Why do we go to the movies in the first place? To have a vicarious experience. For two hours we sit there and if the movie works we stop being ourselves to some degree and become the characters on the screen. And then a review to some degree should talk about whether we enjoyed that vicarious experience. —Roger Ebert…

In a 20/20 interview, he took things even further. “When you disagree on a movie,” Ebert said, “you’re not disagreeing on the movie. You’re disagreeing on who you are. If I don’t like a movie and he does, then I’m not saying that the movie is flawed, I’m saying that he’s flawed.”…

Because the crosstalk was unplanned and unscripted, it occasionally ventured off into fascinating tangents. A Siskel & Ebert movie review could mutate at a moment’s notice into a debate about philosophy, morality, or spirituality. The occasion of the 1987 fantasy film Made in Heaven, about a young man who dies, meets his soulmate in heaven, then must return to Earth to find her when she is reincarnated in a new human body, inspired Roger and Gene to talk less about the movie than their own beliefs about the afterlife.

“I believe,” Siskel revealed, “that if you think of someone, whether it be here or in someplace else, that they come alive. I think the film had a religious content to it. So I found the film beautiful.”
“Yeah, but, of course, whether or not you believe in this doesn’t have anything to do with whether the movie is good or not,” Ebert countered.
“For me, it does,” Siskel responded.
“Okay, well, in that case you think every movie you agree with is good!” Ebert said.
“I have for years,” Siskel replied.

Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever
Matt Singer

Note – recommended