EBERT VS. BISKIND: My two favorite living film writers (now that Pauline Kael is dead) are Peter Biskind and Roger Ebert, and now it looks like they're about to start a feud. In this week's Movie Answer Man column, Ebert answers a question about Biskind's current book "Down and Dirty Pictures" (which I am currently reading), and in it slams the author, writing that "Biskind has a way of massaging his stories to suit his agenda," and then quotes Steven Spielberg as saying that everything Biskind quoted him as saying in "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" was false. (What, he wasn't really married to Amy Irving?) Ebert then goes on to quote a source who rips Biskind's book at length.
Biskind is yet to respond, and Ebert is not mentioned in 'Down and Dirty.' Not really sure who to root for here; I've immediately gone and looked up Ebert's review after each and every film I've seen in the last decade, though two of Biskind's books ("The Godfather Companion" and 'Easy Riders') are among my favorite movie books of all time. Can't you just get along, guys?