Siskel & Ebert - Worst of 1998 

+Ali Gator It's more the speech that makes him sound tired. Yes, he was in a lot of pain at the time. At least about a month after this, his pain ended.

They are.....in spirit.

@@KOHF34 did you really have to mention this? Who does it help?

Yes wish they was still here

I think I must have watched this when it aired as at the time I tried to catch the show every week, and watching for the first time since I'm really shocked at how I don't remember noticing anything wrong at the time. His death seemed to come out of nowhere back then even though I had been paying attention.

Well, the line was a general thing they said for years and years before.

@@sha11235 But the line takes on much resonance, given Gene's prognosis.

He's a pro

@@waynej2608 Well, he knew he would die someday, maybe just not several weeks later.

Here's the thing. When you love film like they did. Even horrible film is still better than most things.

I don't see how it's terrible, it's sappy and manipulative/preachy but a lot of movies are.

Truly a cultural commentary martyrdom

@@burchie1224 My List Best and Worst Movies of 1998 is, 1. 3 Ninjas High Noon at Mega Mountain. (Best). 2. Antz. (Best). CGI Animated Movie. 3. Armageddon. (Best). 4. Babe: Pig in the City. (Best). 5. Batman & Mr. Freeze Subzero. Animated. (Best). 6. The Brave Little Toaster goes to Mars. Animated. (Best). 7. Bride of Chucky. (Worst). 8. A Bug's Life. CGI Animated. (Best). 9. Bulworth. (Worst). 10. Can't Hardly Wait. (Worst). 11. Casper Meets Wendy. (Best). 12. Chairman of the Board. (Worst). 13. City of Angels. (Best). 14. Dennis the Menace Strike's Again. (Best). 15. Dr. Dolittle. (Best). 16. Ever After. (Best). 17. The faculty. (Worst). 18. FERNGULLY 2 the Magical Rescue. Animated. (Best). 19. Godzilla. (Best). 20. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. (Worst). 21. Hope Floats. (Best). 22. The Horse Whisperer. (Best). 23. I'll Be Home for Christmas. (Best). 24. Jack Frost. (Best). 25. Lethal Weapon 4. (Best). 26. The Lion King 2 Simba's Pride. Animated. (Best). 27. Lost in Space. (Best). 28. Madeline. (Best). 29. Major League: Back to the Minors. (Worst). 30. The Mask of Zorro. (Best). 31. Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas. (Best). Animated. 32. Mighty Joe Young. (Best). 33. Mulan. Animated. (Best). 34. The Parent Trap. (Best). 35. Patch Adams. (Best). 36. Paulie. (Best). 37. Pocahontas 2 Journey to a New World. Animated. (Best). 38. Practical Magic. (Best). 39. The Prince of Egypt. Animated. (Best). 40. Quest for Camelot. Animated. (Best). 41. Richie Rich's Christmas Wish. (Best). 42. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer the movie. Animated. (Best). 43. The Rugrats Movie. Animated. (Best). 44. Saving Privet Ryan. (Best). 45. The Secret of NIMH 2 Timmy to the rescue. Animated. (Best). 46. Small Soldiers. (Best). 47. Species two. (Worst). 48. Spice World. (Best). 49. The Swan Princess 3: The Mystery of the Enchanted Castle. Animated (Best). 50. The X-Files. (Best).

Lmao

Well, eventually both men would die, right? I guess we didn't expect Gene to die so young. Now, with Roger, he lived a long life.

@Malchik Blue It was sad that he had lost his voice to jaw cancer and could no longer do TV, but he worked in print until the very end. Let's see a lot of people do that. Bet most can't.

Super heartbreaking for sure. He's getting that funny eyed "I'm dying" look.

I came here to write the exact same comment.

Tragic. I always really liked Gene and enjoyed his reviews and film insights. I tended to agree with him, more than Roger. But, I admire both men. Rip, fellas-the balcony will never really close.

It kept them busy and gave them focus.

Siskel loved his job more than just about anybody.

I remember seeing an announcement on Ebert's website that, from then on, he would only review movies he WANTED to review. The next day, news of his death spread through the internet. (His announcement was removed.)

Are you saying you liked watching them die?

They were studio shills.

Lmao why are you so salty over two famous movie critics? What job do you work that’s so great and high paying? You’re probably a kid less than 20 years old lmao

@Reveu Le'Sean Movie reviewers are as old as movies (see the Variety & NYT archives). It's a service for listeners / readers who want to find out if a movie is worth their 10 cents / $10.

@Reveu Le'Sean -Like all those movies, do you?

@Reveu Le'Sean Pointless? Since WHEN did reviewing films become pointless?

@Reveu Le'Sean they get paid to be arrogant pricks lol

I loved the waterboy haha

The first two were great, but it was all downhill from there.

+wildinthestreets101 it figures

+Razzy1312 Ever see That's My Boy? GARBAGE. Sandler needs to do better stuff.

+Razzy1312 They have a good point there. I HATED The Waterboy! One of the most annoying movies I've ever seen!!

Exactly.

yes i remember this time and felt bad for him. you can even tell by the way he talks and his eyes. God bless him and Ebert

I like your comment, well said. I do miss them both as well.

Thank you :)

moodymoose cannon Well, he kept the illness private within his family and he didn't care to discuss it with outsiders. You can see his slowing down, but you know he still had the passion. It is the same when Roger could no longer talk, yet still wrote great reviews.

I think he did tell his kids earlier. How could he have kept it that much of a secret from them? Or maybe in the last months he did, not right after the June surgery.

i saw that movie when i was 17 when it came out. i still like it. "spice world" fucking sucked though. "armageddon" would be #1 in the worst film of 1998 followed by "patch adams". i didn't like either of those films then and i still think they're shit.

I liked what he said about Waterboy. I don't think he reviewed That's My Boy, but there was REAL garbage!

I loved Waterboy and took one of my first dates ever to see Billy Madison.

@@Wallyworld30 how long did that relationship last?

70 isn't too young.

sha11235 Ebert wasn’t really alive the last 6 years

@@lyndonchastain3181 Oh, he was. More productive than ever. Jerk.

sha11235 70 is younger than the life expectancy

@@lyndonchastain3181 I met him in 2011. He couldn't talk but he could understand everything I was saying. He seemed like a nice guy.

Gene Siskel would’ve loved Adam Sandler in punch drunk love and uncut gems. As for Michael bay....that’s a different story.

In that sense they were both lucky not having to suffer through all the movies from the last few years.

Lmao, why keep watching them then? 🤣🤣🤣

@@Rjensen2 It was their job to review films. They gave each film a chance, even if the previous film by the same people sucked.

Be fair, Adam Sandler is a hack compared to Michael Bay who has completely obliterated any joy in watching a movie

Spice World is a movie that knows exactly what it is. Is it a great film? God no. But it's a delightfully campy over-the-top afternoon with 4 talented singers (sorry Posh) at the height of their popularity that you could enjoy with your kids. It does not deserve a spot on a worst of the year list

It's ridiculous and stupid but I love it.

Unfortunately, I had to take my daughter to see it.

same

Me three :'-(

Same here.

Same!

They had a strong passion for their work, which is what made them so entertaining

Zice033 Yeah, it was good that neither man ever stepped down and retired. They worked until their dying days. I hope they are together in heaven watching great films.

TheExclusiveMan I agree

TheExclusiveMan We need more people who show passion about their work.

+sha11235 It brings a smile to my face when I think that somewhere, the two are still arguing about Carnosaur XD These guys are legends. There really is no one else like these two anymore, especially when they disagreed with each other.

They adressed that in their initial review of that film.

Watch their original review of it on siskelandebert.org. It was brought up there.

@@sha11235 That seems to be a spam site now

@@Angyali They did another review of it on their show?

They mentioned that in their review on an earlier episode. They were disappointed the film took the time to put in these characters yet never does anything fun with them like getting stepped on by Godzilla. =P

+theredscourge Ebert once tweeted that the real Patch Adams told him personally that he hated the film.

Personally, I found Armageddon to be much worse. It was so much more over the top, way more mindless and had such bad acting and writing. At least Patch Adams' heart was in the right place and Robin Williams also does well

@@linkbiff1054 The thing with Patch Adams is that it is not wrong for doctors to care about their patients, yes, but you don't operate on them while wearing a red clown nose. This was like Dead Poets Society where you have traditional vs. modern methods, but there is a difference between a teacher and a doctor.

sha11235 Not to mention Dead Poets Society was way better.

wow... "patch adams" was bad but... "armageddon" was much worse.

Well, Roger lived to 70, which isn't bad. Gene at 53 is too soon. I'm Gene's age now when he died.

(Sighs sadly) Agreed! :-(

Yeah it was near the end of his life.

These guys were the best.

@@johntucker9782 They set the standard. And we must remember that it took them several years to get the formula to work. It didn't work overnight.

Yep this is his last "worst of the year" show. It is sad, I have been binge watching all of their worst of the year shows up to this point. None left.

At least not much, but he did his best before the tragic demise

yes, fuck stallone stuff, this is what a real man is.

He was brave, all right. I guess the movies did give him something to concentrate on in those final months.

I’ve been going thru these worst ofs and you can really hear how slower and deliberate he is here. I was curious if this was near the end for him.

The whole "man's man" concept is outdated. If gene wanted to send his last days not reviewing movies that would've been his right

@@SeanP7195it was a worst of 1998 segment so presumably it was at the end of 98 or early 99. He died on February 20, 1999, so this would almost certainly have been within 2 months of his death 😢

That was good. What a couple of good men.

+TheContrarian357 Yes, this was near the end of his life, sadly. He did one more show of film reviews before leaving the show for good.

It's possible he was diagnose with that brain tumor when and he Ebert filmed this.

Gene had brain cancer that was brought on by a tumor in May of 1998. After the tumor was removed, he came back to the show and sounded less energetic often sounding like he wanted to fall asleep. He died the same year this was made due to complications of surgery.

Roger kept the show going and then when he got sick Richard Roeper kept it going until Disney killed it in 2008. Had they just continued with Richard and Michael, who has Gene's old job, it would've been fine.

I feel like at 3:40, that's what that glance was about. Ebert trying to read Gene and figure out whether it's better to continue the conversation and risk Gene tripping himself up, or move on to make it easier for him. It's like he's asking himself "okay, how should I play this?" Not easy for either of them, but I bet they preferred it to being without the other.

Yup.

Yep that's how I do films pre-2007. I always try and look for Ebert's reviews given his consistency in film preferences

😍

Poor guy looks sick here

Maybe like bad musicians who compensate by playing louder

The sound mixing is contemporary film is also terrible. The sound effects are louder than the dialogue track. When I watch a film from the 50's, I can hear every word and that isn't the case when I see a contemporary film.

The art of movie making is almost lost. It's all special effects and quick cuts to hide poor acting,poor writing,poor directing,poor production,etc. Watch an older movie and you will see.

Nice lol. Jay and silent bob

When it's over, you say, "Ooh, what a lovely tea party!"

Wow, Jay and Silent Bob did not age well.

@ZxythePest lol I came here just to how long until I can find that comment is made!

@@jayazathoth8530 Hi Jay!

One I wish Ebert had reviewed was That's My Boy. Worst film of 2012! Sucked shit.

@Dean F. I'm mostly referring to his comedies. He does well with dramas.

Considering that the rise of films made exclusively (or primarily) for streaming services basically began with the Sandman's initial deal with Netflix, and that both Sisk and Eb died before that revolution in distribution fully occurred, I do wonder how/if their approach to film criticism would have been influenced by a major change in where and how feature films are seen. It would have been interesting, seeing as how Gene in particular I think reviewed thousands of movies and IIRC maybe had reviews for only 5 or 6 films/features that didn't screen inside a traditional four-wall movie theatre. So it goes.

I know Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown included their respective reviews in the DVD releases

"Blue Velvet" has their original argument about it as an extra.

but when the tragedy happened from Williams suicide from a mental disease, he actually admitted that he was at least a certain hghlight, if i am not mistaken

Patch was annoyed by how simple the film was. He wanted the film to take a stance against capitalism.

2 months.

That's awesome

That’s not true. In their Wedding Singer review, even though Siskel didn’t like the movie, he did see something in Adam Sandler and thought he gave a sincere performance in that movie. And also Adam Sandler has shown himself to be a great actor: Punch, Drunk, Love, Spanglish, Reign Over Me, Funny People, The Meyerowitz Stories, hearing he’s great in Uncut Gems. Even in some of his comedies like Big Daddy and Click he’s showed his dramatic chops

They were also in early on the Michael Bay hate. :)

I wouldn't watch it, but the concept alone would keep me laughing.

jean reno

I noticed that that is the issue of every Roland Emmerich film. Most characters in his films is either an annoying stereotype or a jerk that gets his comeuppance at the end of the film. The ones you actually do like are in a supporting role.

Oh, they usually mentioned movies that tried something new

Was just gonna leave the same comment, you beat me to the punch, lol!

I've actually heard that Ebert asked the director: Gus Van Sant, why he made the movie Sant responded by saying: "So no one else would"

***** LOL

As was described by Gene Siskel, in his 1970 article "Last Year's 20 Biggest Bombs from Filmland", "Some films that were very bad are not on this list [. . .] because I don't think anyone associated with them had any thought of doing a good job."

they were huge for 2 years, so much so that they got to close the olympics bro :P

Rick Astley was huge for 2 months. He got to close the St Patrick's Day parade. Whoop de fricking do.

Daniel Dougan they were better singers than they are actors

@@AliensAnonymous I believe his video is still trolling people. Rick roll probably has over a Billion views......

You are right. But I think it’s more implying that they are less terrible at singing than they are at acting. 🤣

The thing that gets to me is his eyes, they look different to how they did before he had cancer, and you can tell that the lights are slowly going out :(

He did one more with some reviews of the early 1999 films and leftover 1998 films. Then that was the end of Gene.

robble robble !

The _trailer_ was enough for me!

Jeffrey Haefner Dude Patch Adams is terrible. Plus, it's a disgrace to the actual man who has fascinating ideas. I love Robin Williams, but even he couldn't save that train wreck.

Anybody who tells you Patch Adams is a great movie, is someone who can be easily manipulated. It's a totally a garbage movie.

The final fight with Jet Li actually scared me how violent it was. It was even cathartic because Riggs was Vietnam Special forces and would have been formidable if he was younger, but we all get older. They trained those guys to kill people and then made them do it a lot. And yes, Waterboy still makes me laugh after all these years.

And the Psycho remake.

+jazzalex22 Gene liked the former, Roger the latter. Also, there is only a certain amount of room for the choices and since they did them in categories, they couldn't put everything.

+03bgood See my other comment about why some films are not there.

Gene liked Blues Brothers 2000, which surprised me since the original made his Best of 1980 list. The crappy sequel makes my Worst of 1998 list.

@@sha11235 Ebert's three-star rating on the Barney film was directed at children under 6; in original Wayback Machine captures of his print review, he advised adults going to the film to bring their Walkmans.

Same here.

califinn BASEketball has become a cult film now. At the time it was universally panned.

That was a piece of shit

I hope they show Lost in Space '98 on MST3K. That would be too perfect, for an episode!

Lacey Chabert Was Shit as Penny

They can't put every film in.

You know Van Sant made it as a parody of remakes

Hal Kitchen I don't think the studio realized that.

mathcernea They ended up reviewing '98's "Psycho" on a later show; Universal Pictures refused to pre-screen it for any of the major film critics at the time.

They reviewed Psycho the weekend it came out, a month prior, but it didn't end up on this show. I was surprised it didn't make this show, but I think on their yearly "worst of" show they cared more about bad movies that are made from bad/cynical intentions than ones that are solely misfires like Psycho's remake was.

Bruce "won" Worst Actor that year for three films and did not give a bad performance in either of those films!

@Dean F. exactly. I hated that movie and then came pearl harbor and that officially became the worst film ever msde.

@@acestriker413 if you don’t know who siskel and ebert are, you aren’t qualified to have an opinion on movies. You have nothing to add.

Burt Reynolds and Sylvester Stallone have to be up there as well.

​@@henn863both appeared in the 2001 movie Driven

They both enjoyed What Dreams May Come.

Both suffered painful, slow deaths. Life is so unfair. But they sure didn’t let their illnesses prevent them from taking care of their professional responsibilities. Two smart, brave guys. I’m happy to say I grew up on Gene & Roger😊. Their show was as important to me growing up as my St. Louis Cardinals, watching old episodes of the original Twilight Zone, and listening to my Beatles and Wings cassettes. In other words, VERY important😊. So thank you for uploading these commercial free At the Movies episodes😊.

True gentlemen…. Class acts.

Maybe those girls thought you were against sick and dying kids in the hospital, I think that's the aspect of the movie that girls would remember first. Your baby seals remark made me laugh

I was watching in the kitchen and checked my faucet

​@@shombie2737😂😂😂😂😂😂

phildirt3 Yeah. It's painful, you can see it.

And still: he never gave up the fight. And Ebert helped him with tiny mannerism-impulses during their conversation.

Saxon Greene I love The Waterboy though. That'd be my favorite Sandler movie to this day.

IMHO...0.02c :-)

It felt too much like an epilogue. An afterthought. To me, it was somewhere between good and bad. A middle-of-the-road movie.

@@Angyali Warner Bros. needed a summer film, it was more of a business deal for people who liked each other (the late Richard Donner, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, and so forth) who got paid a lot of money so the studio wasn't stuck with just THE AVENGERS (not the 2012 Marvel blockbuster!) on their '98 slate. Personally I thought LW4 was good, it was funny and the action scenes worked. Was it a great movie? No.

@@xdmaster7888 For fans of the trilogy, it's a suitable bonus.

@@Angyali As far as I am concerned, there were only two Lethal Weapon films.

@@ricardocantoral7672 The best one was the second.

aharddaysnightmare and Dennis

Gene was determined to continue his job, because it was his life. His whole official world. I want to watch even these shows of him because he kept the intelligence and good observations in his appearences. And you can see Roger is talking in a way to help him. To help and reinforce him for one or two sentence at least. This is doing something out of heart.

sorry sweety, but you guys are really reaching, about him sounding sick, i don't see that at all, i see a man in total control of his faculties, not some sick man, about to die any day, he had a brain tumor, it killed him, without warning, that's how aneurisms are, my father had one at 40yrs. old, & it came without warning, one minute he was fine, the next, he was slumped over dead.

toya adams Oh he totally is in control and he's making reasoned and intelligent opinions and analysis like any other day. However, if you compare his older shows, Siskel had a certain speed and pace to his voice (Ebert, in comparison, always sounded a little slower and lackadaisical, even at his most intense) and it's decidedly slower here. However, a brain aneurism and tumor are very different things, having also had a close friend who suffered one (incidentally, he survived, at the cost of losing control the left side of his body...but I digress). Siskel knew he had a tumor for a while and what actually killed him was the surgery having gone wrong. He kept the tumor largely a secret from the public for whatever reasons (if you watch Ebert's interviews in the direct aftermath, he refuses to disclose the cause), citing just a "leave of absence" on the air.

toya adams Haha REALLY? You don't notice ANYTHING?

toya adams wrong....Ebert himself said Gene wasnt feeling well, yet didnt complain during final tapings...its obvious by the pace at which he was speaking. Also, weeks before he died, Gene was in the hospital, yet was phoning in his movie reviews ... the guy had amazing passion and did not quit but unfortunately his cancer death was inevitable and did not just happen out of the blue.

He was a hero for continuing the job he loved so much.