Siskel & Ebert Classics - Worst of 1988 

I’m not sure why but watching all these old school siskel and ebert reviews feels like a nice warm cozy blanket wrapped around u

"The film about a talking horse and even worse, a talking man." 😂

I was a finalist in the Chicago-Tribune's Teen Film Critics contest in late '88. We (the finalists) went to the Tribune and then to a screening of "Look Who's Talking" before it was released (this was after we ended up being finalists because of our film review submissions for the contest). We then went back and wrote a review of the film. I didn't make it to the winner's circle, as I think my review was overly harsh on it. lol But I was always disappointed that Gene Siskel wasn't there that day, for some reason, as we all wanted to meet him.

The fact that Sally fields played Tom hanks mom can't be overlooked

Ebert's final thoughts about this new trend in hollywood where movies are made based on formula while new ideas, stories and characters are becoming rarer is sure telling both for the time, and present day.

there are no shows like this today. I miss that so much

These are amazing historical documents. It's nice how they noticed the trend even from 1988 of films trying to copy other films, instead of coming from the heart.

These guys are so sharp and witty and insightful.

The good old days. I miss this show. Even if you disagreed with them it still was a great show

Willow is a classic. I love watching these reviews in hindsight of what became cult classics

I'd still rather watch the worst of 1988 than the best of 2022

"WILLOW" was a good movie.

Scrooged is a bona fide classic

20:03 what a prophetic statement on the modern cinema, even more true now than it was in 1989

A lot of prominent critics disliked Willow when it first came out. Now it’s such a cult phenom it has it’s own series. I always remembered this about Siskel & Ebert: I was always entertained with them but I didn’t always have to agree with them!!

I loved willow when I was a kid. It was the coolest movie ever👍

I watched Star Wars repeatedly when I was a child; it is one of the first movies I ever watched in my life. I love it, and I watched and really like Willow, as well. I think Star Wars is a superior movie to Willow and I thought that when I was ten. But, I have never been ashamed that I like each movie.

I actually had that roger ebert home companion book. In my late teens. I would go down to the video store & rent movies Based on what he said were the best movies..

Scrooged was awesome. I watch it every xmas. Shame!

When someone asks “what are some movies that define cinema in the 80s?!” I ask “Do you mean good movies that really capture the 80s?” Or “Great movies that happen to made in the 80s?” Or “Movies that are great examples of the chaotic fluff whose existence illustrates the empty excess of the 80s?” For the first two, I offer obvious quality like Ghostbusters, Back To The Future, Wall Street, Splash, Ferris, etc... When they want the latter, I say Cocktail and could add Punchline. Both I loved when I was 12 and both I realized later I liked the IDEA of, films that gave me a peek into an adult world that it would later turn out aren’t actually very good.

Thank you bro so much for this! I have been seeing this so far in a battered and beaten up version. Now you have posted the best ever version of this! Keep up the great work in preserving the legacy of these two great gentleman.

"Please yourself first!" Will do mister Siskel!

Whoever Pitched Cocktail fair play. Outrageous Concept but a Guilty Pleasure.

Love these 2. We never had anything like this in the UK

3:15 Glad to see Ebert thought the same thing I did. Is that bar charging a $50 cover? Those two bartenders are selling 5 drinks per hour.

I'm friends with a number of fairly well-known, nationally touring comics who absolutely love Punchline. Go figure.

Love to have both these guys still around, and dissing on all the crap that is out now.

I used to watch these guy's weekly back in the 1980's. Good Stuff.

These movies look Oscar worthy compared to movies today.

I can remember watching this show back i the 80's like it was yesterday. Sure miss these guys.

I love to these reruns of siskel and ebert because it shows how opinions have shifted on certain movies (e.g., Willow, Scrooged), and I never noticed how "offended" Ebert is by some movies that he deems "sacrilegious". He would sometimes not like certain movies for odd reasons. He hated the original "I spit on your grave" for lots of reasons, but he went on and on is his written review about how awful the audience was, and he hated how they laughed at the violence. Of course, this was, literally, all before the idea of "its so bad, its good" was widely popular in culture.

In "Cocktail" they spend at almost one minute to mix one drink apiece. John Taffer is not amused.

I count 34 movies from 1988 that were worth watching in the theater or on home video. Maybe 6 or 7 worth watching multiple times _(Die Hard, Beetlejuice, Coming to America, The Naked Gun, The Dead Pool, A Fish Called Wanda)_ and maybe _Big._

I always watched the "Worst of" shows so I could see them review all the movies I actually liked. Lol 😂

Love and miss these guys - but I love Willow!

These remind me of the before times. Before the world went to sh*t…life was so much more fun, with classic films, great, creative music, and compelling fiction. Never again, will we enjoy a time like that time.

In the case of "Cocktail," buy the soundtrack album and skip the movie.

A.) Wow, Scrooged and Willow are on their worst list, it occurs to me that critics are people and can make mistakes too. B.) Brownies are a real thing in mythology, does Siskel think Lucas just made that up?

What they said about Willow being enjoyed by kids because they’d never seen anything like it before reminds me of my own feelings about “Avatar.” I absolutely hated Avatar, but still recommended it to people who “never go to the movies” and want to see something big.

loved willow when i was a kid.

I think if Siskel and Ebert were alive today, they'd just about hang up their hats and declare mainstream film dead.

In fairness to Last Rites, which priest or non-priest wouldn't be tempted by Daphne Zuniga?

Heartbreak Hotel wasn't a masterpiece but fun in a ridiculous way. I sheepishly enjoyed it

I like the VHS 'tracking'

Ebert Looks Like He's Wearing Those "Joke" EyeBall Glasses. (It's CRAZY!)

Scrooged is a great movie. How can you dislike a Christmas movie that has the Solid Gold dancers?

Fun Fact: All of the club scenes in cocktail were actually filmed in the then recently closed "old wing" of Toronto's infamous Don Jail. The set itself was located in the main rotunda of the old wing about 100 meters from the old death row wing and gallows room where more than 50 people met their end between 1899 and the last hangings carried out there (which were also the last executions carried out in canada) on december 9th 1964.

Holy shit, I never knew gina gershon was in cocktail

I’m not the only one who hated Cocktail. Yay!

In Cocktail I wanted to yell - Would you just give me the goddamn drink?!

Cocktail was the prototypical young Tom Cruise movie: pretty young boy on the make has to learn sad life lessons before he can climb to the top of the mountain

The worst of 88 was better than the best of today. You had real actors giving real performances with real sets and location shooting. Back then, film was truly and art form. Today, everything is a cgi cartoon. Complete garbage.

WORST FILMS OF 1988 PUNCHLINE 1:28 COCKTAIL 3:08 STEALING HOME 5:15 FAR NORTH 7:50 VIBE 9:51 LAST RITES 11:47 HEARTBREAK HOTEL 13:44 WILLOW 16:02

Fun Trivia: Some movies such as Scrooged and Big were doing well at the box-office. Cocktail, Bird and Willow were cult favorites for all ages and teens alike. But long-awaited troubled productions such as Vibes, Far North, Heartbreak Hotel, Stealing Home, Punchline, Switching Channels, Sunset, Last Rites and more of which weren't doing well at the box-office because of many production problems.

I'm not saying Cocktail is a great movie but I could easily find way more than 10 movies from that year worse than it. For example where's Mac & Me regarded by some as the worst movie of the 80s? Or Caddyshack 2?

But one thing i do love them doing, tearing movies to shreds. Mostly movies I've never seen or heard of.

Talk about prophecy they called out the entire film industry of 2022

I'm sad that the RU-vid algorithm correctly deduced that I would enjoy watching two old men crap on old movies I've never heard of.

They’re lucky the didn’t see (or remember) Mac and Me & Caddyshack II.

I loved most of these films growing up... lol. Oh well. Most would be better than the crap that's out in the 2020s.

these films are masterpieces compared to today's films

Crazy they picked Willow as "Years Worst" of 1988 since now it's considered a classic with an IMDB rating of 7.2 putting it firmly into great category.

Cripes, I used to love Cocktail when it came out. I went to bartender school, and even (still!) have the soundtrack. Oy...

I just wonder they would think about today's garbage. A sentiment shared by many, I am sure

IIRC Cocktail was pretty popular.

I've seen bartenders in a shit shack in Panama City pull that stuff off, only that nobody clapped.

I saw Hot to Trot in the movie theater as a kid. It deserves it's place on this list. But Williow no not even, same for Hellrasier II. What is surprising is that Mac & Me and Funny Farm is missing from the list. (Also saw those in the movie theater)

Never heard of Punch Line. Surprising considering the stars in the movie.

Cocktail's tagline was "When he pours, he reigns".

If they thought Willow the movie was bad, it's a good thing neither one of them is around to see the dreck that is the TV series.

I can only imagine what they would say about the terrible state of cinema in 2024. Superheroes and MI55.

I've never seen any of these movies they talk about. Or if I have I've completely forgotten them.

I hated Cocktail. It was slightly better when I later watched it in German because I don't speak German.

Amateur online critics today: “Hollywood doesn’t have any original ideas like when I was a kid in the 80s and 90s!!” Me: “Your nostalgia is playing a trick on you. There have ALWAYS been plenty of shitty unoriginal movies. You just remember the good ones.”

Scrooged is fantastic. It’s possible that the traditional version of A Christmas Carol was so prevalent in their minds that they just rebelled against the major differences to it Scrooged has.

Hellraiser II is a great gory movie.

I just started, but I'm surprised Cocktail was considered one of their "worsts". Isn't it considered a classic now? Isn't it what started the whole idea of "mixologists" who did crazy tricks with booze bottles?

I liked Punchline and Cocktail. I had a friend who thought Willow was Star Wars Episode One.

Punch Line I disagree with. Very accurate portrayal of the struggles of trying to make it in stand up comedy, according to the accounts of real life comics. The classic rule in writing is write what you know and that's what Hanks teaches Field in this movie. Also completely disagree on Stealing Home. Saw it in the theater and loved it. Looks like this is one where critics and fans disagreed too. Even Harmon and the cast loved doing the movie. Has a 20% critic and 78% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes as of Monday 7/8/2024. Really enjoy Willow as well. Not as much as Star Wars, but still enjoy it. And if they hated that, they probably would've really hated the Disney+ TV series lol. Scrooged is a hilarious holiday classic. An original screenplay an endangered species in Hollywood? Uh yeah, that's been the story since the beginning of Hollywood. They find something that works and just repeat it, like a cookie cutter or sausage factory. Their mentality is if it worked once, it will work another thousand times. Studio and TV network executives for that matter, are afraid of originality. Can't have that. Too much risk of it not making huge money. And if it doesn't, it's the creative people that are usually out of a job, but often not the execs.

I watched Stealing Home probably a hundred times since it was constantly on the cable movie channels back in the early 90s. Not a classic by any means but had some good parts

Yep Willow was every fantasy trope mashed together.

Dang, was this recorded on Beta? Great quality dub!

Most of the time they hate the coolest movies. . Scrooged was Awesome! Really!😂 . And i loved Willow as a kid.

I like the very end when the two of them are typing away, one on an ancient typewriter and the other on a “modern” word processor.

YIKES..........I really like Stealing Home.......Cocktail has a great soundtrack.

Wait, 1988, where was Mac & Me, or did they do a special segment exclusively devoted to it?

20:08 - aw Rog, you had no idea how bad it would get. Original ideas with original characters telling a novel story?

Cocktail was terrible

Those scenes from Cocktail are so damned embarrassingly cringeworthy it makes my stomach hurt.

They were so right about the Formula and now the " Propaganda Message " replacing Creativity and Originality, also Blaming the Audience for lack of Success as apposed to if it's a Good or even Decent Film

I LOVE WILLOW! Sorry Siskel and Ebes, but I have to strongly disagree with you on this one.

Loved Willow!

I loved cocktail

Another excellent worst of episode.

I just watched "Cocktail". It's as vapid as they say, but I think the boys misread it. It isn't a "love poem to excess" as there are very few scenes of anyone overindulging. Cruise's character doesn't drink very much himself and is only intoxicated in one scene. Bryan Brown doesn't go down in flames as a result of alcoholism (there's no evidence of him being a heavier than average boozer either) but from depression stemming from his boneheaded investments. I think they overreacted with moral indignation to a shallow movie about a sexual cavalier because of the frenzied state of the AIDS crisis in 1988.

Still haven't seen Punchline. And I don't plan to.

Damn the theme song is a banger

Cocktail is an awesome movie idgaf what anybody thinks or says! 😊

Take off your nostalgia glasses and Willow is absolutely one of the worst ten films of the year. I rarely see kids leaving the theater saying “that sucked!” no matter what movie it is, so they tend to lionize even bad movies they see as children…

I don't think Willow was horrible, but it certainly is uninspired as Roger Ebert put it. And I think one aspect that demonstrates this perfectly is the villain Queen Bavmorda. Most of the big '80s fantasy films at the very least had villains that were memorable in one way or another: Vermathrax Pejorative in Dragonslayer is one of the most menacing and impressive cinematic dragons. Thulsa Doom from Conan the Barbarian was a threatening sorcerer who also had an off-kilter zen quality that allowed him to build a massive army of followers. Plus, he's played by James Earl Jones. The Skeses from The Dark Crystal are not only some of Jim Henson's best work, but they also represent the less noble sides of ourselves that we want to supress, but nevertheless, we must balance out with the good. Darkness from Legend is played by the amazing Tim Curry and also represents a more hellish yet seductive side to what the Skeses already represent: our dark side that we must keep in check. The Goblin King in Labyrinth had the presence and vocal talent of David Bowie if nothing else. Queen Bavmorda...doesn't really bring anything special to the table. She's just another generic evil queen that wants to rule the world. There's no personality to her outside of her one-dimensional evil self.