Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

The Juror/Balto/White Squall/Nico Icon/French Twist (1996)

Roger Ebert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Gene Siskel - Host : I saw "Balto" about six weeks ago, and I haven't thought about it since, which is most unlike me for a good children's film.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well, I liked it, Gene. It's not in the category...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh, no at all.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Of the great animated films. Sure, the animation isn't at the Disney level.

  Gene Siskel - Host : It ISN'T!

  Roger Ebert - Host : But the story was interesting, the fact that they have to go and get this medicine, and he's got the evil dog you didn't even mention who's trying to set things up to blackmail him and make him look like the bad dog, when really, he's the hero...

  Gene Siskel - Host : If...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...And the local kids who are involved in the whole story...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Roger.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...And all of that stuff involving the ice and the snow and the cave they get caught in, kids will enjoy this movie!

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, I don't know that to be true. If, IF it had been straight line on the adventure of it, and if it had been done in a different kind of drawing style, it could've been a rousing...

  Roger Ebert - Host : There's nothing wrong with the drawing style!

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh excuse- you even said it yourself a few seconds ago! You said it's sketchy, it isn't at the level...

  Roger Ebert - Host : No no no no, YOU said it's sketchy, I said it wasn't at the level of the Disney stuff.

  Gene Siskel - Host : It isn't fully drawn.

  Roger Ebert - Host : But it's, it's perfectly adequate to tell this story in an entertaining way.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Boy, THERE'S a recommendation: "Adequate".

  Roger Ebert - Host : No, Gene, just listen to me for a second.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I have.

  Roger Ebert - Host : This is a nice little children's adventure movie about a brave dog, and I liked it. Okay?

  Gene Siskel - Host : When you have kids of your own, you won't send them to see "nice, little" ones, you'll want QUALITY.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "White Squall"]  I'm recommending the movie, but for the sensational photography and the very effective storm sequence, not...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Ohhh...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...For the thin story.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Have the courage! Have the courage to knock this picture!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Have the courage to admit that you liked the storm sequence, at least!

  Gene Siskel - Host : Who cares?

  Roger Ebert - Host : You like it or not? Pretty good, wasn't it?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yeah, and the boats were great too!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah, okay, so isn't that part of the whole visceral experience of going to a movie?

  Gene Siskel - Host : No no no no, Roger, that isn't what this movie is about. This movie spends umpteen amounts of time, just by comparison, to the story of these individual kids. And each kid gets- it's formula, and you KNOW it! Each kid gets his turn in the barrel: One kid kills the dolphin, one can't climb the mast, another has problems with his parents. All this sort of stuff, I mean, gimme a break! It's just like a... shooting gallery of kids!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Gene, I give you that.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I know you do!

  Roger Ebert - Host : I said it in my review. I'm saying, I give the movie a marginal recommendation...

  Gene Siskel - Host : So the boats are beautiful.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well wait a minute, now that, that diminishes it.

  [Gene chuckles] 

  Roger Ebert - Host : The boats ARE beautiful. The scenery is beautiful. The storm sequences are beautiful. The way the ship sails, and actually, Jeff Bridges's performance, all of that is very good.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yeah, and a character that you don't think is fully written, uh, in terms of his advice and ministering to these kids, it was, you said so yourself. If it was a documentary about boats, Roger, I might give it a thumbs up, too. It isn't.

• Roger Ebert - Host : "French Twist" is excruciatingly bad, boring, artificial, and contrived. And here's what depresses me really: This worthless film, this piece of junk, has been chosen the French as their official Academy Award entry in the SAME year they could've selected the great Claude Lelouch film "Les Miserables". That film showed some French as Nazi collaborators, while this film merely shows them as idiots. I guess it's clear which choice they prefer.

  Gene Siskel - Host : It is stunning. You know, the French film industry is saying, you know, "We need protection for our own kind, America is dwarfing us." So look what you send out to America! Look what you endorse into America! I mean, it's absurd. The Lelouch film "Les Miserables" is the great French story, the national treasure.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yes it is.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Updated to contemporary times, and with a meaning.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And with a great performance by one of their real screen icons, Jean-Paul Belmondo, in the performance of his entire career. I would really like to sit down for ONE SECOND with the people in France who thought that "French Twist" was a better movie than "Les Miserables", and get them to look me in the eye, because they couldn't. The fix was in, and it's totally corrupt.

  Gene Siskel - Host : It is completely corrupt.