Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Just Cause/Billy Madison/The Brady Bunch Movie/Mr. Payback (1995)

Roger Ebert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : [discussing the omission of "Hoop Dreams" from the 1995 Academy Awards nominations]  Y'know, Gene, I was talking to Barbara Kopple, who won two Academy Awards...

  Gene Siskel - Host : A great documentary filmmaker.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And she said, "This committee is in love with talking heads and stock footage." And that's exactly what they are. These old-fashioned television-oriented films, with battleships bombing the beaches of Normandy while some deep voice says how many troops went ashore. They are not interested in living, breathing documentaries, and there's another problem, and that is: The committee that picks these documentaries is volunteers, mostly retired people, not most of them documentarians at all. But, they have four hours free, two nights a week, for eleven weeks, to see 64 documentaries, almost 100 hours of documentaries. So they go night after night, and they get to know each other, and they chat, and they arrive, and they leave. And until this year, they had a chairman. This year, the woman who was the chairman stepped aside for the year because she had a film that was in the running, and what do you know? They nominated it. It's the Stockholm Syndrome. They're so friendly, that of course they wanted to do her a favor. And every year, if you go back year after year and look at the nominees, you'll find one or two nominees that are FISHY, because the people that manipulate the committee are trying to get their pictures nominated. This situation stinks, it's rotten, and until the Academy reforms it, they have shame on their name.

  Gene Siskel - Host : But Roger, let me just throw some of their objections back, 'cause I know that they're gonna...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Okay.

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...be listening and taking notes and everything. Number one, they're gonna say, uh, every branch gets to vote for its own work.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah, but this branch doesn't. The documentarians don't have a documentary branch.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Okay. The next thing they're gonna say is, you Roger, and you, Gene, have not seen the 64 we voted on.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well, I've seen ONE of them that they nominated, and nobody smart enough to ties his shoes would feel that that film is better than "Hoop Dreams".

  Gene Siskel - Host : And that was a pretty good film, by the way.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And it was a pretty good film.

  Gene Siskel - Host : It's predictable: They resent success.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "Just Cause"]  So you do recommend this movie?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Uh-huh.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Because I do not. And the reason is, the movie just let me down very, very seriously. At the end, I'm saying, "Come ON." If they respected the craftsmanship that they put into this character...

  Gene Siskel - Host : The three characters.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...And all the work, yes, and all the work that those actors put in, then they shouldn't have had...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Wrestling with the alligators.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...This bargain basement ending.

  Gene Siskel - Host : The wrestling with the alligators is bad, but up until that point, pretty good.

  Roger Ebert - Host : [chuckling]  That's a great line, I'm gonna remember that line.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Good. I'm sure you remember a lot of things I say.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "Billy Madison"]  Y'know... every once in a while, a critic is forced to go back and re-evaluate his, uh, his track record.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yeah.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And after seeing "Billy Madison"...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh I know what you're gonna say.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...and "Jerky Boys", "Dumb and Dumber" is beginning to look more and more like "Citizen Kane".

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, "Dumb and Dumber" is a good picture.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I should've rated "Dumb and Dumber" a little higher to have more room underneath to shove these other pictures in.