Sneak Previews (TV Series)

Stripes/Eyes of a Stranger/The Cannonball Run/Superman II (1981)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Self - Host : What a consummate mess. The problem with The Cannonball Run is that it's all walk-ons and nothing to walk on to; you can see that in that

  [the fight] 

  Self - Host : scene. The movie starts out with a possibly semi-interesting premise, not very original, about a coast-to-coast race over interstate highways. They outrun the police, they break the speed limit, they break every other law in the book, we've seen that before and it could be fun, but the movie doesn't do anything with it. The director is Hal Needham, who directed Burt Reynolds before; he made both of the Smokey and the Bandit movies. And he's also a former stuntman who thinks it's funny to show cars endlessly crashing into one another. Well I guess I didn't get the joke or, maybe I got the joke in the first ten minutes and then I kept waiting for the movie to think of something new. This was really a crashing bore.

  Self - Host : Unbelievably bad, and let me tell you, I have never seen... a movie... If there's a sure-fire formula in American movies, it's the car-chase cross-country; it always works, until this one. This... They blow the easiest formula in history of American movies, films like Gumball Rally, Grand Theft Auto, Death Race 2000. These are no-brainer films, and they blow this, because there's nothing to the characters; it's all crashing, stupid... Ummm... Burt Reynolds has gotten so powerful in the movie industry; he can get his own director and his own friends as co-stars and, I think they think that anything they do... anything is funny, it's not.

  Self - Host : You know, I think the end of this movie is kind of symptomatic; they do something that was original about three years ago and now you see it in about every tenth film. They use outtakes at the end of the film. Those are takes that were spoiled; somebody said the wrong thing...

  Self - Host : ...they crack up.

  Self - Host : ...forgot his line, they crack up, they laugh, what a party they're having. I think you can see there and you can see elsewhere in the movie... For Burt Reynolds, this is a party. Now Reynolds is a talented actor and he's made a lot of good movies; maybe he'll make some more good movies. I hope so, but in this one, it's almost as if he got together with Dom DeLuise and Hal Needham and all his other friends, and they went out on the road and they had no respect for the audience. They felt, "if we have a good time, that's all that counts."

  Self - Host : Yeah, and... ummm... I think that's the real feeling that you get. I feel like I am totally ripped off when I see the picture, that it's their party, they're getting paid the millions and I'm getting stuck with a $4 ticket that's not worth 50 cents.

  Self - Host : It's their party, we'll cry if we want to.