Screenwriters Almanac: This Day In History

Celebrating One of the Best Minds in The Film Critic Community: Gene Siskel

Happy Weekend, everyone.

Every now and then I will be treating this “Screenwriter’s Almanac” a bit more specifically. And today, I did a little research - a pretty wide net was cast with just a simple search of, “What cool thing happened today in history?” Yeah, pretty broad, so of course I focused it more around screenwriting and Hollywood, and I found something special.

To those who didn’t grow up around the Chicagoland area, Gene Siskel was really just a popular film critic. He and Roger Ebert of course rose to stardom over the many years, but in the Midwest they were nothing short of royalty where the film community was concerned. While we didn’t always agree with their reviews, I always found myself leaning more toward Gene’s opinions than Mr. Ebert’s. I loved them both, but I also loved to disagree with them, and to watch them argue on their regularly programmed show which ran for over 20 years. It got quite uncomfortable at times! Below is a clip of their argument over Home Alone 3 (let’s just say I heartily agree with Gene).

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