Life Itself Page #5

That may be true,

but this movie is made

on such an epic scale.

And because

they could get agitated,

that raised the temperature of

the movies they were discussing.

Tremendously boring,

boring from the beginning

of the movie.

- I just wanna compare this film...

- Oh, no. Wait a minute.

- Now he's not boring at all.

- Oh, yes. Fabulously boring.

- He is fabulously boring?

- I would pass...

There was something almost

transgressive and exciting

about seeing on TV

somebody say about a movie,

you know what you might always

want to say to your friend,

or your girlfriend

or your mother or your sister,

"No, you're wrong.

It's not a good movie."

That's the way

people do relate to films,

is in that argumentative

sort of way,

in which if you're right nobody

can tell you that you're wrong.

I sit at the desk next to our

music critic at the Sun-Times.

People are very worshipful of him.

"Oh, what did you think about

Shulty's conducting last night?"

And then he will say, and they

will nod like this and go away.

And then they'll turn around

and come up to me and say,

"I totally disagree with your review

in this morning's paper."

The success of the show

was undeniable,

except we were not on

in two major markets:

New York and Los Angeles.

Here I am

at the little popcorn shop

a half a block from the screening

room where I see all the movies.

This is the Chicago Theater

on State Street.

Their position was,

if there's gonna be a movie show,

it's not gonna be

two guys from Chicago.

We're gonna have New York critics,

or we're Hollywood.

Who are these guys, right?

This is not Andrew Sarris,

and Pauline Kael.

And it's also not

the kind of, the wised up players

who might be in Los Angeles.

What do these people

have to tell us about movies?

The arrival of Pauline Kael

on the scene shook everything up.

The New Yorker recognized that

maybe this was the time for

a new kind of movie criticism.

Suddenly movie critics

become new players in the game.

You weren't crazy

about Prince of the City.

No. Prince of the City.

I thought, it really,

as a piece of narrative,

it's almost a case study

in confusion.

Kael's influence shaped

how critics looked at movies...

...and how people read them.

Film was taken seriously

and so were film critics.

Andrew Sarris was promoting

the idea of the director

as the maker of the film,

and Pauline Kael,

elevating film writing,

film criticism as an art.

But these were

towering figures, clashing.

Rather like Siskel and Ebert,

but with more intellectual heft.

Uh-oh, Gene.

This bowser in the balcony

means it's time

for Dog Of The Week.

A regular feature where each of us

picks the week's worst movie.

Well, Roger, you and Spot

may not believe this,

but I have just seen

my first nudie karate film.

- You're kidding.

- No.

Roger once said,

"Do you think Pauline Kael

would be working with a dog?"

I don't know Pauline Kael,

I never knew Pauline Kael.

But f*** Pauline Kael.

Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel

were the most powerful critics

of all time.

In any realm.

Finally, they had to cave in

and run the show

in New York and L.A.

It was a victory we relished,

I have to tell you.

Here to help us sort

the blockbusters from the bombs

are the team At the Movies,

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

You guys live in Chicago still,

down there in Oprah-land?

What I'd like to do

is come to Chicago one night

and we'll just go nuts.

We'll just get stinking drunk.

We'll go out

and eat steaks all night.

My next two guests are

regarded as the most popular

and most important film critics

in the country.

They are the two most influential

movie critics in the country.

Is there anybody more popular?

We'll find out and ask them.

And ultimately,

I think they were

on the Johnny Carson Show

more than just about anybody.

Is there something out there

that is really so bad?

Roger?

I can't really recommend

Three Amigos.

It's the Christmas picture

I like the least.

- This is the happy hour.

- Yes.

I don't think I'd ask you if

I knew you were gonna say that.

Chevy Chase has made

a lot of good movies,

and God willing, he will make a lot

more good movies in the future.

- With your help.

- Yes, well, I...

Yes, with your help.

There is a tendency

for somebody...

...who is naturally funny,

as Chevy is,

to try to get laughs

by standing there

and ad-libbing

when somebody else

is trying to talk.

That's right.

The movie studios

went from helping us...

to hating us, to fearing us.

The circulations of all

of the newspaper critics,

and all of the magazines,

could not match

the reach of the show

at its height.

It became quite clear

very often

that the film companies cared a lot

about Roger and Gene seeing it,

but not so much

about the rest of us.

Two thumbs up became

everything for a Hollywood movie.

Back when moviemakers

still thought

critics' enthusiasm

could sell a movie.

In 1991,

Richard Corliss published

a piece in Film Comment

about how the show

was ruining and vulgarizing

film criticism.

"Will anyone

read this story?

It has too many words

and not enough pictures.

Does anyone read this magazine?

Every article in it wants

to be a meal, not a McNugget.

Is anyone reading film criticism?

It lacks punch,

the clips, the thumbs.

I simply don't want people to think

that what they have to do on TV

is what I am supposed

to do in print.

I don't want junk food to be

the only cuisine at the banquet."

Yeah, etcetera.

Uh... I really did sound angry there,

but it seemed to me that

the Siskel-Ebert effect

was that a film

was either good or bad

and the rest

didn't matter so much.

I am the first

to agree with Corliss

that the Siskel and Ebert program

is not in depth film criticism.

As indeed, how could it be,

given our time constraints.

But we would have to do it

for our own amusement

because nobody would play it

on television.

The program's purpose

is to provide

exactly what Corliss

says it provides:

information on what's new

at the movies, who's in it,

and whether the critic thinks

it's any good or not.

If you're talking about

film criticism in a serious way,

consumer advice is not

the same thing as criticism.

To assume that something

is good for everybody,

or bad for everybody

is insulting to everybody.

The subject of Crash

left me feeling empty.

Crash has some

beautiful bodies on view,

but also some ugly ideas.

The car crash is a fertilizing

rather than a destructive event.

When we have

an opinion about a movie,

that opinion may light

a bulb over the head

of an ambitious youth

who then understands

that people can make up

their own minds about the movies.

I think I liked the movie

a lot more than you did.

I'd like to make it clear

that most people are probably

going to hate it, be repelled

by it or walk out of it,

just as they did at

the Cannes Film Festival.

- Why is that?

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