Ebert and Siskel and Roeper

When I was growing up, I loved watching Siskel and Ebert. It was really the first experience I had with people talking about movies in a critical way, similar to the way people might review a good book or a work of art. Up to that point, my exposure to movies had consisted of someone saying either, "It's good," or "It sucked." It was nice to hear two guys discussing style and content, themes and tone, imagery and allusion. I just really have always enjoyed a good movie review. I think Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel are among the best movie critics of all time, and I think Richard Roeper has a nice approach to film criticism, too.

Last night I was talking to Micah on the phone, and he told me that a website exists that features over 5,000 movie reviews from the history of Ebert, Siskel, and Roeper. Apparently, Ebert and Siskel had to fight to keep their shows archived. No one at the networks believed saving that much expensive tape was really worthwhile. But thanks to E and S' foresight, you can now go back in time and watch the reviews from classic films like Goodfellas, Full Metal Jacket, and The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as their most recent movie reviews. Pretty cool, huh?

For those of you who have been and are a fan of these guys and their shows from over the years, this site is for you. You can check it out here. You can search by movie title, actor, or director.

As a sidenote, I'd like to provide a little outtake clip from a promo that Siskel and Ebert cut in the early 80s. They start off at each other's throats, even tossing around asshole at each other. Then, it devolves into a rant about WASPs. Pretty good stuff. Gives you a completely different idea of how things might have really been with these two guys when the cameras weren't rolling.