I just noticed a wealth of old "Sneak Previews" PBS episodes with Siskel and Ebert have been recently uploaded on youtube. They are all in really good shape and look like they could have been sourced from the original broadcast masters. The reviews range from the late seventies until the early 80s.

https://www.youtube.com/user/greggag...=dd&shelf_id=1

...keep pressing "Load More" and prepare to lose a few hours of time.

Holy moly! What a treasure trove of material. I've been watching all the Siskel and Ebert videos I could find on YouTube for 10 years now, and this is about 90% stuff I've never seen before. There is so little from this era. God bless whoever put these up, and thanks so much for alerting us.

There used to be a website that had an archive (that has since been taken down) that had hundreds of episodes dating back to the days when Gene Siskel had a moustache that would make Sam Elliot blush.

This is awesome though.

On the same topic, something like Siskel & Ebert would never work today with how cynical the world is. Especially with all the talking head cable news shows that are so awful. It just wouldn't work.

There used to be Siskelandebert.org which removed all of their videos and now just contains links to related advertisements. If I remember it had a few from the mid-seventies but centered mostly around the "Buena Vista" years from 1987-1999.

This is the first time I've seen most of these reviews since they originally aired on PBS. It's a great collection as it contains a lot of films that Roger Ebert never provided written newspaper reviews for so his opinions were essentially lost until now.

It's also a reminder that I still have a lot of titles I still need to add to my collection.

The days of the famous movie critic are over unless you go the YouTube celebrity route. Before the Internet existed, it was hard finding informed opinions on films beyond the occasional newspaper review. Now you can literally call up hundreds of reviews in a variety of formats (both written and video) within seconds. I doubt Siskel and Ebert would stand out today from the thousands of others reviewing movies.

All that being said, I religiously watched their show.

Fantastic! I love, love love this!

That's good to know. Hope they don't get pulled in a couple of days.

Frankly, it's a real shame that so much stuff like this gets dropped down the memory hole. Almost any "dated" material like this, or old magazines, tend to be mostly lost and gone forever.

I fucking loved it when archive.org was hosting all of the old OMNI magazines (managed to download all of them before they got yanked), and they currently have a full collection of Twilight Zone magazines up.

I liked the episode where they gave thumbs down to Amadeus Meets Salieri, split on Chicago Jones and the Temple of Doom, the finger to Dirty Larry, and serious high-fives to Attack of the Street Pimps.

I remember watching in on KRON channel 4 when it would usually air on Sat or Sun evenings.

Talking Movies on the BBC News America is probably the closest thing to a true movie show on TV though they don't give reviews.

I wonder if they thought Taxi Driver would have such a long lasting appeal.

I just think there's a surplus right now of people having arguments on tv. I loved Siskel and Ebert, but they could be pretty petty sometimes. The culture has shifted in a way that makes a show like that a much less appealing concept in 2019. Also Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel really captured lightning in a bottle with their chemistry and talent. I think it would be hard to get right. Just ask Richard Roeper.

I think the concept of two newspaper guys reviewing movies and having a huge influence on the film industry will simply never happen again. Everyone chimes-in on Rotten Tomatoes, youtube, imdb etc. By the mid-eighties there were three different shows; Jeffrey Lyons & Michael Medved, who replaced Siskel & Ebert when they left PBS and then there was Rex Reed & Bill Harris which then became Rex Reed & Dixie Whatley. Siskel & Ebert were really the only two well-known, trusted critics.

Only if that's all you cared about. If you listened to them or read their columns, they'd take you to school on why a film did or didn't work.

Correct, the thumbs up were used in newspaper movie listing and ad spots and that is how I first heard of them. I taped their show at midnight on Sunday to listen to what they had to say.

Didn't they refuse to allow "two thumbs down" in newspaper ads after David Lynch's Lost Highway used it in their promotions?

Been watching a bunch of their reviews, and I'm struck by how brief and concise they are. About half of the time is eaten up by showing scenes from the movies, then a couple of minutes of commentary. They're very skilled at getting to the point of what they did or didn't like about the films without giving out spoilers, while their enthusiasm for the art of film is always clear. It's certainly not in-depth analysis, but there's a real clarity there. They also have a real chemistry and come off like old friends; even when they disagree about films, they respect each others' opinions and understand where they're coming from.

Real lightning in a bottle stuff.

Though, watching their reviews of horror films, they tend to overuse the word "gruesome."

I always thought horror was one of their big blind spots. Siskel was never much of a horror movie fan and Ebert had eccentric tastes in horror. They had grown up during a time when horror meant something different and never really adapted to how they were made after the 70s.

I never understood why people hated them since they assumed they gave every movie that was popular with the masses a thumbs down and praise for the indies and arthouse cinema though they had appreciation for love for the blockbusters too.

Yeah, I remember when they gushed over Kingpin like it was Citizen Kane.

I remember these early years when Siskel & Ebert were shown on PBS and voted "Yes" or "No" instead of "Thumbs Up or "Thumbs Down". When did they make that switch?

And "Dog of the Week" was one of my favorite parts of the show back then. I never understood why they later got rid of that segment.

They loved Halloween but despised all the Friday the 13th movies. I don't really see them as misogynistic.