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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
I read this book in Dallas, Texas. I write this review in London, England. This book quite literally changed my life.
For years I was terrified of my dreams. Somehow, even with everyone telling me to follow them, I was still convinced they were too big. Too lucrative. I read and loved this book. Cried to this book. Felt seen in a way I'd never felt seen by this book. Read the acknowledgements, as a bookworm is to do, and saw that Singer thanked his film teachers, and said that film school was where he found his people. It struck me. I posted that I just needed to go to film school.
I applied a few months later.
And then I got in on my birthday.
And now I'm across the Atlantic, almost half way through my first year. This time next year, I'll be prepping to make a 10 minute short. This time in two years, I'm determined to make a name for myself. This time in a decade, I'll be lauded.
Thank you for writing this book, Matt Singer. It's all thanks to you. You'll be in my oscars speech.
For years I was terrified of my dreams. Somehow, even with everyone telling me to follow them, I was still convinced they were too big. Too lucrative. I read and loved this book. Cried to this book. Felt seen in a way I'd never felt seen by this book. Read the acknowledgements, as a bookworm is to do, and saw that Singer thanked his film teachers, and said that film school was where he found his people. It struck me. I posted that I just needed to go to film school.
I applied a few months later.
And then I got in on my birthday.
And now I'm across the Atlantic, almost half way through my first year. This time next year, I'll be prepping to make a 10 minute short. This time in two years, I'm determined to make a name for myself. This time in a decade, I'll be lauded.
Thank you for writing this book, Matt Singer. It's all thanks to you. You'll be in my oscars speech.
Really brought back great memories of watching these guys, particularly from 1992-96 when I got into different kinds of movies (Hoop Dreams!)
Singer does such a great job of telling this story in a succinct and entertaining way without feeling like much was left out. It sticks to Gene and Roger’s relationship with each other without delving too much into their personal lives; histories; etc. The interviews are enlightening, each mans inevitable demise is told with sensitivity and warmth and this really ends up feeling like a perfect pairing with Ebert’s LIFE ITSELF.
This book is exactly the length it needed to be to tell this particular story, which I always appreciate. Definitely cut from the Mark Harris cloth of entertainment writing, I look forward to future endeavors from Singer.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Putnam in exchange for an honest review. Publication is forthcoming in October.
This book is exactly the length it needed to be to tell this particular story, which I always appreciate. Definitely cut from the Mark Harris cloth of entertainment writing, I look forward to future endeavors from Singer.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Putnam in exchange for an honest review. Publication is forthcoming in October.
I grew up watching Siskel and Ebert every week. It was what began my love of movies and they helped me discover so many great films, many of which I would have never heard of had it not been for their reviews. When Roger Ebert died, it was one of the most devastating moments of my life. So this book was like catnip for me and I couldn't put it down. Learning more about the history of the show and how it came to be and learning about the ways in which the show influenced the industry was all so fascinating and instructive to me. Siskel and Ebert was one of the most unique and influential shows on television for a time and there simply isn't anything else like it anymore. I miss them both and this book made me feel closer to them. This is recommended reading for all cinephiles. But even if you haven't seen a movie in five years, this will be a fascinating case study of a culture and society. It's extremely readable and fun.
emotional
funny
informative
inspiring
relaxing
slow-paced
Roger Ebert said that a movie isn't about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
Opposable Thumbs's subtitle, "How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever," describes the what, but the how is more remarkable: It's a love story.
The handful of TV producers and executives who spun the first iteration of their show into being may have thought they were capturing lightning in a bottle, when in fact they were containing the nuclear reaction of two volatile elements in a TV studio — two bitterly competitive professional rivals who wouldn't have given the other the satisfaction of exiting the melée no matter how chaotic it got.
It wouldn't have worked with any two other people. It didn't. Singer's book details the complete roster of smart, thoughtful, engaging critics who followed, and with a stocked liquor cabinet and guns to their heads, you couldn't get any two of them to re-create the defiant, sparring alchemy that Gene and Roger brought to the balcony every week.
But the joy of this book is watching how Gene and Roger's rivalry slowly gave way to mutual respect and the realization that they were in this thing together, more Curtis and Poitier in The Defiant Ones at the outset than the battling, bickering Lemmon and Matthau they presented to the world over time, though always inextricably bound in the public imagination. That they eventually became closer personally, brotherly even — softened perhaps by the presence of their wives and children, and also tragedy — without ever sacrificing the edge and opinionated fire that characterized their professional relationship, is the hopeful but bittersweet arc these characters and their audience deserved. If only there had been more time.
Opposable Thumbs's subtitle, "How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever," describes the what, but the how is more remarkable: It's a love story.
The handful of TV producers and executives who spun the first iteration of their show into being may have thought they were capturing lightning in a bottle, when in fact they were containing the nuclear reaction of two volatile elements in a TV studio — two bitterly competitive professional rivals who wouldn't have given the other the satisfaction of exiting the melée no matter how chaotic it got.
It wouldn't have worked with any two other people. It didn't. Singer's book details the complete roster of smart, thoughtful, engaging critics who followed, and with a stocked liquor cabinet and guns to their heads, you couldn't get any two of them to re-create the defiant, sparring alchemy that Gene and Roger brought to the balcony every week.
But the joy of this book is watching how Gene and Roger's rivalry slowly gave way to mutual respect and the realization that they were in this thing together, more Curtis and Poitier in The Defiant Ones at the outset than the battling, bickering Lemmon and Matthau they presented to the world over time, though always inextricably bound in the public imagination. That they eventually became closer personally, brotherly even — softened perhaps by the presence of their wives and children, and also tragedy — without ever sacrificing the edge and opinionated fire that characterized their professional relationship, is the hopeful but bittersweet arc these characters and their audience deserved. If only there had been more time.
I spent many hours watching their program— a definitive education in cinema.
Really enjoyed this even though I never watched any of the shows. I love when people get to do the thing they love for a living and Siskel and Ebert certainly did that. I think they both would’ve loved Letterboxd.
A compulsively readable and well-paced history of TV's most famous film critics and the changing media landscape over the years.