Expensive Mitch: Have been you a fan of the 2 newspapermen from Chicago, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert?
Alan Rossi, San Anselmo
Expensive Alphonse: I’m going to let this one reply communicate to the variety of Siskel and Ebert questions I’ve been getting within the wake of “Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Modified Motion pictures Endlessly,” the brand new guide by Matt Singer, which tells the 2 movie critics’ story.
Mainly, I appreciated their present after I was a teen, however after I received older and have become a critic, I ended watching. Primarily I ended as a result of they have been speaking about motion pictures I’d already reviewed, and my curiosity in random routine releases wasn’t inexhaustible. But additionally, these guys made me nervous. They appeared to hate one another, and so they didn’t cover it. Ebert was particularly imply to Siskel, and since he was additionally smarter than Siskel, the imbalance was unsettling. (To retaliate, Siskel might usually solely resort to fats jokes.)
Maybe I might have loved the present higher if I might select certainly one of them to root for, however I couldn’t. On a intestine stage, I appreciated Siskel higher, as a result of he appeared like an urbane man and an extrovert with no trace of being a film nerd. However I agreed with Ebert extra usually. I appreciated his reasoning and believed he was the extra critical critic. So fairly than be torn, I simply prevented the present.
Nonetheless, years later, I received to know Ebert just a little and appreciated and admired him enormously, much more as an individual than as a critic. He was a beneficiant colleague and wrote blurbs for 2 of my books — with out studying them, which is definitely kind of a praise.
Expensive Mick LaSalle: What, no Spencer Tracy (in your listing of favourite lifeless actors)?
Coby Lubliner, El Cerrito
Expensive Coby: No Spencer Tracy. Folks learn issues into him that I don’t see. They see a pleasant, heat, fatherly man, whereas I see a nasty drunk barely repressing his hostility.
He could possibly be nice at occasions, however in his early roles, he’s largely simply bitter, particularly to girls. And I don’t like him later, with Katharine Hepburn, both.
I do admire him in “Captains Brave” (1937), and I take pleasure in him generally in his old-guy incarnation (“Inherit the Wind,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”). There’s no query he was an distinctive actor, with an nearly invisible approach, however total, I’m probably not a fan.
My favourite Tracy is Lee Tracy (“Blessed Occasion”). Ninety-nine occasions out of 100, I’d take Lee over Spencer.
Expensive Mick LaSalle: I’m very dissatisfied together with your opinion of the 1969 Woodstock pageant (“Earlier than ‘Eras’: 20 greatest live performance movies to observe proper now,” Oct. 12) and what it exemplified. The conflict of the generations was monumental. The specters of environmental disaster, consumerism run amok and a “civilization” that wanted to draft younger males for the Vietnam Warfare weighed closely on them! Goals of a greater world are absurd? You have been 10 years previous in 1969. I positively suggest doing extra historic analysis earlier than trashing a era nonetheless looking for solace in peace music!
Larry McSpadden, Oakland
Expensive Larry McSpadden: Thanks for illustrating for the youthful generations one thing that I’ve usually tried to elucidate.
There are two sorts of child boomers: There are the previous boomers, who got here of age within the Nineteen Sixties, after which there are the younger boomers, who got here of age within the Seventies. And whereas the younger boomers are invariably carefree, charming and irreverent, older boomers are typically on the humorless, grim facet and generally even use phrases like “peace music.”
There are exceptions — I can identify a number of in my very own circle of acquaintance — however largely, whenever you grow old boomers happening concerning the ’60s, it’s like listening to a British particular person speak concerning the royal household. There’s a devotion there that resists purpose, and the one factor to do is change the topic.
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