Book Review: Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer

About:

Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer is the story of the show the two famous critics brought to American and their enduring legacy. Mr. Singer is an award-winning editor and film critic in his own right.

• 352 pages
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ G.P. Putnam’s Sons
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593540158

My rat­ing for Opposable Thumbs — 5
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More Books by Matt Singer*

Thoughts:

I’m old enough to remember watching Siskel & Ebert on TV, anxiously awaiting their show, movie clips and hearing their insights. While the show was always interesting, the two personalities of the friendemies is what made the show a “must watch”.

I found that when it came to pop-culture movies (sci-fi/fantasy, and comic book movies) I agreed more with Roger Ebert, while on the more art-house features, Gene Siskel and I had more in common. Luckily though, it took me a good number of movies to figure it out.

Opposable Thumbs by Matt Singer gives a short biography of each critic, but the narrative is more concerned with the critics’ partnership, their famous TV show, as well as the impact it had, and still has. It is very informative, and I feel as if I somewhat got to know the two men, it’s easy to read and gets its points across clearly without much fluff.

There were many aspects of the story I didn’t know. For example, I never realized the great contribution Siskel & Ebert made to film conservation. By pure luck, they were eating lunch in a restaurant when Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and George Lucas were also there. They started talking and the next thing you know, the two critics – who never liked to cooperate on projects – agreed to help. After a TV special in which the interviewed the three directors, they turned the transcript into a book called The Future of Movie, donating all the proceeds to the foundation.

As a fan of the show, and of movies, I enjoyed this book very much. To my shame, I have only watched a few of the twenty-five movies mentioned in the appendix that got two thumbs up, something to start working on.

Buy Opposable Thumbs from Amazon.com*
More Books by Matt Singer*

Zohar — Man of la Book
Dis­claimer:I got this book for free.
*Ama­zon links point to an affil­i­ate account, the money is usually spent on books

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Summary

Reviewer

Man of la Book

Review Date

2023-11-02

Reviewed Item

Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer

Author Rating

5