Siskel & Ebert & Kubrick & Me

A one-off Chicago critics edition of "Siskel & Ebert" for Eyes Wide Shut

Has a long career ever ended on the same blunt hope as the last line of Stanley Kubrick’s final film, Eyes Wide Shut? “Fuck.” Kubrick’s final statement was released a quarter-century ago this week. A personal remembrance of its opening: Someone uploaded to YouTube the “Siskel & Ebert” show that I and several other Chicago reviewers were on after Gene died in 1999.

The show taped for a few hours and overnight the editors and producer Andrea Gronvall filleted together twenty-two or so minutes of Roger holding center frame while we “committed television,” as Roger would say. There’s a single cut, slightly mistimed, that is the only reason I would ever want to watch the episode again. I make some kind of joke, probably a terrible pun, and almost smirk, and the editor cuts to a medium close-up of Roger, smiling at my bad gag. Better than a thumbs-up any day of the week, any week of any year. A fuzzy copy of the complete show is on YouTube here.

My 2014 profile of the life of Ebert upon the release of biopic Life Itself is here.