Making Dreams Real: A Memoir of Siskel & Ebert | Roger Ebert

Between the ages of 3 and 5, I fell in love with cinema after seeing my very first film, learned to read and write and discovered that there was a job that combined all of these things into one: film critic.

From that moment on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And even though my peers aspired to be doctors or firefighters or something else, I wanted to watch movies and write about them, just like these guys I read in the Sun times and the Tribune that my father brought home from work every day. (If this all seems a little weird for someone whose age was still in the single digits, all I can do is agree that yes, it was weird.)

Better yet, about a year later I discovered that these two guys, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, had a TV show called “Sneak Previews” where they reviewed all the new movies. The series became an immediate must-have for me. (If I remember correctly, it aired Saturday night in the pre-prime timeslot and was followed by the equally delightful “The Muppet Show”). I enjoyed the feuds, the movie clips, and even the end segment where they highlighted the worst films of the week – usually trashy horror, Kung-fu, and sexual exploitation films – in a way that often made them more enticing than some of the films covered in the main section.

Even at a very young age, I knew I wanted to become a film critic, but at that point I was more than a little vague on what exactly that entailed. In many professions, I have been able to see people in them and understand the different tasks involved. As a film critic, I knew I could watch a movie and write my thoughts on the typewriter I was given for my 7th birthday (again, I was a weird kid). But I also knew there had to be more than that. I wasn’t sure where to turn, and it wasn’t like there were field trips to elementary schools to see a critic at work that would have helped answer my questions. It turns out that in the early 1980s I got this excursion, more or less, via my same favorite TV show.

Occasionally, “previews” would deviate from the usual format to make an entire episode based on a specific topic. They did one on some of their favorite so-called guilty pleasures, where I first discovered the delights of “Infra-Man” and “Emmanuelle,” and another controversial one on the then-current rage for slasher films. In the one I’m referring to, the series actually took viewers behind the scenes to follow Siskel and Ebert through the process of watching and reviewing a film. It showed them at their respective newspaper offices talking about their expectations for the film they were about to see (Harold Becker’s “The Black Marble”), followed them to the screening room located in the iconic Chicago Theater (with Siskel stopping for popcorn at Garretts along the way) where they talked about things like their seating preferences and took notes before watching the film, then returned with them to their offices while they collected their thoughts and put them on paper.

Needless to say, I was fascinated by it all. In less than half an hour, almost all of my questions about this admittedly strange profession were answered clearly, concisely and entertainingly. I loved getting an insight into the inner workings of a journal and the process of writing a review. Since I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and frequently visited the city with my family, I knew the places the show took viewers—I remember buying popcorn from that same Garrett myself—and, in a strange way, that made it even more personal to me. For the first time, what might once have seemed like an unrealistic dream now seemed not only much more realistic, but even potentially achievable. After watching this show, I was more determined than ever that this was what I wanted to do and that I would do whatever was necessary to make it happen.

Maybe ten years later, I’m a freshman in college and have been hired by the fledgling school newspaper as a film critic. This involved contacting local publicists in the hope of appearing on the various lists and having access to preview screenings of the latest films. One of them was for, among other things, the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and when I asked if there would be any screenings, I was invited to one at 10:00 on a Monday morning at a venue that held private screenings and showed daily films set in the area. On the appointed day and time, I showed up (I won’t say if I skipped class) for my first ever press-only movie experience and found no one else was there.

Over the course of a few minutes, I slowly become convinced that I’m either in the wrong place or that I’m inexplicably the victim of a prank. Then I hear the door open and a voice asks, “Is this the right room?” It is none other than Siskel & Ebert themselves who enter and take their place.

We happened to be the only three people watching “TMNT” that day. After a few minutes, the movie started, which was a good thing since, one of the few times in my life, I was left absolutely speechless. I only have the foggiest memories of the film itself, but I remember that screening like it was yesterday. It was one of my first real steps into this strangest of professions, but I was hooked.

Over the next decades, I continued to stick with it, even in the face of the gradual devolution of that particular job and the journalism profession in general, and there was even a brief flirtation with the idea of being part of a locally produced television show in which people talked about current films—like virtually every flirtation in which I played an active role, it ended quickly and bitterly (another critic Nathan Rabin, who lasted longer on the project than I, wrote about it in his charming book The Big Rewind: a memoir presented by pop cultureeven mentioning my visual association with him.)

Would I have been able to accomplish all of this without seeing this particular episode of “Sneak Previews” for inspiration? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it made this dream viable, even if it may not be entirely practical, and for that, I will always hold it deep in my heart.