Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Bogus/The Big Squeeze/Bulletproof/The Trigger Effect/The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)

Roger Ebert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Gene Siskel - Host : [reviewing "Bogus"]  Let me go back to explaining how significant I think the flaw is in the premise of this movie. I can't believe that Whoopi Goldberg would be anything less than sweet to this boy, so the first half hour is just absurd. Then, making the "Bogus" character a big Frenchman seems totally out of left field. Maybe it's good for the foreign box office, I don't know. Goldberg's turnabout at the end of the picture is really the only decent scene in the film, which is hardly enough for me to recommend, I'm afraid, the aptly-named "Bogus".

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well Gene, I thought it was a light-hearted, charming fantasy, and I enjoyed it. But I want to get to this premise that you have SO much trouble with. First of all, it's not the first half hour of the movie, it's one speech that lasts altogether, including its permutations, five minutes.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh, it's more than that.

  Roger Ebert - Host : But apart from that, Gene... if you were a single person, running a business, and you were forty years old, and you got a call that you now were going to take care of a child that you never met, would you instantly, in that same telephone conversation, say, "Oh, wonderful", or would you have any questions?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Or, would...

  Roger Ebert - Host : I think a lot of people can respond in that way, if you sudd- I mean, how, how, how easily do you find out that you're now gonna be a mother?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, let me explain to you, Roger, that you wouldn't react this way. Now you can either take- call it a fairy tale, or you can take it down to the level of reality, I don't know which game you wanna play with me. But I'll now play the game of reality. And that is, if it's in reality, and you're an orphan, your heart goes out to the orphan. And if you're Whoopi Goldberg- forget theory, it's WHOOPI GOLDBERG, one of the SWEETEST...

  Roger Ebert - Host : This isn't the movie that was made!

  Gene Siskel - Host : It's Whoopi Goldberg! Wait a minute!

  Roger Ebert - Host : That's not the movie that was made!

  Gene Siskel - Host : And that's why it's BADLY made.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I think it'd be better if you reviewed the movies that are made, rather than your "re-writes".

  Gene Siskel - Host : Roger, I am OBVIOUSLY reviewing the movie that was made, and I'm saying it wasn't made well.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Next movie. Our next movie is "The Big Squeeze", a movie that could've been called "Bogus", in my opinion.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "The Big Squeeze"]  Well I didn't believe any of these characters, I didn't care about them, and I wasn't entertained by the ungainly and preposterous story, thumbs way down for me on "The Big Squeeze".

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, now we have another split, because I was actually entertained by this film. And it was the characters that got to me. Each one of these people that was created, I bought into. Of course, the story is preposterous in this sense, that for everybody to believe that the garden replants- or, the conman replants the tree every time...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah, and nobody notices.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Of course, that's silly. But, each of these people, these characters, I found fascinating. I think Lara Flynn Boyle, she's, she's very charismatic for me, and these new actors, who I had never met before, the three supporting guys, I liked each and every one of them. So I tell ya, as they're working through these permutations of the plot, I'm watchin' them...

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm thinking about...

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...And there was even a scene...

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm thinking about, let me talk. I'm thinking about things like...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Funny, I thought you already did with your opening review.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Why do they meet in Union Station? And the answer is, because it's a backdrop. There's no other reason to meet in Union Station, but then, it'll make a nice shot. It's completely contrived.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, it IS a fairy tale.

• Roger Ebert - Host : What's good about "The Trigger Effect" is the performances by Shue and McLaughlin, and the movie's set-up. But the follow-through is a disappointment.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Not a disappointment for me, because I liked it pretty much all the way through. And I'll tell you how much I liked it. The really good movies affect me physically, as I'm sure they do you. I went to a restaurant right after I saw this picture. I walked down a long aisle and I saw people having a nice little meal. And I thought, in a second, it could all change if the lights went out and if there were panic in the streets of Chicago.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Oh, sure, sure, but that's, that's a comment you're making...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Essence, essence. Triggered by the movie.

  Roger Ebert - Host : That's a wonderful comment about society. But let's talk about this movie.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Triggered by the movie! I felt it in the movie.

  Roger Ebert - Host : The redneck, with his reaction after that dramatic event that takes place...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yeah?

  Roger Ebert - Host : The use of the black man...

  Gene Siskel - Host : I thought that was credible!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Oh, that wasn't credible at all...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Why?

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Because that's not consistent with what went before with that guy. It doesn't, they set him up one way for a movie effect, they pay him off for a cheaper effect, and they do the same thing with the black man. They're manipulating these images in order to get a pay-off that they really haven't prepared for.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Let me tell you something: These are two tight- I don't particularly agree with you, they're not the strongest characters in the film...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Nor is the ending, the ending of the film is extremely weak.

  Gene Siskel - Host : The ending of the film IS weak. But Roger, I'm talking about what this movie is really after, and about the issue of whether, how do you generate trust in society? Do you generate it by somebody...

  Roger Ebert - Host : You can talk about that issue all you WANT, but it doesn't make the movie any better! Coming up next...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes it did! Because it came from the movie! It all came from the movie.

  Roger Ebert - Host : [ignoring him]  No less than Marlon Brandon and Val Kilmer star in a new version of the H.G. Wells classic "The Island of Dr. Moreau".