Gene Siskel: Self - Host
Screamers/Richard III/Bed of Roses/Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored/Angels and Insects
At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper
Gene Siskel credited as playing...
Self - Host
- Gene Siskel: [reviewing "Bed of Roses"] I have a feeling that
- [Mary Stuart]
- Gene Siskel: Masterson's character represents a lot of Generation X'ers, male and female. Christian Slater, he seems a little mannered to me, he often does. But on balance, I think the one character is worth watching. A mixed review, but thumbs up from me on "Bed of Roses".
- Roger Ebert: Thumbs down for me. I thought they were both saps.
- [Gene chuckles]
- Roger Ebert: And sad sacks. And uh, these people are hanging onto their unhappiness, particularly her, in such a narrow-minded way. It's not really a sophisticated and intelligent character study of a person in that situation...
- Gene Siskel: Her, it is.
- Roger Ebert: It's really- no, it isn't. It's a love story, uh, right out of the 1930s: Flowers come to the office, who could it be.
- Gene Siskel: Roger...
- Roger Ebert: Then you turn out, the guy has this sad story of his life, but his warm family, but then she's afraid. Come on.
- Gene Siskel: No no no, but Roger, what I described, you heard what I described. Obviously, I found more meaning in it than you did...
- Roger Ebert: Didn't you feel she could have been a more sharply written and intelligent character? Didn't you feel that her character was damped down by the romantic cliches in the story?
- Gene Siskel: The cliches didn't interest me, her character did. You don't think that there are a lot of people like this? Who are totally preoccupied?
- Roger Ebert: I do, but that has nothing to do with this movie.
- Gene Siskel: I saw one there.
- Roger Ebert: I think there are a lot of people like this, and this movie doesn't do them justice.
- Gene Siskel: I think it does, in the case of one character.
- Gene Siskel: [reviewing "Screamers"] Here's what I want to say to the screenwriters who watch our show: The two most successful science fiction pictures are "E.T." and probably "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
- Roger Ebert: Maybe "2001"?
- Gene Siskel: Yeah... they're all optimistic, if you think about it. Even "2001", with the star baby, "E.T.", "Close Encounters", there's joy in these films. Why make all, for your own selfish reasons...
- Roger Ebert: Yeah, but you just recommended "12 Monkeys", and that's not joyous. Yeah.
- Gene Siskel: I know, but why make the future so bleak?
- Roger Ebert: It is almost a rule in science fiction films that the future is gonna be dystopian.
- Gene Siskel: I'm tired of the rule. Break the rule, please.
