Conference bookie::movies

    Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert are movie critics for rival Chicago
    newspapers. Many years ago they were given a PBS show in which they'd
    review a few movies each week, often arguing heatedly about them; the
    combination of some degree of wit, some degree of perception, and a
    large degree of professional animosity brought them rave reviews and,
    eventually, a network show (leaving the PBS version to Michael Medved
    and Jeffrey Lyons, whom somebody else can talk about if they want).
    
    For a long time, I had the impression that Ebert ("the hefty one")
    was more open to "popular" films and Siskel ("the thin one") favored
    "art" films, but they've both crossed genres so much that it doesn't
    seem true anymore. They're perfectly willing to judge B-movies on a
    B-movie scale, for example, rather than dismissing them out of hand;
    sometimes it's a hoot watching them discuss the finer points of the
    latest Stallone shoot-em-up and then turn to a debate about "Babette's
    Feast".
    
    And it would appear that they really do annoy the heck out of each
    other.
    
    -b

    Roger Ebert also produces a book of movie reviews, updated yearly in
    time for Christmas.  His reviews are longer than just capsule summaries
    (such as found in Leonard Maltin's book), and because of the length of
    the reviews his book doesn't try to comprehensive.
    
    -- Mike

They are the movie critics of competing newspapers
in Chicago, Illinois.  They rather dislike each others
opinions (and each other, I think).  But they are 
millionaires due to a weekly movie review TV program
that they do together.  Roger Ebert also publishes
an annual compendium of movie reviews.  Apparently
their pre-Oscar show show this year resulted in a lot
of verbal abuse when Gene Siskel spoiled "The Crying
Game"'s secret on air.

dcl

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                        -< The Movie Review Conference >-
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Note 47.28                  Academy Award Nominations                   28 of 28
8269::BARRIANO "choke me in the shallow water..."    19 lines  24-MAR-1993 10:02
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re             <<< Note 47.25 by 49438::BARTAK "God save DEC Wien" >>>
                                 -< question >-

  
>    I have a question I wanted to ask for a long time:
>    Who exactly are Siskel and Ebert ?
    
    Andrea 

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, they work for competing Chicago newspapers.
Several years ago they did a movie review program for a Public Broadcasting
System (non commercial) television station. Their show became very popular 
because of the interacton between the two and they went into syndication on
commercial TV (slighly different format, for legal reasons). I believe the
Walt Disney Studios is the syndicator/producer but wouldn't swear to it.

Regards
Barry

    Not that anyone asked but my favorite movie critics are Jean-Luc Godard
    and Eric Rohmer.
    
    Ray

    I've always found the Siskel and Ebert show to be pretty mindless. 
    They barely review the films.  And yet they wield such power.
    How many blurbs say "Two thumbs up!" these days?  Quite a few.  
    
    Didn't one of the critics who replaced them on PBS recently write a
    book about how violence and sex should be banned from Hollywood?  I
    believe he is a member of the Family Association of America, or
    some rather conservative group.
    
    Then there are the New Yorker critics, the most famous being Pauline
    Kael (now retired). Her reviews usually annoyed me, often because they
    had very odd opinions.  But they were always well written. (She thought 
    Hitchcock was second-rate, for example.)  Terrence Rafferty does a 
    pretty good job, too, and I usually agree with him.  But New Yorker
    reviews are the type that you really don't want to read before seeing
    the movie; they often expose so much of the plot that you want to read
    them after, to see if your analysis was the same as theirs.
    
    James Agee, who wrote reviews for The Nation and other mags in the 30s
    and 40s, is supposed to be one of the best film reveiwers ever.  I
    finally found his (out of print) collection of reviews, of which I've
    read a few.  I wasn't terribly impressed.
    
    -Rob

RE             <<< Note 97.6 by DECWET::SHUSTER "Egad! An Adage!" >>>

>    Didn't one of the critics who replaced them on PBS recently write a
>    book about how violence and sex should be banned from Hollywood?  I
>    believe he is a member of the Family Association of America, or
>    some rather conservative group.
    
  You are thinking of Michael Medved. I'm not sure he said it should be banned,
rather he seemed to be making a more positive type of argument saying that more
family movies should be made. He argued that it was a smart financial strategy.
It would appear that most of the studio's don't agree with him. 

  Actually Michael Medved didn't technically replace Siskel and Ebert. The 1st
two guys to replace them were Jeffrey Lyons and a guy named Neil from New York.
I forget his last name but Neil was the one I agreed with the most. He was the
one who pointed out that it's hard to like a movie if you don't like any of the
characters in the film. I've always found that to be true for myself. 

  At some point, Neil left and was replaced by Michael Medved. Then both
Jeffrey Lyons and Michael Medved were replaced by Rex Reed and I think Dixi
Wattley. 

  Someone said earlier that Siskel and Ebert left PBS to go onto another
Network. That's not correct, I believe they put their show into syndication. 

  George 

    I think they're very funny.  I like Ebert best.
    
    Lorna
    

>  You are thinking of Michael Medved. I'm not sure he said it should be banned,
> rather he seemed to be making a more positive type of argument saying that more
> family movies should be made. He argued that it was a smart financial strategy.
> It would appear that most of the studio's don't agree with him. 

Yes, this is right. I read the book and have it at home.  Medved gives statistics
that show G and PG movies make the most money.  He feels that Hollywood 
producers are not so much interested in making money as in getting acceptence
as "true artists" (lately that seems to mean pushing every possible boundary).

Ann

re .6

I agree with you on Pauline Kael. I often don't agree with her but I still
enjoy her reviews because they're so well written.

The same thing applies to James Agee, very well written reviews with some-
what different viewpoints. I also enjoy them because of the different per-
spective. He was dealing with currently showing films, I'd be willing to
bet he would modify his views in hindsight now that they can be placed in
context with the history of films to this point.


Randy

    My favorite movie reviewers and critics are Beth Rust and Ray Davis.
    
    {applause}
    
    (You can stop blushing, now.)
    
    I wonder if they'll replace Siskel and Ebert someday? :^)
    
    Cheers,
    George
    
    	

What ever happened to Rex Reed?
He was usually (always?) such a vicious, mean spirited b*tch, you could almost
imagine venom dripping fron his claws.:-)
Maybe not great movie reviews, but it sure was entertaining.

Regards
Barry    
    	

    Re .12: Aw, shucks. ;-)
    
    -b

    A pretty thought, George, and I thank you for it.  But despite our
    differences in approach, Beth and I don't fight enough to make for Good
    Television.
    
    Ray