Between the ages of 3 and 5, I fell in love with the movies after seeing my very first one, learned how to read and write, and discovered there was actually a job out there that combined all of those things into one: A film critic.
From that point on, I knew what I wanted to do with my life. And while my peers may have yearned to be doctors or firemen or the like, I wanted to watch movies and write about them, just like those guys I read in the Sun-Times and the Tribune that my father would bring home from work every day. (If all of this seems a little weird for someone whose age was still in the mid-single-digits, all I can do is agree that yeah, it was weird.)
Even better, about a year or so later, I discovered that those two guys, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, had a TV program called “Sneak Previews” where they reviewed all the new movies. The show became an immediate must-watch for me. (If I recall correctly, it played on Saturday night in the pre-prime time slot and was followed by the equally delightful “The Muppet Show”). I delighted in the bickering, the movie clips, and even the segment at the end where they highlighted the week’s worst movies—usually trashy horror, Kung-fu, and sexploitation items—in ways that often made them seem more tantalizing than some of the films covered in the main section.
Even at an early age, I knew I wanted to be a film critic, but at that point, I was more than a little hazy about exactly what that entailed. In many professions, I could see people doing them and understand the various tasks involved. In film criticism, I knew I could watch a movie and put down 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 to it than that. I wasn’t sure of where to turn, and it wasn’t as if there were going to be any grade-school field trips to see a critic at work that would have helped to answer my questions. As it turns out, in early 1980, I actually got that field trip, more or less, via that very same favorite television show of mine.
Every once in a while, “Sneak Previews” would break from the usual format to do an entire episode based on a specific topic. They did one about some of their favorite so-called Guilty Pleasures, where I first learned about the delights of “Infra-Man” and “Emmanuelle,” and a controversial one about the then-current rage for slasher films. In the one I am referring to, the show actually took viewers behind the scenes to follow Siskel & Ebert going through the entire process of watching and reviewing a movie. It showed them at their respective newspaper office desks talking about their expectations for the film they were about to see (Harold Becker’s “The Black Marble”), followed them to the screening room housed within the iconic Chicago Theatre (with Siskel making a pit stop for popcorn at Garretts on the way) where they talked about things like seating preferences and taking notes before watching the film and then went back with them to their offices as they collected their thoughts and set them to paper.
Needless to say, I was mesmerized by all of this. In less than half an hour, pretty much all my questions about this admittedly odd profession were answered in a clear, concise, and entertaining manner. I loved getting a glimpse at the inner workings of a newspaper and the process of putting a review together. Since I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and visited the city with my family frequently, I was familiar with the locations the show took viewers to—I recall getting popcorn from that very same Garrett’s myself—and, in a strange way, that made it even more personal to me. For the first time, what once may have seemed like an impractical dream now not only seemed far more realistic but even potentially achievable. After watching that show, I was more determined than ever that this was what I wanted to do, and I would do whatever was necessary to make it happen.
Maybe ten years later, I am in my freshman year of college, and I have been hired at the school’s fledgling newspaper as its film critic. This involved contacting local publicists in hopes of getting on the various lists to gain access to advance screenings of the latest films. One of them was for, of all things, the original “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” and when I asked if there were going to be any screenings, I was invited to one at 10:00 AM on a Monday morning at a location that held private screenings and ran dailies for films shooting in the area. At the appointed day and time, I turned up (I won’t say whether I skipped any classes) for my first-ever press-only moviegoing experience and found that no one else was there.
For a few minutes, I am slowly becoming convinced that I am either in the wrong place or I am inexplicably being pranked. Then I hear the door open, and a voice asks, “Is this the right room?” It is none other than Siskel & Ebert themselves entering and settling into their seats.
As it happens, we were the only three people watching “TMNT” that day. After a couple of minutes, the film began—a good thing since I was, for one of the very few times in my existence, absolutely speechless. I have only the haziest memories of the movie itself, but I remember that screening like it was yesterday. It was one of my first real steps in this oddest of professions, but I was hooked.
Over the next few decades, I would continue to stick with it, even in the face of the gradual devolution of both that particular job and the profession of journalism in general, and there was even a brief flirtation with being part of a locally-produced television show involving people talking about current movies—like virtually all flirtations in which I played an active part, it ended quickly and bitterly (Fellow critic Nathan Rabin, who lasted longer with the project than I did, wrote about it in his lovely book The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture, even mentioning my glancing association with it.)
Would I have been able to accomplish all of this without having seen that particular episode of “Sneak Previews” for inspiration? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it made that dream seem viable, if perhaps not exactly practical, and for that, I will always hold it deep in my heart.
