Every hero hears the call to adventure. So, too, then must a critic — perhaps the most passive of all protagonists — discover the stylistic and aesthetic tools needed to tell perfect strangers how to think about a work of art. In Roger Ebert’s new memoir Life Itself, the critical call to adventure occurs after first seeing legendary director Ingmar Bergman’s drama of existential dread, Persona: “I didn’t have a clue how to write about it. I began with a simple description: “At first the screen is black. Then, very slowly, an area of dark grey transforms itself into blinding white. This is light projected onto the screen, the first basic principle of the movies. The light flickers and jumps around, finally resolving itself into a crude cartoon of a fat lady.” And so on. I was discovering a method that would work with impenetrable films: Focus on what you saw and how it affected you. Don’t fake it.” Roger Ebert has never faked it. The passion and clarity with which he writes about movies in his memoir is infectious, reminding us why, as America’s most influential cinematic tastemaker, he is the critic who launched a thousand cinephiles. Ebert’s promotion to film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times at age 25 and his rapid ascent to multi-media cultural mainstay is chronicled in several wonderfully entertaining chapters that form the narrative spine of this book. Along with Bergman, film luminaries Martin Scorsese, Russ Meyer, Robert Altman, Woody Allen, John Wayne, Werner Herzog, Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin are portrayed with such grin-inducing gusto that it’s a constant temptation to put the book down and just watch their movies. Aside from movies, we quickly discover, Roger Ebert loves a lot of other things too: Full-figured women; 1957...

Is this the #1 trending topic among black bloggers are what? I saw this movie yesterday and absolutely loved it. The songs weren’t quite as there as other Disney movies, and I wished that they had hired a Broadway team as opposed to Randy Newman, whose music I’ve always liked but never loved (save of course, “I Love LA,” which is one of my favorite songs of all time). But other than that, I was very happy with this movie and think I will be able to put up with Betty watching it again and again and again on DVD when she gets older. Maybe. Now let’s move on to the heavy stuff: Race. Specifically, the IR romance between Tiana and the vaguely European prince. I’ve read so many black bloggers, saying things like, “I don’t have a problem with interracial relationships, but I wish the prince could have been black” or “Why couldn’t they have an African Prince?” or “I guess they had to make the prince non-black to sell it to middle America.” People bring up the recent spate of Will Smith films, in which he has a non-black love interest as proof that this is officially a catering trend. Okay I’m going to try to talk about this w/o including too many spoilers. Though there’s one spoiler about something that happens within the first 10 minutes of the film, which you can pretty much see coming, b/c it’s a Disney film. On the subject of Black Love, I adored Tiana’s parents. I loved the way that they treated her and interacted with her. I loved that they cooked together and that both of her parents put her to bed at night. And I loved that her father was a continuing influence...

So though I’m definitely positive when it comes to Interracial Relationships, they do have their interesting moments. I’m lucky to live in California where IR relationships are quite common. However, the influx of BW-WM relationships is fairly recent, so often CH and I will go some place and be the only IR couple of this sort. I won’t say that we get stared at, but we do get remembered. For example in our old neighborhood of Silverlake, many of the waiters at restaurants that we frequented could guess what we wanted before we made our order. If you live in LA, you know how uncommon it is for a waiter to remember what his or her regulars eat. And it never happened in the places that I frequented before meeting CH, but it happens all the time to us. We also get remembered at grocery stores, by work acquaintances no matter how brief the meeting, and by the front desk staff of our dentist, OB, fertility doctor, and Betty’s pediatrician. To put this in perspective, I’ve been going to the same doctor as Betty for about five years now, and they never remembered my name but now they do. And I’ve gotten used to hearing, “Oh hi, Ernessa, Dr. Whoever will be with you in just a moment” by the time I walk into a medical office the second time with CH. I don’t mind being known as half of that one BW-WM IR couple, but it does put me at a guilty disadvantage, when people remember us, but I don’t remember them. Also, travelling is very interesting. While CH finds small towns with one privately-owned gas station charming, I find them horror-movie scary, as they could potentially house all manner of racist rednecks...

So I talked yesterday about how the media and some bloggers love this story of how BW-WM relationships come to be: Black woman starts off dating within her race. Discovers that there are no “good” black men. Decides to marry a white man b/c of this dearth. That wasn’t the case with me, but I did used to be one of those sisters that didn’t date outside of her race. In fact, I didn’t go on a date with a white guy until I was 24, and I didn’t seriously date one until I was 25. When I look back on it, I can barely remember why I thought it would be so wrong to date a white guy, even though for the majority of my dating years I held this to be true. I remember feeling angry whenever I read about what white slave owners did to black female slaves and vowing that I’d never get mixed up with a white guy. Also, I was raised in a mostly black community, and I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of my fellow black girls that dated white boys growing up. It just wasn’t done. But mostly I had an image of what my life would be like and it had Cosby Show — not that sidekick couple from The Jeffersons — written all over it. I’ve mostly California to thank for changing my mind on this subject. Let me tell you, for whatever reason, I have always attracted mostly nice guys. There is something about me that assholes just do not like. I never understood why, but I seriously could not get a bad boy if my life depended on it. This was fortunate, b/c I have little tolerance...

One of the reasons I’ve been avoiding talking about being in an interracial relationship is because to me it’s no big deal, which is maybe the most surprising thing about being in an interracial relationship. Though neither CH nor I are average, our courtship wasn’t outside of the ordinary. We met at a bar, then talked for a few moments at few different events, he asked me on a date, we fell in love, I moved in with him, and then he asked me to marry him in the privacy of our home after about a year of dating. Millions of people throughout history and across the world have this exact same courtship story. Only thing is I’m black and he’s white. However, I’ve noticed that the media and many black bloggers who both support and don’t support interracial relationships want to give my relationship a script that it simply does not have, so I wanted to spend the first day or our series dispelling three of those myths. 1. I don’t hate black men. I think a lot of people assume that if a black woman marries a white man that she must have been terribly hurt by a black man. For the record all of the black men I have dated have been lovely. A couple of them have also been on the marriage track. But none of them have been CH. I like CH better than any man of any color that I have ever dated. Period. 2. I didn’t settle because I was desperate for a husband. Now this is the myth that irritates me the most. Black men aren’t considered desperate for marriage when they marry white women. Asian women aren’t considered desperate for marriage when they marry white...