but the words are still as impactful, perfect for your on the go movie review fix.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s a list of features:<\/p>\n

* All reviews available off-line.
\n* Illustrated with stills from the films.
\n* Searchable by title, cast, director, or full text.
\n* Keep your own lists of movies you’ve seen and want to see.
\n* Browse by title or date.
\n* Instantly add to your Netflix queue.
\n* Instantly buy (new or used) from Amazon.
\n* Share reviews via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.
\n* Connect to the full website at RogerEbert.com.
\n* Read later with Instapaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan queues up for Ebert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1547,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542\/revisions\/1547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}