Joyful Critic Joel Siegel, Gone at 63

ABC ^ | 6/29/07

[jmyrlefuller]

I send my prayers and condolences to his family.

Dying of cancer, two weeks after he looked pretty much fine. That’s just plain freaky.

[MikeD]

Gene Siskel, Paul Clinton, now Joel Siegel. All of the good movie critics are gone, save Michael Medved.

[Borges]

Well Ebert was always a better critic than Siskel but they brought out the best in each other. Roeper is pathetic.

[originalbuckeye]

Hate to disagree. I really miss Gene Siskel. I agreed with him more often than with Ebert. I do agree with you that Roeper is not worth watching. Sometimes he has guest reviewers that I like. I started watching At The Movies in the 70’s in Chicago. It’s just a habit now.

[Borges]

I may have occasionally agreed with Siskel but it was never for the same reasons. Ebert was/is a real film buff. Someone who goes to film festivals, reads and writes books about cinema, talks about mise-en-scene. Siskel was basically an outsider. His beat at the Chicago Tribune before he became the film critic was Real Estate. A Philosophy major at Yale, he judged films on whether they proffered a moral/philosophical vision he found appealing.

The hiring of Roeper is unfathomable. There are so many good film critics out there who could raise the level of discussion...instead they bring in a gossip columnist who goes on about so-and-so having 'real star power!'.