First of all, let me state that Ebert does not qualify to define what art is. He is certainly--in my book--not an expert in philosophy, merely one in movies. He used his namebrand status as a platform to give an opinion on something he has no expertise on. But that's fine: his opinion is his, and it will remain that. IMO, art is undefinable. If Ebert states that the prerequisite to being art is the ability of that medium to portray the intentions of its creator, then this is a dramatic oversimplification. If this were so, then video games could be considered art--all one would have to do is constrain the game's development to limit the options of the player and funnel his/her options to a very few, such that the game almost becomes something of an interactive movie. In this way, art then could even be interpreted as inferor to games. To me, art is obivously way more than this. And when does a movie become art? Some movies, for example, easily pass into our consciousness as art (e.g., The Godfather, Citizen Kane) but some are clearly not (insert latest lame summer blockbuster of B-movie here). The point is, there is so much that is nebulous about defining art that Ebert's attempt to do so actually reflects his own petty attempt to inject importance in his statement and in the end is nothing more than conceited.