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Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune from 1969 until his death.

The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was orphaned at the age of 9 and raised by his uncle's family. He attended the prestigious Culver Military Academy in Indiana, then Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in philosophy and was also mentored in writing by Pulitzer-winner John Hersey. He joined the staff of the Tribune after a stint in the Army Reserve (working as a journalist).

In 1975 he began his long partnership with rival critic Roger Ebert as co-hosts of a weekly film review show. The two of them rated films with a simple system: thumbs up or down, with a brief discussion of a film's strengths and/or weaknesses before presenting a verdict.

The show propelled both Siskel and Ebert to nationwide acclaim, including appearances on The Tonight Show, and made both two of the most influential voices in American film criticism (and thus arguably all cultural criticism in the late 20th/early 21st century).

Siskel died in 1999 of complications following surgery to remove a brain tumor. He'd announced a leave of absence from At the Movies two weeks prior. Ebert frequently referred to his friend and colleague in his essays until his own death in 2013.



"Is this page more interesting than a documentary of the same tropes having lunch?":

  • Baldness Angst: His hairline began receding rapidly when he was still in his 20s, so by the time he started teaming up with Ebert on TV he tried to compensate with a huge Porn Stache, which had the opposite effect of making him look older. In the early episodes Siskel looks like he's in his 40s, and a good two decades older than Ebert, when in fact Ebert was 33 and Siskel was 29. He shaved it by the time Sneak Previews went national, and in the next couple of decades his baldness oddly made him look more ageless aside Ebert, whose thick mane went grey prematurely.
  • Brutal Honesty: One of Siskel's trademarks was not holding back his opinions, which was not only true of his reviews, but also his interviews. He chided Eddie Murphy for directing himself in Harlem Nights, and flat-out slammed Give My Regards to Broad Street to Paul McCartney's face, calling it "mindless music video madness".
  • Eight Deadly Words: invoked His often-quoted riff on this concept was that if he started losing interest in a film, he would ask himself if a documentary of the performers having lunch together would be more interesting than the film he was watching, and if the answer was "yes", then the film was a failure.
  • Executive Meddling: invoked At the Movies, the 1982-86 series hosted by Siskel and Ebert, was distributed by Tribune Entertainment, owned by Siskel's employer the Chicago Tribune. In 1986 they left Tribune for the Buena Vista-distributed Siskel & Ebert, and afterwards the Tribune effectively demoted Siskel, replacing him as the full-time film critic, and turning him into a "film columnist" who did features and capsule reviews. Siskel went along with it, but Roger Ebert was furious, and approached the Chicago Sun-Times about hiring Siskel and teaming them up at the same newspaper, which the Sun-Times was apparently willing to do, but Siskel wasn't interested.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: invoked
    • The first film he reviewed at the Tribune was the Disney movie Rascal in 1969. 17 years later, he went to work for Disney, since their TV wing Buena Vista Television distributed Siskel & Ebert starting in 1986.
    • His 1970 review of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls gave it zero stars and zinged it for "boredom aplenty", singling out "a screenplay which for some reason has been turned over to a screenwriting neophyte." The neophyte was, of course, Roger Ebert.
  • Insult to Rocks: Discussing Ishtar on their Worst of '87 special, Gene Siskel said "I just saw Road to Morocco, and it is funnier than Ishtar—of course, that's really, I guess, an insult to Road to Morocco. Anything is funnier than Ishtar—except Leonard Part 6."
  • Most Writers Are Writers: His criteria for judging films about writers was based on whether the viewer would actually want to read their books.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Siskel generally came off as the Red Oni to Ebert's Blue Oni. Ebert's tastes tended to be more highbrow, and Siskel's more mainstream, as exemplified by their all-time favorite films: La Dolce Vita for Ebert, Saturday Night Fever for Siskel. Interestingly, this contrasts strongly with their personal backgrounds—Siskel graduated from Yale with a philosophy degree, while University of Illinois grad Ebert had a working class background.
  • Road Movie: His rule of thumb for judging these was whether the film made him want to travel to the same places the characters were going, or else they were going to places he was familiar with.
  • Rule of Two: Deliberately, giving the nature of his and Ebert's profession, and to provide ambience. On the duo's many numerous talkshow appearances, for example (mainly on ''David Letterman 's' ' "Late Night" and "Late Show"), a short piece would accompany them on stage - in the case of their Letterman spots - either "Under My Thumb" (a reference to the duo's famous "Thumbs Up/Down" rating system" or the saxophone solo from "Just the Two of Us". Understandably ceased once Ebert started making solo appearances after Siskel's passing.
  • Walking Out on the Show: He walked out of Million Dollar Duck, Maniac, and Black Sheep.

 
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Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times, discussing and debating the week's new films. Many modern day critics -- from professional mainstream critics to internet reviewers -- owe themselves to these two.

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