Lest it seem that we pay undue atten­tion to the Chicago Tribune’s man in the aisle seat and not enough to his Sun-Times competitor and At the Movies cohort, Roger Ebert, we would like to make amends by providing an example of Mr. Ebert’s deep erudition. Here is Under the Volcano as described by the movie maven:

the classic novel about a day in the life of a British drunk in Mexico … the lifetime opus of novelist Malcolm Lowry, who did decades of research in fleshpots and watering holes south of the border.

The National Inquirer would be proud of such copy, wouldn’t it? We wonder what position Chicago would maintain if it were rated on the basis of the mental level of its movie reviewers instead of its population count? 2008th?