* What a shocker that Siskel is way more upset about it than Ebert.
* Ebert was smarter and more self-aware than Siskel.
* Siskel comes off as unhinged, irrational, and completely emotional about it. While Ebert seems to be trying to be light about it, Siskel seems dead serious.
* I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This “Jew + Catholic gang up on the WASPs” stuff used to be so normal—friendly banter among three diverse peoples, equal in dignity and self-confidence in late 20th century America.
Heaven help anyone who tried this today…
* That was my initial thought, too … Poor Siskel is probably suffering from his brain tumor.
But then I looked it up:
“Siskel was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor on May 8, 1998. … Siskel died from complications of another surgery at the age of 53 on February 20, 1999.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Siskel
But in this clip Ebert mentions the President is Irish (i.e., Reagan), so this was almost a decade before Siskel’s diagnosis or more.
* I remember the Roger Ebert separate interview. Roger said that on their show, before they went on the air, Gene would make a show of getting upset with Roger about some thing or the other. Roger had the insight to realize that this was a pretend put-on by Siskel, designed to raise his own emotional energy level for the show. Joan Rivers responded that Roger was a nice guy. I realized that Siskel was a manipulative asshole.
* Siskel’s favorite movie—I shit you not—was Saturday Night Fever. He even went so far as to buy Travolta’s disco suit from the movie. I lost all respect for the man when I heard that.
Either Siskel had a secret attraction to men or he had a weird longing to hang out at an Italian-ghetto version of 54, but either way, he let that cloud his judgment on what was a silly little movie.
It’s amazing that these two guys who essentially did product reviews got such cultural cache.
* Ebert seems to be more relaxed and chatty, but Siskel stays in character and is the better comic talent, IMHO.
It’s a type pairing as old as American TV and double act comedy. The angry, earnest, slightly dim guy and the relaxed, smart, smiling counterpart. Ed McMahon to Johnny Carson, Jerry Hubbard to Barth Gimble and the Smothers Brothers are three random examples.
* Ebert is more intelligent than Siskel but Siskel is very aware of his act and knows how to work it.
Ah, for the days when ethnic groups could just vent off steam about each other right in public. Makes for a better world.
* Ebert was the best movie reviewer of his time, possibly ever. When I was a kid I had a bible-sized compilation of Ebert movie reviews, and eventually I think I read the whole thing, many reviews more than once. The quality of Ebert’s writing was very high, but you had to read a lot of him to realize this. He does not show off with obscure words or obscure references like WF Buckley or Dennis Miller as extreme examples of these annoying techniques.
In terms of simply enjoying his prose, my favorite Ebert reviews were probably his rare “no stars” reviews, generally for movies that were both really bad and morally offensive.
Even now, when I feel like watching a movie, I just go to the online archive of Ebert reviews and read through a few 4-star reviews until I see one that seems to be worth reading.
For TV, however, Ebert is usually too quiet and low energy to sustain one’s attention, which you can see by watching clips of Ebert alone v. with Siskel. They had great chemistry and Siskel knew how to bring out the best in his partner.
* All in the Family was pretty great in its era, five years straight at #1, but it’s not watchable today. I’m not sure why.
* From the perspective of someone younger seeing shows from the 50s to early 80′s in reruns:
The best of the wacky sitcoms have aged pretty well: I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Mr. Ed, Bewitched, Green Acres, Dennis the Menace
The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents had big budgets and very talented writers and actors and completely transcend their era.
The Dick Van Dyke show had two of the best comedians at their prime and a lot of witty writing.
The Donna Reed Show, Little House on the Prairie and My Three Sons all had traditional, positive moral messages while still being entertaining.
In general I wish Americans, especially children, would watch older shows like these more, as they invariably depicted white Americans as a fundamentally good people, just the opposite of how we are now portrayed on television.
* There was an oddball (and offensively hilarious, since it is unusual to see popular media types put on the spot and out of character) interview of Siskel and Ebert by Howard Stern that might still be found somewhere. Stern was good at antagonizing his “guests” to elicit a rabid response and with Siskel and Ebert he was true to form.
In the interview, Stern starts off with friendly enough banter but soon begins interrogating Ebert about having a black girlfriend, questioning Ebert about his “jungle fever”. Then Stern remarks that he was shocked and surprised that Ebert had a black girlfriend, not because the woman was black, but because he thought Ebert was gay.
Ebert, visibly shocked, then weakly counters that he thought Stern was gay, and the interview deteriorates from that point on into pointed attacks back and forth.
Ebert soon cleverly shifts the subject to Howard Stern’s behavior and character, stating that “this is not the real Howard Stern that we are seeing with his abusive and derogatory manner.” Stern, being the narcissistic fellow that he is, takes the bait and the discussion becomes all about Howard Stern, leaving Siskel and Ebert to quickly vacate.
You can imagine the two media pundits Siskel and Ebert openly walking into what they think will be an easy and amusing time, only to be broadsided with abuse and calumny, all in the name of ratings and dubious taste.
* No less an unz.com luminary than the Derb has gone to the mat for the brilliant greatness of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER. It is very much in the same vein as ON THE WATERFRONT — a film about working-class white people making consequential choices about their lives. The kind of people Hollywood doesn’t make films about anymore. The kind of people who are waking up this year, in case you haven’t been reading this blog.
* Siskel graduated as a philosophy major at Yale in 67, when Yale meant something besides being PC Central. He’s no dullard. And he’s likely the equal or superior to Ebert IQ wise too.
He was also a regular at Bulls games in late 70′s until his death. He was far more eclectic in his tastes than was Ebert.
World War T rages on (in Steve Sailer’s phrasing).
Los Angeles Times: “Ellie Lader, formerly Don, relieves wife Jacqueline’s sore back. Both are Marine Corps veterans and survivors of the mass shooting in Aurora, Colo.”
Posted inTrans|Comments Off on LAT: A proud soldier as a man, and maybe once again as a woman
Chaim Amalek writes: “The Daily News article states what we can see – the suspect is black. Gawker lifts the article, provides the same identifying information, but then strips out the suspect’s race. Possibly because, as we all know, race is just a social construct, and only racists notice race.”
A gloved human piece of crap shoved a bag of poop down a woman’s shorts as she walked along an Upper East Side street, cops said Wednesday.
The disgusting act was caught on surveillance video, and police say the man and his 27-year-old victim are apparent strangers.
The video shows the woman walking outside an apartment building on E. 74th St. near First Ave. at about 6 p.m. Monday. The man follows her, then crouches for a second and reaches into her waistband, grabbing her buttocks as he slams the feces into her shorts, cops said. Police said they had not determined the source of the excrement.
The man pushes her into a nearby driveway as she struggles to get away and figure out what he did to her. The sicko then stretches his arms, pulls off a glove and flings it into the street before running away.
Felix Martinez, 46, said the horrified woman ran into the parking garage where he works.
“She couldn’t speak. ” he said. “She was shaking. She couldn’t even call 911. She tried twice.”
Posted inBlacks, Crime, New York|Comments Off on Angry Black Man shoves bag of feces down woman’s shorts on Upper East Side, runs away
Daily Mail: A Scottish woman has been crowned Miss Hitler 2016 in a sick beauty pageant organised by neo-Nazi youth movement National Action.
The sick competition saw a woman with the disturbing pseudonym ‘A-Bus-Full-Of-Retards’ named the winner, after attracting entries from across the UK.
In a disturbing interview on the group’s website, the woman says: ‘I am an NA activist living in Scotland and dedicated member of our organisation.’
The female poses in pictures on the fascist group’s website wearing a kilt and a t-shirt with the National Action insignia on it.
The brunette’s face is half-covered with a black scarf with a skull on it, and in several images she is doing the Nazi salute.
In other parts of the interview she adds: ‘I didn’t want to believe that the Jews are the enemy as I was brought up to believe that they are very similar to Christians.
‘Eventually the Jewish propaganda became too obvious to ignore and so I became involved with NA.’
And sickeningly, she says she would most like to kill German Chancellor Angela Merkel, adding: ‘I would put Angela Merkel (without any protection) in one of her camps and let her pet refugees do the rest.’
The woman says her boyfriend is the ‘best gift life has given’ her and without him she would be a ‘very lonely Nazi’.
She also said her relationships with friends had suffered due to her views.
She said: ‘There are some people who I used to be friends with but because of their openly antifascist views, I no longer speak to. It makes me sad sometimes as I used to really enjoy their company.’
Posted inAdolf Hitler, Anti-Semitism|Comments Off on Scottish woman is named Miss HITLER 2016 in neo-Nazi competition dubbed ‘the ugliest beauty contest ever held’
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
