Matt Singer is the editor and film critic of ScreenCrush.com and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. He won a Webby Award for his work on the Independent Film Channel’s website, IFC.com, and is the author of Marvel’s Spider-Man: From Amazing to Spectacular. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.
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“Opposable Thumbs is a welcome reminder of an era when film
criticism actually mattered...But it was Siskel and Ebert who, in
Singer’s words, ‘democratized criticism, turned it into mass
entertainment.’” —The New York Times
“The story of [Siskel and Ebert’s] rise to fame is told in enticing
detail by Matt Singer in a joint biography titled—what
else?—Opposable Thumbs. For Singer, the critic at ScreenCrush and
the current chairperson of the New York Film Critics Circle, the
book is clearly a labor of love. He writes that his own aspiration
to be a critic was sparked by their show, which he began watching
obsessively as a middle schooler, in the early nineteen-nineties.
Singer’s admirably fanatical research renders this obsession
tangible. He seems to have absorbed every moment that the duo spent
onscreen, whether on their own show or other people’s. (They were
Johnny Carson and David Letterman regulars for years). He has
combed his heroes’ writings and interviewed their colleagues,
friends, family, and fellow-critics. But, more than merely
gathering this material, he has thought deeply about it, and the
best thing about the book is the way that it highlights some of the
basic quandaries that critics confront (or avoid) daily.” —The New
Yorker
“The story of [Siskel and Ebert’s] rise to fame is told in enticing
detail by Matt Singer in a joint biography titled—what
else?—Opposable Thumbs. For Singer, the critic at ScreenCrush and
the current chairperson of the New York Film Critics Circle, the
book is clearly a labor of love. He writes that his own aspiration
to be a critic was sparked by their show, which he began watching
obsessively as a middle schooler, in the early nineteen-nineties.
Singer’s admirably fanatical research renders this obsession
tangible. He seems to have absorbed every moment that the duo spent
onscreen, whether on their own show or other people’s. (They were
Johnny Carson and David Letterman regulars for years). He has
combed his heroes’ writings and interviewed their colleagues,
friends, family, and fellow-critics. But, more than merely
gathering this material, he has thought deeply about it, and the
best thing about the book is the way that it highlights some of the
basic quandaries that critics confront (or avoid) daily.” —The New
Yorker
"A wonderful book." —RogerEbert.com
"The role of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in changing film criticism
may often have been simplified to their signature phrase 'Two
Thumbs Up,' but the glory and value of this knowledgeable, deeply
entertaining history of their partnership is that it's always
expansive, never reductive. We get so much here—a dual portrait of
two big personalities at war with one another both as critics and
as men, a history of the invention and reinvention of a seminal TV
series, and a deep sense of the abiding love for movies that
coursed through their work and that courses through Matt Singer's."
—Mark Harris, author of Mike Nichols: A Life
"Critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert changed how we talked about
the movies. A fascinating look inside their enduring partnership."
—People
"Siskel and Ebert bustled into the world at a time when movie
critics mattered more, before the culture fragmented into a million
voices and “influencers,” and they ruled that world with iron
thumbs. In this sense Singer’s book is a time capsule of a bygone
era every bit as irreplicable as the partnership at its core." —The
Los Angeles Times
“Engaging.” —The Washington Post
“I think Matt has really done the research here to very deeply
engage with the show itself and who they were, but also the history
of what it meant to try and get this kind of show on television at
the time, and what made it popular. It’s a special book.” —Linda
Holmes, NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour
“[Opposable Thumbs] deserves two thumbs up.” —Publishers Weekly
“Readers who recall Siskel and Ebert will be delighted by this
opportunity to reminisce.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Recommended for wide purchase with, what else, an enthusiastic
thumbs up.” —Booklist, starred review
“Opposable Thumbs is a thoroughly entertaining, deeply researched
biography of rival movie critics Gene Siskel and Robert Ebert and
how they came to define modern film criticism.” —Shelf
Awareness
“The Siskel & Ebert rivalry, and its legacy, comes alive in the new
book Opposable Thumbs.” —Chicago Tribune
"Matt Singer produces the closest we’ll get to the ultimate
chronicle of the men who changed film reviewing." —Book and Film
Globe
“For generations of moviegoers, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were
more than a pair of dueling film critics on TV: They were
celebrities in their own right, powerful arbiters of popular taste
whose weekly clashes were more entertaining than a big-screen
monster-movie battle. In this wildly entertaining book, Matt
Singer, a critic who grew up sneaking viewings of Siskel and Ebert
at the Movies past his bedtime, chronicles the history of these two
very different men's three-decade working relationship—one than was
often even more heated than their weekly on-air fights, but which
evolved late into their lives into a real and deeply moving
friendship.” —Dana Stevens, author of Camera Man: Buster Keaton,
the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century
“Like a squabbling couple in a screwball comedy, Gene Siskel and
Roger Ebert had something undeniable: chemistry. Matt Singer’s
sharp, affectionate book captures the love-hate professional
marriage that changed television, changed film criticism, and
changed the lives of two movie-mad rivals turned icons. My thumbs
are pointing skyward.” —Michael Schulman, author of Oscar Wars: A
History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears
“Matt Singer is a nimble, funny writer whose enthusiasms are as
quirky as they are infectious. These qualities make his history of
the tele-visualization of film criticism a near-irresistible read.
Beyond the hilarious and sometimes hair-raising tales of
Roger-and-Gene sniping there’s a serious and thorough analysis of
how they profoundly changed how all of us talk about the movies.”
—Glenn Kenny, author of Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas
“The joy of watching Siskel and Ebert go at it represented more
than just sharp minds and good entertainment. It was a particularly
American approach to film criticism, an open door and an
invitation. Like Siskel and Ebert themselves, Matt Singer's writing
is deft and bright, but above all brings a big-hearted approach to
his subject. Anyone who loves movies will enjoy reading this
book.” —Robert Towne, legendary screenwriter
“Roger Ebert famously called movies 'empathy machines' -- Matt
Singer has taken that concept to its logical conclusion. Singer has
crafted an empathy portal into the dreams, desires, and
disagreements of the 20th century's foremost movie critics, helping
us understand what made them such indelible forces in the lives of
film fans.” —Sean Fennessey, Head of Content for TheRinger.com
“They were two thumb-toting titans of film criticism who could
boost or sink a movie with a twist of their hand. They were also
complex, diametrically opposed men whose partnership was often more
fractious than collegial. Matt Singer’s outstanding, hugely
entertaining book digs into all of that, and more, to excavate a
fascinating portrait of two guys from Chicago who somehow took
Hollywood by storm. With sharp observations, contagious passion,
and an acute eye for detail, it’ll leave you itching to watch a
movie, then talk about it with someone. A perfect tribute, then, to
the duo it’s about.” —Nick De Semlyen, author of The Last Action
Hero: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of
Carnage
“As entertaining, complicated, and surprising as the gentlemen
themselves. Even as the most diehard fan I found myself genuinely
surprised multiple times. To (kind of) quote the great Roger Ebert:
I loved, loved, loved this book.” —Brian Michael
Bendis, writer/co-creator Marvel’s Miles Morales and
the Spider-Verse and Jessica Jones
"A funny, moving, illuminating look at the days when two
ink-stained newspapermen from Chicago helped change the way cinema
was talked about, made, and distributed, just by going on TV and
telling viewers what they liked, and why." —Matt Zoller Seitz,
editor-at-large of RogerEbert.com
“Thankfully, future generations hoping to understand Gene and
Roger’s impact on American thought will have Matt Singer’s
Opposable Thumbs, an instantly indispensable book about the most
important television show in the history of movies—and the unlikely
pop icons who taught critics to talk like normal people and normal
people to think like critics.” —Alex Pappademas, author of
Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant
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