Archive for Thursday, September 6, 2001  The Mag: Debunking
media myths  September 6, 2001   By Mitchell J. Near  As one
half of the television team responsible for "Ebert and Roeper
and the Movies," film writer Richard Roeper is often overlooked
as the result of his pairing with power critic Roger Ebert. But
fans of movies and other media-related tidbits may appreciate
the fact that Roeper, and not his tubby companion, is the one
authoring "Hollywood Urban Legends." It's not that Ebert isn't a
good writer; he'll be the first to mention his Pulitzer Prize in
any discussion. It's just that he can be a real windbag. And
after all, how seriously can you take the opinion of a writer
who's responsible for creating one of the all-time lousiest
films, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?"  Roeper is cut from a
different cloth entirely. The man comes across as a real movie
fan, and is fairly low-key about it. Of course, maybe that's
because he works for Ebert as a junior columnist  at the Chicago
Sun-Times, where Ebert i