Obama, Steven Spielberg, Howard Stern Remember Roger Ebertĥ. They have to stand inside a metal hoop and it’ll sense the movements of their fists and feet as they trade pixelated body blows! They’d cap these shows by engaging in another home entertainment pastime: playing a videogame! This clip from 1993 has them virtually boxing each other via an early ancestor of Kinect.
Harrison ford witness roger ebert movie#
Siskel & Ebert’s 500th Episode Retrospective!ĭespite being famous for getting paid to sit in a darkened movie theater and watch much more famous people onscreen, Siskel & Ebert developed a flair for showmanship, having a rotating roster of canine assistants during their segment “Dog of the Week,” a spotlight on their pick for the worst movie of the week, sporting an incredible variety of facial hair, and even telling showbiz tall tales about why they’re called “Siskel & Ebert” and not “Ebert & Siskel.” (Siskel claimed they flipped a coin.) Both of them showed their stage presence when filming before a live audience for the first time in 1989 for their 500th episode.ĭuring the ’80s and early ’90s, they’d have an annual show called “The Video Gift Guide,” focusing on movies from the previous year, along with a few classics, worth adding to your home entertainment collection. RELATED: Roger Ebert’s Many Pop Culture Parodies from ‘The Critic’ to ‘Godzillaģ. It’s an incendiary charge, and totally unfounded, but shows the deep streak of humanism that informed his critical worldview. He actually suggests that Lynch’s actors, especially Isabella Rossellini, were exploited by their director in the making of the film.
But, again, his reason for dismissing Blue Velvet is fascinating. In fact, his reaction to the film mirrors famed New York Times‘ film critic Bosley Crowther’s horror upon first witnessing Bonnie & Clyde, a film Ebert went against mainstream critical opinion to champion, twenty years earlier. While Siskel recognized David Lynch‘s Blue Velvet for what it was as a spiritual heir to Psycho, Ebert saw only nihilistic trauma. Ebert could be as wrongheaded as any critic. Ebert Feels for the Actors in Blue Velvetĭon’t get me wrong. It’s because he knew Cosby was capable of so much more that he accused him of “prostituting himself” in this “cynical exercise” of a flick.Ģ. Witness his critique of Leonard, Part 6, a movie starring Bill Cosby, for whom Ebert has obvious affection. He genuinely wanted stinkers to be good films. That’s because he cared so much about the movies. There was nothing more satisfying than a Roger Ebert pan.
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Here are 10 moments from the series that show Ebert (alongside Siskel and several other cohosts) at his very best. So as we’re paying tribute to Ebert, let’s remember what an amazing institution At the Movies was in its heyday. Not to mention that, in terms of sheer word count, many of their on-air reviews rivaled or outmatched film reviews in newspapers or magazines.
RELATED: Remembering Roger Ebert: Film Critic, Pulitizer Winner, Internet TrollĪs much as their personalities drove the show, Siskel & Ebert’s true success may have been due to how they didn’t let their egos overshadow the movies they were reviewing. By the time it rebranded as At the Movies in 1982 and moved into broadcast syndication, Siskel & Ebert were truly a dynamic duo. It’s why their show Sneak Previews became the highest-rated entertainment series in PBS history. But they were almost always insightful…and usually pretty funny too.
Sometimes they were at each other’s throats. For real.) Sometimes they agreed with each other. Ebert and co-host Gene Siskel, critic from the archrival Chicago Tribune, sparred with each other from the balcony of a movie theater and passed judgment on each week’s new movies with their zero-sum, gladiatorial ratings system of “thumbs up” and “thumbs down.” (Siskel & Ebert would later trademark the Thumbs. From 1975 to 2006 Ebert appeared on television as an on-air movie reviewer, in addition to his day-job duties as the film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times. It’s hard to believe that, with Roger Ebert’s death at 70, the balcony is now closed for good.
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