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newsroom." i'm poppy harlow in new york. thanks for joining me this evening. 6:00 on the east coast. our top story, a sea of blue paying tribute to a fallen hero. thousands of nypd officers lined up for more than a mile today to honor slain officer wenjian liu at his funeral. look at that image. wen was gunned down in at ambush in his patrol car last month along with his partner. devoted family man, hardworking cop, a proud new husband. he just married his wife a few months before he was killed. his widow trembled with tears throughout the ceremony and she thanked her family of blue for attending today's service. >> he was always there when anyone needed something. when wenjian wasn't working, wenjian cared a lot for the chinese community. he always wanted to do his best to help and support. the very community that he was

part of he was loved by his friends, colleagues and our extended family that is here today. >> i think her words touched so many people today. sarah joins me now. you were there, sarah. what did his family have to say? i know other family members spoke as well. >> reporter: yes, poppy. i was there and it was incredibly powerful to hear from them, but also very insightful for those of us who didn't know officer liu personally, we got to learn a lit thetle bit about who he was. for example, we learned he loved to fish. we learned he he was very generous with the chin niece community here in new york city. we learned from his younger cousin he went by the name joe after he moved here to the united states with his parents when he was just 12 years old. the younger cousin also told a very adorable story about how he was much younger, he was upset one day and joe gave him the

very first souvenir that he ever got when he came to the united states. i want you to listen to what that young cousin had to say. it was very moving for the crowd. >> he was the most caring and thoughtful cousin that anyone could have. he would go out of his way to make sure we were always happy and taken care of. he put pride and honor into our family. he was a role model for many. myself included. and will continue to be. >> poppy, you mentioned that sea of blue. and i have to say, i was sort of near the front of it but you could see nearly a mile down the road there are hundreds of police officers lining the streets but then thousands as you looked the long way. and many of those came in from out of town. they were not just nypd. we knew that jet blue flew in

for free more than 1,100 police officers from different jurisdictions across the country. i saw and talked to many of them. i saw officers from as far as california virginia. i saw officers who drove in from cincinnati so that their patrol cars could also have a presence there. it was really amazing to see the amount of people that came together. not just police officers but also members of the community. >> a remarkable scene. a remarkable moment. also what stands out is a controversial moment when we saw, sarah, some of those officers turn their back when new york city mayor bill de blasio gave his eulogy. this despite the fact that their commissioner asked them not to do that again, at this funeral. what was your take? >> reporter: that's right. we know that they did it last week at his partner, officer rafael ramos' funeral and did it in what appeared to be much larger numbers last week. probably because that memo was issued a plea pretty much asking them not to do it again.

i did see some officers turn their backs, but in my opinion, it was much much fewer numbers than we saw last week. maybe out of the 450 that i could see just in front of me maybe 50, and some of those were even out of town officers. the pictures that we saw from last week's funeral, those were incredibly powerful and the memo mentions that because it says look you know this is a funeral, and this is something that i heard from many of the people there as well there's a time and a place for that grievance with the mayor, but this funeral was not that time and place, so we saw a lot of officers who did not participate in that. felt that this was a day to remember officer liu and not to speak out against the mayor. >> all right. thank you very much. appreciate the reporting. let's talk more about the funeral with three former nypd detective detectives.

herald thomas michael sapraicone. listen to this coming from pat lynch after the funeral defending those officers who did turn their back. listen. >> i think it's a very emotional time for every new york city police officer, and every citizen. we buried two hue row police officers. police officers feel like they were turned upon by city hall and we have a right to express our opinion as well and they did respectfully. not inside a church, not inside the service, but outside where it should be done. on the streets like we have a right to do. this was an organic gesture that started on the streets of new york and it should be respected. >> still, michael, their boss their commissioner, bill bratton asked them not to do this. what's your take? >> poppy, first i want to send my condolences to the ramos and the liu family to thank them for the ultimate sacrifice their husband, father took. what we thought about many times

and thank god that we never had to take that. but i think this is an inappropriate time for this. certainly there's problems between the new york city police department and the mayor, and that's not the time right now to deal with this. those are issues that have to be dealt with at another time and another place. this is a respect for two officers who guy the ultimate sacrifice. when one says -- i understand what he's talking about and as a police officer, we all understand that, but this is a time when we need to think about detective liu and detective ramos and what they went through. >> and i wonder what you think, you served for 29 1/2 years and instead of all the focus being on this amazing man that officer liu was, 32 years old, you know came to this country at 12 years old as a chinese immigrant, built this incredible life for himself, just got married. we're talking about more officers turning their back. this takes away from -- do you think this takes away from him? >> yes, it did. i mean it was a beautiful -- it was a beautiful service.

when you hear them eulogize him, i thought to myself wow, this is the kind of guy you want to be a police officer, he sounds so compassionate and like he really was good at his job. and for them to mar that moment you know to -- i think it was just a stain when they turned their backs. it was very disrespectful. the family invited -- they wanted the mayor to be there, so they should have respected the family's wishes. >> tom, let's talk about this as someone who served for 22 years. some of the comments who stood out to me today, bill bratton saying liu believed in the possibility of a city free of fear. fbi director james comey giving a eulogy, saying we make a life by what we give and they have chosen to make the most remarkable lives especially for those of us that they protect. talk to me about being a beat cop. being on the streets. leaving your family every day to go do this. the sacrifices made that wenjian

liu made. >> he made the ultimate sacrifice. i think we all knew taking the job that we did that there was always a possibility that we might not come home or might not come home in one piece. and i'm sure we've all had experiences that we've had people that weren't the most pleasant people to deal with. when you're in this business, you're not dancing with angels. between the three of us, we could trade a number of war stories to corroborate that. being a community policing officer, beat officer which the nypd no longer has beat talks -- don't forget they lost 7,000 or 8,000 police officers compared to what they had prior to 9/11. just through attrition. and they didn't rehire that amount as those people left. so that's a big problem, too, because there's a manpower issue where in order to have beat officers in those precincts you need to have officers available to do that. aside from -- now it's no longer

cops and robbers. it's cops robbers, and terrorists. a whole significant portion of the nypd that goes 24 hours, 7 days a week to counter what happens in the terrorism realm which harold could, you know, relate to, and then we go out and fight your day-to-day crime as well. it's something we all think about from the time we put the uniform on to the time we walk back in and go back and do it all again tomorrow. >> yeah and the beautiful images today, seeing that sea of blue. >> yeah. >> out there. we'll play them for you again if we can put them on the screen. a remarkable scene. all those people. thousands upon thousands honoring this great officer and all that he did for all of us. gentlemen, thank you. we'll be back with you later in the show to talk more about this. coming up next after a quick break, we're going to talk about another tom story. airasia flight 8501. the search for the wreckage and recovering the bodies. will search teams catch a break? the weather has made the hunt for the plane nearly impossible

and left several questions unanswered but there could be hope as the weather turns. we'll be back in a moment.

well today marks the eighth day in the search for airasia flight 8501. a preliminary report from indonesia's weather agency says bad weather was likely a factor in the crash. still, though there is that question of what brought this jetliner down. what they are saying is that ice may have damaged the jet's engines. weather also hampering recovery efforts. crews battled big waves today as four more bodies were pulled recovered from the java sea. so far, crews have recoughvered remains of 34 of the 162 people on board. our paula hancocks of on a boat in the search zone throughout. >> reporter: we're within sector four of the search area for the airasia flight and today most of the crew on this ship certainly and other officials

were hoping for a break in the weather to be able to give the teams a real chance to try and find bodies and debris. now, as you can see, the conditions are less than ideal. many of the crew here are keeping their eyes peeled to see if they an see anything as we are within the area where some bodies and debris have been found. but you can see how challenging it is. the fact that as soon as you see something in the distance it disappears behind a wave and then it's very difficult to try and spot it again. now, the captain himself, i just spoke to him, he said he's not particularly happy to be out with this kind of boat in these keend kind of weather conditions. he said this is not necessarily a big challenge for the bigger boats but for this small boat it is. and you can see the conditions for yourself. but of course what his mission is, at this point, is to deliver supplies and specifically deliver equipment that will help in the search for the so-called black boxes to one of the largest ships up ahead.

we've been told by so many officials that the biggest obstacle in trying to find all of the bodies and trying to find the fuselage and main parts of the plane is the weather, and, of course, it is monsoon season here in indonesia. it is not going to be calm conditions out here. and as you can see, it's certainly not. paula hancocks, cnn on the java sea. >> paula, thank you for that. we'll have more on the severe weather that is really hampering the search effort coming up here at the half hour. but right now, let me bring in alan diehl, former ntsb investigator author of the book "air safety: using science to save lives one crash at a time." bob we scoli, and former faa investigative, david siucci. and author of "malaysia airlines flight 370: why it disappeared and why it's a matter of time before it happens again." the searchers are having a very

hard time battling battling this weather in the java sea. walk us through a procedure trying to recover most importantly these bodies all of these bodies and i know time is of the essence, and then they're grappling with all of this very difficult weather. >> yes, it is a very challenging diving and salvage operation because of the weather and the seas. the divers are standing by waiting for any break in this weather in order to get divers in the water. the ships and the sonar equipment is out there mapping out the debris fields so the divers know exactly where to launch as soon as they get any break in the weather. i understand from reports today that some of these big aitems of debris are in a little bit shallower water than what i had heard previously maybe even shallower than 100 feet. and that's good news because now the divers, especially the scuba divers can stay down a little bit longer than i had previously

heard. so if they're in less than 100 feet of water, then the scuba divers can stay down for maybe 20 or 30 minutes. if they can get in the water. but we still have to wait until the weather clears a little bit more to get them in the water. and then they still have problems within those currents on the bottom of the ocean and the poor visibility. >> and let me ask you this alan this preliminary report from indonesia's weather agency says that the engines of airasia 8501 may have iced. we don't know for sure. this is preliminary. i want to qualify it with that. but given that could that bring a plane down? >> well absolutely and of course, we know there's several types of icing. we saw problems in a crash called air florida where the crew didn't turn on the deicing/anti-icing. of course hail is often part of these thunderstorms. we saw dc-9 go down in georgia

in 1977. it could be a factor but until we get the black boxes, this is all speculation in my opinion. >> david, as a former faa investigator it's surprising to me frankly, that we get this preliminary report from the weather agency saying that we don't even have the black boxes. do you think it's just too soon? >> it really is and it is extraordinary that they would have put this out at this point. sure there's weather, sure there's ice. it's too early to conclude that that had anything to do with this accident and i'm quite surprised in my investigations and all those in the faa, nts kbrks,b, to put information out like that right now and speculate is really extraordinary. i'm not sure why that happened. >> because there's lot of concern, especially, david, given what happened after mh-370 all the misinformation to families. what should the airline be

doing? the ceo has been quick to jump on any speculation and say we're not sure yet. >> that's right. and the ceo has done a fantastic job, i think, of doing just that. the other thing that's happening is that the passengers and the families -- excuse me the families of the passengers -- have been briefed. they're continually being briefed. the ntsb and faa have started after investigations a daily routine of doing that. the information has to go to those family members first. if it leaks out to the news or the team starts separating the information, it can really paint a picture that is not accurate whatsoever. all of those facts and details are interconnected and have to be put out together as an analysis and as a good report and not simply leaked out like it was in 370. >> right. all right, guys thank you very much. stick around. we're going to talk about this a little bit later in the hour. also our experts are going to answer your questions.

so tweet us your questions about airasia flight 8501. #8501qs. also coming up next another heartbreaking plane crash and a 7-year-old showing courage beyond far beyond her years. desperately trying to find help for her and her family as the sole survivor. that's ahead. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the evolution of luxury continues. the next generation 2015 escalade.

sailor gutzler's family was heading home from key west florida, friday. her father was believed to be piloting a twin engine piper plane heading from mt. vernon illinois. there in rural kentucky sailor's whole world was ripped away the plane crashed killing her mom, dad, sister and her cousin. it ended up on the ground upsidedown. she was dressed in just shorts and a t-shirt. fighting fighting for her own survival. she had a broken arm. it was 38 degrees outside and she ran for help. she knew she needed to get help. but first, she tried to wake her family. listen. >> after trying to raise -- after trying to raise her family and get them to communicate with her, i think even touching some of them as she was coming out of the aircraft after she was able to -- she told us she was able to get out using her uninjured

limb. and in doing so she did not see any lights at all at the house. she thought about, as i've already stated trying to use a stick somehow. obviously the woods was damp. it was misting. that wasn't successful. so she just started walking to find help and she could not see any lights at all until she got out of the wooded area that she'd been wandering in for probably a considerable amount of time and once she saw the street light, or a light there by mr. wilkins' home, that's where she -- that's the direction she headed to. >> wow. and that house where she went and knocked on the door belonged to larry wilkins, the man you see right there. he opened the door and saw her covered in scratches, walking through briers and bushes in the dark. he called 911. >> mr. wilkins said she was very shook up when she got to the house, but he had already begun tending to her injuries with a washcloth and getting her

cleaned up but i was literally struck by how calm she was able to -- and the ability for her to give us information, you know. she was obviously distraught but probably in shock, but she was able to amazingly give us very detailed information at that time. she indicated to us she believed her family was deceased but that she hoped that they were just sleeping. >> and joining me now to talk about this absolutely incredible incredible ordeal david soucie former faa investigator and author of "why planes crash." david, it is remarkable. have you ever heard of anything like this before? sole survivor in a crash of a six-seater plane? >> i'll tell you, it's more common than you might think. i've done two accidents, in fact in which this was the case. one of them was a very famous person that was up in aspen, and i can't use her name but she was in a helicopter accident and everyone else died in the accident except for her.

and she made her way out and during the investigation we were driving up in snowmobiles trying to find out where this helicopter had crashed and here she came walking right down the road. it was just -- it's an amazing feeling to know that someone survived. the second accident was an aircraft that i was doing the investigation, there was no evidence that there was any kind of survivor whatsoever. we were at the accident the following morning and i was sitting there asking my colleague, boy, i wish that there was a survivor to tell us what happened, and indeed the pilot walked up behind us and said i'll tell you exactly what happened. there's always a reason for hope in aircraft accidents. although i don't want to give out false hope but families can and should continue to hope. >> but how, as an investigator then do you deal with a 7-year-old girl being the only survivor? in terms of obviously you want to ask the survivor what happened but you have to tread carefully when you're talking about a 7-year-old who lost her entire family. >> yes.

it's so important not to have that person alone. especially a child. that person needs to be with someone that loves them, that they trust, that can spend time with them. it's a balancing act, though. as time goes on if it's some quizzical or some riddles that need to be answered you have to get the answers quickly or they'll soon forget the shock and the trauma will take them completely out of their mind as if it never even happened. so it's a balancing act for sure but the most important thing is to keep their mental health and their stability in check and have someone with them that they love and care for, lot of times we use models or things like that to ask them to communicate with us what happened but rarely talk directly to that survivor. >> yeah. absolutely. david soucie thank you for joining us. our thoughts with the entire family especially 7-year-old sailor right now. appreciate it. >> very much. coming up next in new york the police commissioner right here in this city asked his force, all of this officers, not

to turn their back on the mayor. today, once again, some officers defied him. the nypd now standing divided, not just against the mayor but some of them defying their own commissioner. how can we move forward? how can the wounds be healed? that's next.

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we have been following the funeral of new york city police officer wenjian liu in new york city. you're looking at the empire state building lit in blue in tribute to the two officers rafael ramos and wenjian liu who were shot and killed in december. thousands of police officers came today to show their support for wenjian liu, he was gunned down with his partner, rafael ramos on december 20 9. the 32-year-old was only married for a couple of months. he was tearfully remembered today by his widow as her hero. >> the caring son, a loving

husband, and a loyal friend. you are an amazing man. even though he left us early, i believe that he is still with us. his spirit will continue to look after us. he will keep an eye on us. wenjian is my hero. >> it was a beautiful ceremony for a man who will be remembered by everyone. we all thank him for his service. let me bring in three retired nypd detectives who served this city for a very long time. harold thomas tom verni, and also michael sapraicone. thank you all for being here today. let me start with you. what stood out to you most today in the service that we saw for this officer? >> just the testimony on what type of man he was, and what type of officer he was.

you know if more nypd officers were like detective liu, we wouldn't be having these problems that we're having today. that's my belief. >> really? what are you saying? are you saying you think there's a problem within the nymd? >> there's a small percentage of officers that i think at times abuse their authority. and cross the line. >> so your reaction guys to that? >> well, obviously there's a problem, and it's a communication problem i think to begin with. i mean there are some contractual problems and this is something that has to be worked out. they have to sit down. i know they began to sit down. we need to have unity among the leaders in the communities, among the police officers among the leaders. it's a discussion that this is kind of like an -- the real problem isn't what's going on with the officers turning their backs. the problem is there's been so many disgruntled employees, so many problems with the way the

police are looking at what the mayor's done and what the mayor is looking at the way police are handling things. this needs to be sat down and worked out. >> there's going to be an overhaul, three day retraining of all of the officers. reacting to what harold said i'd like your reaction do you think that there are is a systemic problem within the nypd? he said if more officers were like officer wenjian liu, there wouldn't be a problem. do you think retraining is needed? >> there's always room for improvement when it comes to training. you can always train cops better than what they currently are, without a doubt. i think we could probably all agree we've dealt with officers who aren't the most pleasant people. by in large, i think the overwhelming majority of officers are professional. they go out and do a very good job day in and day out. put themselves out there to risk their lives on the behalf of others. selflessly. and do follow the rules and regulations. as harold had mentioned before yeah there are definitely some without a doubt. there's always a lot of rotten

apples in the barrel especially a barrel as big as the nypd. >> i was going to say, you're talking about thousands of people in any profession right? let me show you this video, we'll have images of some of the officers today at this funeral who did turn their back when mayor de blasio was speaking and did that partly in response to some comments he made on december 3rd. let me have you listen to those. >> we have had to talk to dante for years about the dangers he may face. good young man. law-abiding young man. never would think to do anything wrong. yet, because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face we've had to literally train him as families have all over this city for decades in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him. >> harold in your opinion biddid

those comments warrant the reaction we've seen from some of the officers? >> no. i don't see why people are getting so offended by it. it's just a reality. i can only speak as an african-american who grew up -- i was born and raised in brooklyn and i know what it's like to be stopped and frisked. i know that you know you can have an interaction with the police and it can go from zero to 100 real quick as a modern rap record goes. i know that you know it can turn really negative real quick. and sometimes it's the person's fault and sometimes it's not. you know so to have that conversation with your child, you know i think that's anything any responsible parent would do. like i said, i had to have the same conversation with my son. >> we'll see what happens moving forward. now that the two officers have been buried we need to move city as the city police force,

mayor, for everyone who lives in new york city. thanks very much for joining us. thanks for your many years of service to this countrykuncountry as well. onlying up search teams could timely get the weather they need to find flight 8501 the airasia flight. we've been looking at your twitter questions about the missing plane and any clues to finding out what may have happened. we'll answer your questions next. you can tweet us #8501qs. narrator: this is the storm sea captain:

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wreckage is still hidden in the water, but search crews say they can see a piece of the wreckage more than 50 feet long on the bottom. they used sonar to find it. getting to it is the problem with the difficult weather. high winds, high waves, really awful conditions for searchers to spot things floating in the water. today, it was supposed to be a big improvement in the weather, but it wasn't. cnn's tom sater joins us from the cnn weather center. seems like they can't get a break. >> for the last three days they've had to suspend part of the operation. they're working with windows. when the weather gives them a break, they get out. it's more than just these tropical downpours, poppy, and more than just a bad and inclement weather at the search area. it's all the staging jones from surabaya airport well to the south, up to the north, and the coast of borneo. more on that coastline here as well. the winds have lightened up. that's great news. we're looking at the best weather in the last five days i think beginning about now. it's almost 7:00 in the morning.

the sun is up. we have a little bit afterof a drift in the winds. the waves aren't 10 13 16 feet high. the ocean current has been moving northward. that's when authorities on the coast of borneo told local fishermen, do what you can on your daily catch to look. they're also going to send teams here. this is not a pristine beach. this is not where we have sands. where in a distance you can see something drift an shoreon shore. this is heavy vegetation jungle like very marshy. with the runoff, anything that does get lodged into this could be covered with that mud and muck and the silt that comes off from the heavy rain. this is a tedious process. they do believe there are items that are most likely on that southern coast. when if comet comes to the winds, best news in days. the bright colors of yellow and orange are not to be seen. the last three days almost the entire java sea was covered with winds in excess of 25 to 35 miles per hour. that is not the case. doesn't mean they're not going to have rain poppy. there's going to be rain but at

least the seas are down enough where even teams from the u.s.s. sampson got out to test on their gear. with the u.s.s. ft. worth is there as well. they've got a tow fish a side scan sonar. i'll show you a picture of that. we have some rainfall in the area and it's building in from the east. this is not untypical. i mean this is going to be this way. on a scale of 1 to 10 we're not going to find days that are 7s, 8s 9s and 10s. we'll take a 6 though rain has moved into the area. here's the towed fish. at least they're getting an idea that the waves are coming down. they can deal with that. it's just been about safety really poppy, getting the dive teams to their locations. >> let's hope they get the best weather possible to do the important work they need to do. tom sater, thanks very much. appreciate it. all of you have been sending us your questions on twitter about the plane. there are so many questions. let's get to some of them. joining me now alan diehl, former ntsb investigator bobbie

scholley. and former faa investigator david soucie. thank you all for being here. let me get to this first question. it's frankly a very hard one to ask. a lot are writing into us saying some of the bodies searchers are finding are naked, they don't have clothes on. they're wondering if there's any significance to that. what's your take david? poppy, is that for alan? >> definitely -- oh sorry. >> go ahead, david. >> go ahead. was that for me? okay. >> yeah. >> yeah. the bodies are definitely at this point considered evidence and there's things you can draw from the bodies but as far as being naked or not, or having clothes, there's some clues you can get, but after the fact that these bodies have been in the ocean as long as they have it would be hard to determine whether it was from open air fall or if it's from tumbling in the water. so at this point, it would be too early to say which one caused that. >> and alan if you wanted to weigh in on that as well because i know time is of the essence here in terms of

recovering these 162 victims. >> absolutely poppy. i guess i might disagree a little bit with david there. i've worked with these kind of accidents before and if you find the bodies unclothed, that suggests they were probably -- and i stress the word probably -- ejected at high speed. what i had to do as an ntsb investigator is look at the -- once they identified the bodies look at the seating chart and that may tell you how the aircraft broke up in flight. now, yes, sometimes the water can remove the clothes, but the clothes come off differently when it's high speed wind blast, poppy. >> it's just so hard to think about. bobbie let's talk about the search. one question we got in is this. why can't military submarines be used in searching for underwater debris from the airasia flight? it's a good question. >> it is a good question, but i think they have all the right assets out there with the surface ships and the side scan sonar. those are the right assets for searching for what they're doing

and to map out the debris field. we want a map of that debris field that then the search commanders can map it out, give the coordinates to the divers have the divers set up where they need to be so as soon as the weather clears get the divers and the rovs down there to look at it with their eyes to see what they have. whether it's an aircraft wing or whether it's the fuselage with the victims and the black boxes. those are the best assets for what we're searching for, not a submarine. >> understood guys. thank you very much for the expertise. for all of our viewers, keep sending us your questions about the plane. we'll do our best to get to them. thank you very much. also as we continue to tom the story, the ceo of airasia accompanied the body of the first crew member identified in last week's crash home to surabaya indonesia. she was a flight attendant who had a passion for flying and died fulfilling that dream. the woman's family shared their

memories of their beloved daughter with us. >> reporter: step by step toward their final resting place, each bearing a number, each number a soul. casket 4 no longer nameless but identified as the first crew member of flight 8501. still wearing her uniform. her name nisa as she's affectionately known by her family including her father and mother. >> translator: nisa is an obedient daughter. she's always tidy. she loves to learn. her friends love her. >> translator: just like her dad. >> reporter: in the family hotel room nisa's parents smile and offer a laugh as they share her memories she cared about her family very much. pictures from the instagram account show a poised young woman with a giving heart and adventurous spirit that took her hundreds of miles away from the

family home in sumatra. >> translator: it's a dream. it's fun. she's never complained. she already knew the risk. >> translator: she knew the risk but she loved this. it was her dream. she loved traveling. >> reporter: their reflections in our interview suddenly cut short by a phone call the call no partent ever wants to get. leaning our cousins, their smiles vanished, a sense of urgency and finality. a few hours later, a solemn transfer of remains. her parents say they've already made preparations for their daughter's burial. as she begins her final journey home. >> translator: good-bye. good-bye, nisa. >> reporter: cnn, surabaya, indonesia.

when the academy award nominations are revealed the late legendary film critter rojkritcritic roger ebert may be on the list as a star of the new cnn documentary about his life. here's a clip. >> the name of our show is opening seen at a theater near you, two film criticscritics.

this is roger ebert with the "chicago sun-times." >> gene and roger were sitting pinned in directors chairs looking into the camera, very seriously. talking about the movie. >> one flew over the cookoos nest had the audience tearing up the sheets in joy. >> and they were applauding even during the credits. >> it was stiff and wooden. >> when he backs up and tries to make his big points about the establishment and -- >> but there was something there. it was interesting to hear two people who knew what they were talking about talk about a movie. >> joining me now, michael musto, film critic author and columnist for out.com. thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. >> i love this movie and not just because it's a cnn movie airing tonight at 9:00. it's a great film. >> i'm pretty sure it's going to get the oscar nomination. it's terrific. >> you think it's going goatet the

oscar not. >> a new story about his battle with cancer is evolving as you watch the film. he died four months after it was filmed. he was incredibly brave at opening his life at that point to the cameras. >> that was part of him. he wanted everybody to see the good, bad, and the ugly. he wanted people to know maybe he wasn't the nicest guy before he met his wife chaz who really transformed him personally. >> it's a documentary, and chaz is as brilliant as roger was but has more on her feet on the ground and was a stabilizing force for roger. of course, one of the running themes is his ongoing battle with gene siskel rival critic. they were rivals before they hit the television set. day were rivaling for who was going to be the king of the chicago critics scritics. once they hit their tv show "at the movies" it became vicious. >> at the end, their widows said they loved each other. >> you could see the love. they wouldn't battle each other unless they felt they were worthy opponents. >> and respected each other.

one little known fact about roger ebert, he co-wrote the cult classic "beyond the valley of the dolls." you reviewed it calling it the 197 fantasia of drugs, music, and lunacy. how important was his contribution to film writing? >> extremely important. he wrote not just that film but other cult films. that movie in particular has become a classic for the midnight movie crowd influenced by charles manson rock 'n' roll and all kinds of things from that erica. it's funny, knowingly so it's not unintentionally funny. >> you've made oscar predictions. you think this is going to make it on the list. i wonder what stood out to you most watching this and just about roger ebert, what was it about him that made him so special? >> he loved life and movies and his interviews were intelligent and sk'sing a accessible.

the everyday joe could read them. >> he wasn't pressured to use the smartest word or most complicated word in his reviews. >> he won a pulitzer prize. >> yet he won the pulitzer. >> also he wasn't afraid to evaluate his opinion of a movie. as years went by he'd say, you know what i like this movie better thank i thought. sis kerks siskel had an opposite point of view. >> interestingly martin scorsese is in the film. he became friends with scorsese. even after that friendship would give him tough reviews on i think "the color of money." >> he could not be bought. that's why people respected him more and wanted to befriend him. one thing he learned by siskel as a negative example, when he developed cancer, he didn't tell roger. roger was very hurt. this is in the movie as you'll see. roger vowed he would be the poster boy for whatever illness he came down with if that happened. he kept writing, through the cancer, throughprocedures.

he couldn't talk or eat properly. when he died he was at peace. >> many would argue his voice came to life empbmore when he could no longer speak. >> you're going to make me cry again. >> i cried throughout. it's a fantastic film. >> get the tissues out. >> thank you so much for coming in. get the tissues out. see the amazing journey of roger ebert. watch it tonight on cnn, "life itself," itself," 9:00 eastern. i'm poppy harlow in new york. we'll be back in just a moment. quick break. the holiday season is here, which means it's time for the volkswagen sign-then-drive event. for practically just your signature you could drive home for the holidays in a german engineered volkswagen. like the sporty, advanced new jetta and the 2015 motor trend car of the year all-new golf. if you're wishing for a new volkswagen this season

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you're in the "cnn newsroom." i'm poppy harlow in new york. thank you so much for joining me this evening. 7:00 eastern here. we're following what is a very sad day for people here in new york city. an incredible sight today on the streets of new york. take a look.

thousands of officers nypd officers lined up for more than a mile honoring their fallen brother, officer wenjian liu, funeral held today. he was gunned down, assassinated in his patrol car last month along with his partner. he was remembered as a devoted family man, hardworking officer a proud husband. he just married his wife two months before he was killed. his widow giving a very emotional eulogy today. talking directly to her late husband, calling him an amazing man. calling him her soulmate. and she thanked her family of blue for attending today. listen. >> the caring son, a loving husband, and a loyal friend. you are an amazing man. even though he left us early, i believe that he is still with us.