Gene Siskel

More At the Movies

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As I said yesterday, the thing that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert did better than anyone was to evangelize good films with their series At the Movies (which ends this weekend).  They helped create audiences for indie and foreign films that were ignored by the Hollywood promotion machine.  They even had the guts to rate documentaries like Hoop Dreams and Crumb as their picks for the year’s best film.  Without Siskel and Ebert, I would never seen some of the greatest films of the 80s and 90s.

Here are Siskel and Ebert introducing a great indie film, David Mamet’s House of Games.

And a great foreign film (that launched a great film trilogy), Blue.

And the revival of a restored classic film noir, Touch of Evil.

Siskel & Ebert's At the Movies

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At the Movies ends its long run on television this weekend.  The show went through different versions in the last few years, but its greatness was in the two decades of Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert – their concept, their standards and their passion.

On a personal note, I would say that, along with an excellent local art house theater, Siskel & Ebert’s At the Movies helped me develop my passion for film more than any other factor.  In fact, At the Movies’ Sunday evening broadcast was the reason that I got my very first VCR.

The thing that Siskel and Ebert did better than anyone was to evangelize good films that were out of the Hollywood mainstream, bringing attention to and creating audiences for independent film, foreign films, documentaries and to new and indie film makers.  Here’s a great example – Siskel and Ebert’s review of Mike Leigh’s great Secrets and Lies.

DVD of the Week: Crumb

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Crumb (1995):  The Criterion Collection has released a great documentary, Terry Zwigoff’s profile of the counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, the creator of Keep On Truckin’, Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and  influential rock album covers.  By exploring Crumb’s troubled family, Zwigoff reveals the origins of Crumb’s art.  When we meet Crumb’s shattered brothers, it’s clear that Crumb’s artistic expression preserved his very sanity.

In honor of At The Movies, which ends its long run on television, let’s hear Siskel & Ebert assess Crumb.  Siskel placed it #1 on his Top 10 list for 1995 and Ebert had it at  #2.

Check out my other recent DVD recommendations at DVDs of the Week.