Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Pretty Woman/Blind Fury/A Shock to the System/The Fourth War/Lambada (1990)

Roger Ebert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Gene Siskel - Host : [reviewing "Lambada"]  This movie becomes an instant guilty pleasure for me, a film I'm almost embarrassed to admit held my attention. I'm ALMOST embarrassed, but not really, 'cause I'm prepared to defend it now against Roger's sure attack.

  Roger Ebert - Host : You SHOULD be embarrassed, Gene, because first of all, this is NOT a good dance musical. It has very very few dance sequences in it, they're badly lit, badly photographed, badly choreographed.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And you're quite right: The camera is SO high...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...On most of these people, that you cannot go to this movie and find out from it how the lambada is danced. I don't have a CLUE how to do the lambada from having seeing this movie. Then, we get to the story, which involves teaching poor kids how to find the cosine and use a protractor in order to line up their pool shots. This is like, I don't know if I wanna call this movie "Clean Dancing", instead of "Dirty Dancing", or it's like a remake of "Stand and Deliver". Who in the WORLD wants to go to a lambada movie that ends with a trigonometry bee? I mean, this movie, agh...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Roger...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...The audience that I sat there and saw it with...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Don't bring up...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...They were STUNNED. The last twenty, fifteen minutes...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Wait a second...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Of this movie consists of mathematical questions!

  Gene Siskel - Host : I know. Wait a second...

  Roger Ebert - Host : What does it have to do with ANYTHING?

  Gene Siskel - Host : They were stunned. I was stunned. And I thought, you know, this picture... is obviously combining two wildly different things- first of all, I didn't even believe that they were in high school. When it says "high school" at the end- wait a second, I'm gonna cr- I'm criticizing it now. When they said "high school" at the end, I thought it was, I was shocked, I thought it was college!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well every high school student in this movie is played by an actor...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Twenty-six.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...That looks like he's in his twenties, yes.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Absolutely, and I liked that about it.

  Roger Ebert - Host : WHY did you like that about it?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Wait a second- I'm gonna tell you exactly why.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm sure you will.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Something that I said: The musical form... gets me.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Where's the music? That's the, that's the key flaw in your argument.

  Gene Siskel - Host : There's enough.

  Roger Ebert - Host : "The musical form overcomes everything", there isn't enough music. And there isn't enough dancing.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Can I ask you something? Were you bored by the picture, or were you captivated by the picture?

  Roger Ebert - Host : I was stunned by the picture. I was stunned that anybody would make this picture. I was stunned by the fact that...

  Gene Siskel - Host : There are parts of it that are so bad, and there are parts of it that are strong, and I do think you know a little bit how to do the dance: You just get close and work out.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Gene, I knew that when I was seventeen years old. And this movie...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Reminds you.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Doesn't know as much as I knew when I was seventeen years old.

  [to camera] 

  Roger Ebert - Host : Now let's recap the movies-

  [back to Gene] 

  Roger Ebert - Host : About dancing OR about trigonometry.

• Roger Ebert - Host : And Gene, this is the first time in a long time you voted thumbs up on all five movies, and... ya shouldn't have.