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.

Before I was a friend and colleague, I was a fan.

In my early and mid-teens in the 1970s, I was a loner jock/pop culture nerd who was obsessed with these pursuits:

Playing and watching baseball and football and to a lesser extent basketball, and consuming issues of Sports Illustrated and Sport and Baseball Digest, and reading books such as Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, David Wolf’s Foul! The Connie Hawkins Story and George Plimpton’s Paper Lion.

Watching late-night and weekend TV, especially talk shows such as “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,” “The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder,” ABC’s “Good Night America,” wherever Dick Cavett had landed in a given season—and the Chicago-based “Kup’s Show,” with the legendary Chicago Sun-Times columnist Irv Kupcinet presiding over an eclectic group of guests engaging in “the lively art of conversation.”

Movies. Movies movies movies.

Then came a program that merged two of those three passions: movies and talk shows. At some point in late 1975 or early 1976, I became aware of “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You,” a monthly review program on WTTW-Channel 11. The show featured Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert and Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel talking about new releases in the low-key but instantly engrossing style that made you feel like you were eavesdropping on your two favorite teachers as they verbally sparred between classes. (Roger was 33 when the show debuted; Gene was just 29.)

It was great. I watched every week. I took notes. (I had piles of spiral notebooks back then, filled with scribblings about everything from stats comparing the 1927 Yankees to the mid-1970s Big Red Machine, to my ratings of various episodes of “The Tonight Show.” Like I said: nerd.) Conventional wisdom has it that Roger and Gene were awkward, unpolished and slightly geeky in those early years—and while there’s some truth in that, they were also pretty comfortable in their respective personas from the get-go, clearly knowledgeable and passionate about films, and respectful of each other’s opinions, even when they vehemently disagreed.

When I had the cash to see a movie at the Dolton Cinema or the River Oaks in Calumet City, I based my choices largely on Roger’s reviews in the Sun-Times (we were never a Tribune family, no offense)—and what Roger and Gene had to say on “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You.” It was a well-produced show from the start, but it also had a quirky, almost no-budget, enormously charming local public television vibe. The guys delivered insightful and sobering commentary on major films such as “Taxi Driver”—but they never took themselves too seriously, as evidenced by segments titled the “Dog of the Week” (with Spot the Wonder Dog) and later the “Stinker of the Week” (with Aroma the Educated Skunk), shining a harsh but playful light on terrible movies. As memory serves, in both cases, real animals were supplanted by plush toys. Easier to wrangle, I would imagine.

Fast forward to the 1980s and 1990s, when Roger and Gene were syndicated across the country. The review show was still must-see television for me—but as a talk-show geek, I was also a big fan of the Siskel & Ebert chat show appearances, including the grandaddy of them all, “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.” (Years later, Roger told me that when he and Gene were backstage at “The Tonight Show,” a producer told them Johnny was going to ask about the best movies currently playing in theaters—and they both drew a blank. From that point forward, whenever they taped a talk show appearance, a producer would be at the ready back at the Chicago offices in case they needed to make a call.) 

They were great with Regis and Kathie Lee, with Oprah and Johnny and Jay and Arsenio, but best of all were the appearances with David Letterman, who recognized comedy gold in these fellow Midwesterners. Roger and Gene would come on and mostly talk about movies (the running joke was that while Letterman would have only one guest on at a time, he always kept two chairs on the set “for Siskel & Ebert”) —but they were also featured in comedy bits. They made quick cameos, gave their concession stand recommendations at a makeshift snack counter, and perhaps most famously, filmed a segment where Dave, Roger and Gene went door to door in New Jersey, cleaning the gutters at one woman’s house, playing a game of basketball in a driveway court, and even stopping in to pay their respects at a funeral home in West Orange. They had become such household names that when Michael J. Fox was on with Letterman to promote his movie “The Hard Way,” nearly an entire segment was devoted to Fox’s feelings about Gene and Roger and their respective reviewing styles.

It’s nearly impossible to overstate the impact Siskel & Ebert had on the careers of filmmakers, and on the popular culture. When they championed films such as “Hoop Dreams,” or did an entire show in black and white to decry the horrific practice of colorizing films, when they touted the works of Spike Lee and Errol Morris and Werner Herzog and the Coen Brothers, millions were watching and taking heed. At times, Hollywood players would take not-so-thinly-veiled shots at the lads. Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” had the incompetent “Mayor Ebert” (Michael Lerner) and his advisor, Gene (Lorry Goldman). In “The Ref,” where Richard LaGravenese had J.K. Simmons playing a deviant character named “Siskel” because Gene had said LaGravenese’s screenplay for “The Fisher King” was the least deserving of the Oscar nominees in that category in 1991. Gene and Roger were on “Saturday Night Live,” lampooned in Mad Magazine, on the Howard Stern Show, and were depicted in animated form on “The Critic.” They were as famous as the movie stars and directors they talked about.

Through it all, though, the Roger and Gene we saw in the balcony every week were the same guys who popped up on Channel 11 back in 1975. They never moved the production from Chicago to Hollywood. They never added unnecessary bells and whistles or gimmicks. It was two smart guys who loved movies sitting across the aisle from one another, speaking with passion and knowledge and savvy about the movies that would be opening that weekend at a theater near you. It was magic.