Gene Siskel

Eugene Kal "Gene" Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of popular review shows on television from 1975 to 1999.

Life and career

Siskel was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Ida (née Kalis) and Nathan William Siskel. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants. Siskel was raised by his aunt and uncle after both his parents died when he was ten years old. He attended Culver Academies and graduated from Yale University with a degree in philosophy in 1967, where he studied writing under Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey, who helped him land a job at the Chicago Tribune in 1969. His first print review was for the film Rascal, which was written one month before he became the paper's film critic. His review of the film was favorable but received no stars by default since the paper did not use a star-rating system for films at the time. Siskel served in the United States Army Reserves, graduating from basic officers training in early 1968 and serving as a military journalist and public affairs officer for the Defense Information School. For a time afterwards, Gene was acquainted with Playboy magazine publisher, Hugh Hefner. In 1975, Siskel teamed up with Roger Ebert, film reviewer for the Chicago Sun-Times, to host a show on the local Chicago PBS station WTTW which eventually became Sneak Previews. Their "thumbs-up, thumbs-down" system soon became an easily recognizable trademark, popular enough to be parodied on comedy shows such as In Living Color, Bizarre, and in movies such as Hollywood Shuffle and Godzilla. Sneak Previews gained a country-wide audience in 1977 when it was carried on PBS.

Gene Siskel Film Center

The Gene Siskel Film Center, formerly The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and commonly referred to as The Film Center or The Gene Siskel, is the cinematheque attached to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It is named after popular film critic Gene Siskel.

Along with Doc Films at the University of Chicago and the Block Museum of Northwestern University, the Film Center is one of Chicago's key revival houses, and hosts at least one major retrospective per month. Unlike Doc or Block, the Film Center also serves as a venue for first runs of foreign and independent films and is not student-run. Amongst other things, this means the Film Center maintains a year-round staff and does not cease operation when The School of the Art Institute closes for semester breaks.

The Film Center reportedly averages 1,500 screenings a year.

History

The Film Center was founded as The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1972. It moved to its current location, 164 N State St. in the Chicago Loop neighborhood of Chicago, in June 2001; the Film Center was officially renamed during the move. The current location is directly across the street from the Chicago Theatre.

Film

A film, also called a movie, motion picture or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession. A film is created by photographing actual scenes with a motion picture camera; by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques; by means of CGI and computer animation; or by a combination of some or all of these techniques and other visual effects. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to the industry of films and filmmaking or to the art of filmmaking itself. The contemporary definition of cinema is the art of simulating experiences to communicate ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty or atmosphere by the means of recorded or programmed moving images along with other sensory stimulations.

The process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry.

Center

Center or centre may refer to:

Mathematics and science

Sports

Gene

A gene is a locus (or region) of DNA that encodes a functional RNA or protein product, and is the molecular unit of heredity. The transmission of genes to an organism's offspring is the basis of the inheritance of phenotypic traits. Most biological traits are under the influence of polygenes (many different genes) as well as the gene–environment interactions. Some genetic traits are instantly visible, such as eye colour or number of limbs, and some are not, such as blood type, risk for specific diseases, or the thousands of basic biochemical processes that comprise life.

Genes can acquire mutations in their sequence, leading to different variants, known as alleles, in the population. These alleles encode slightly different versions of a protein, which cause different phenotype traits. Colloquial usage of the term "having a gene" (e.g., "good genes," "hair colour gene") typically refers to having a different allele of the gene. Genes evolve due to natural selection or survival of the fittest of the alleles.