This book was provided to me from Netgalley so I can read and read it before it’s published.
The only thing I knew about Siskel and Ebert, is they had a television show about movies, because I watched it occasionally when I was younger. Where I live, we had two movie critics, Larry Ratliff and Bob Polunsky. During the years when The Sopranos was on television, Bob gave my dad and I two tickets for a Sopranos gathering at a local restaurant where we got free Sopranos gear and also got to watch a episode before it aired. That was really cool, and I still have my Sopranos shirt and hat.
I was looking forward to learning more about Siskel and Ebert and how show came to be. And this book didn’t disappoint me at all. I didn’t know they were competitors at different Chicago newspapers and the show started on PBS in Chicago. Despite the successful show, behind the scenes, they were very competitive with each other. But they did have an awesome job of watching movies and critiquing them. They had the power and clout to make or break a movie.
Reading about their experiences on the late-night talk show circuits was funny; we got Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and David Letterman.
It was a little sad when the author talked about the illness of both Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert as cancer sucks.
The show did survive without them, but it was never the same. There will never be another Siskel and Ebert.
As for the overall flow of the book, it was a quick and easy read for me.
