I was 10 years old in 1984 and loved watching Siskel & Ebert. Then I would watch The Benny Hill Show. Great times. R.I.P. To my favorite movie critics.
I was in college back in 1984. I remember after coming home for a very well deserved Christmas break, the first thing I did to unwind was to go to the theater. I decided to watch Starman even tho I knew very little about it (the intensity of my studies that year cut me off from most of the happenings of the world, including the reviews of this movie). I can.t tell you just how much of a pleasant surprise it was watching this film. Exactly what I needed to start off my Holiday Season at the time.
These guys apparently failed to notice this, or didn't think to comment on it, but it so happens we COINCIDENTALLY have TWO movies staring ROCKSTARS (Sting and Gene Simmons) in THIS one episode.
@Ian Findly: They both also gave them both Thumbs Down, but I liked them both better than they did, especially in the case of David Lynch's _Dune_ , while _Runaway_ is a great couple of hours munching popcorn at the movies. I have them both in my movie collection hehehehe Thumbs Up for them hehehehehe
@@jakesli9154 I duno what type of music he's been making RECENTLY, but he started out in a punk-type group (The Police "Roxane") then became a big Pop musician ("Every breath you take") in the mid 80's.
i was about 12 when Starman came out, and i have always loved this film. ive always wondered why it seems to be a mostly forgotten film and it warms my heart to see all the other comments about how good it is, all these years i thought i was its only fan.
Watching Dune as a viewer all of 11 yrs old, I was bored and hated it when originally released...viewing it a number of times since, it has improved quite a bit in my eyes and is one of my favorite cult and guilty Lynchian pleasures
It is so sad whenever I see the old episodes of Siskel and Ebert. These guys were such powerful institutions of the film industry when I was growing up and it was so weird when I first heard the news of Gene Siskel's death.
I was 13 when this show came on. My parents and I had been wondering whether to see Dune or Starman. After seeing Siskel and Ebert's reviews, we decided on Starman. At the end, we walked out of the theater rubber-legged, amazed by what we'd seen. One of the best movies of the 80's.
lord I was just thinking I wished I had seen this before going to Dune on the first night it played in Boston - the audience filled with Dune fans was laughing out loud and booing by the end
I'm SO glad they gave Starman a thumbs-up; that is one of my all time favorite movies! If you have never seen it, watch it NOW ...Jeff Bridges should have won an Oscar for that performance!! -He was robbed!
There's something they didn't mention about Star Man, that was especially poignant and sad. The alien that comes to earth wasn't originally human; he was an energy form of some kind; he created a human body for himself, out of the DNA from the woman's dead husband, from a strand of hair from an old brush he owned. Imagine being a widow and missing your partner terribly after grieving over them; and suddenly there they are, in front of you; the same face, the same body, the same voice; but a completely different mind. Imagine what that would do to you. That part of the movie was poignant and sad at the same time. Emotionally she got her husband back in a way; but yet she knows she didn't. To me, She was the most sympathetic individual in the film going through that, not the alien.
I'm certain that just about everyone who has seen this film found Jenny Hayden sympathetic firstly rather than the gun wielding, body double creep from outer space who kidnaps her. The film was designed that way. We warm to the starman just as Jenny does along the way.
Ebert was right about Jeff Bridges in Starman - he apparently decided that since his character wasn't used to a human body, he'd move in a jerky fashion... and he studied birds to see how they moved around.
Starman was John Carpenter's apology for The Thing. He was very bummed out about the critical response to the Thing and Starman came along and he jumped on it. He was something like the third or fourth director attached to the film. He did a great job. Awesome film!
No actually STARMAN was one of the best reviewed films of 84, unless you mean by horror fans. But the film even garnered respect by them because my gorehound friend at the time got caught up in the story.
@@bobrew461 I know but it is such an unsung movie now. The way it's internet popular for people to reference his "80's" soundtrack sound or the movies they mention like Halloween, The Thing and Big Trouble, just seems he never gets credit today for this movie.
Starman is one of those films I grew up with. Easily a personal favorite of mine. Dune, while a complete mess, is a film I feel the same way about. Nostalgia can be weird sometimes.
@ Ian Finlay: _Coincidently, we have TWO movies staring ROCK STARS ( Sting and Gene Simmons ) here in this one episode!_ You'll say that again in four years hehehehehehehe
@@booknooky9436 😂 ... I actually love both of those movies. Starman is one of Carpenter's better movies ... up there with Big Trouble in Little China and maybe Christine.
@@kevinmcdonald4040 Big Trouble in Little China was a great romp ... It's a total classic while also being his best movie. There was nothing 'messy' about it ... good solid story telling, fun characters, good action and it's completely original. There'd be a lot of people who agree with me on that ... but what ever floats your boat.
Star man really was quite a beautiful film. I remember the tv series as well. This was a time when they tried to make tv shows after movies dirty dancing and ferris bueller m.a.s. h happy days was a spin off american graffitti indiana jones young guns. Jeff bridges was such an underrated actor until much later for crazy heart . He was in movie after movie with great performances. I love ehen siskel and ebert get excited about a movie
I've seen Starman a couple of times, usually when it was already playing on Cinemax or something, anyway no matter how many times I've seen it, the music & the ending (together) will just pull the tears right out of me.
I read Dune when it came out in 1966. When I saw the movie, I enjoyed it immensely. Kinda weird, but I was okay with that. I also knew that anyone who hadn't read the book would be, WTF? Siskel and Ebert were proved wrong in the long run. The film is now a classic.
I find it funny that they show a seemingly random scene from Dune that is actually the films climactic duel. Honestly, they weren’t wrong but time and retrospection has served the film well.
I remember I was watching Runaways on TV when I was like five years old and my mom came in and yelled "we're not watching this crap" and turned off the TV and like 30 minutes later I snuck into the TV room and the movie was now Boomerang with Eddie Murphy and I was confused because I thought it was the same movie and didn't understand why everybody now was black.
Siskel so often completely dismissed films like he did here with Dune. Even though Ebert didn't love it, he at least acknowledges the books, talks about what works and what didn't, and admits that he was entertained by some of it.
Ebert at least tried to usually find the strengths in a movie, even if he thought it wasn't the best. Siskel often just dismissed things whole cloth because one or two things turned him off, lol. I agree with you.
Yep. And his criticisms were more based on his personal taste. Eg If a movie was too gory and violent, or had children in peril, he gave a bad review. That has nothing to do with the craft of filmaking.
As someone who read the Dune books years before this movie came out I appreciated what Lynch tried to do even if he was only partially successful. It remains one of the hardest sci fi books to adapt and even the new version feels like it has less life than the Lynch version (but DID have a much more book accurate Baron Harkonnen) Starman was just too cheesy for my liking. I was reading a lot of sci fi back then and the story felt super lightweight compared to what was possible even back at that time
Don't know why they gave thumbs down for Runaway. It thought it was awesome and entertaining. Gene Simmons as Dr. Charles Luthor was intimidating and scary as hell. Thought Selleck and Rhodes has great chemistry as well as Selleck and Simmons have a great chemistry in rivalry. To me it's a great popcorn enjoyment film. Can't wait to get it on blu-ray.
Wonder what S&E would've thought with how simple Gene Simmons tech was compare to a Patriot Missle or the Drones that would rule the military world of the future. The heat seeking, DNA coded bullets are a cool idea, and they seem to be more of a drone than missiles.
Starman was such a beautiful movie. Bridges deserved the oscar he was nominated for & really carpenters best & a complete turn from his others like Halloween & the thing . Not a gory horror film. The thing is another movie that became a classic same as blade runner is a hugely popular film today but I believe it was a bomb when it came out .
@@INFILTR8US Runaway ,Lassiter and An Innocent Man are Tom Selleck best movies. Runaway is a very fun imaginative sci-fi movie Gene Simmons is great as the villain.
that knife fight in _Dune_ makes it look nearly unwatchable. good sound, though. David Lynch [a thoroughly BAFFLING choice to helm your studio's Big Flagpole Space Adventure] knows how to do that industrial drone thing, that's for sure.
@@fyodordostoevsky9028 I'd recommend you find a more intelligent critique. The movie sucks and doesn't surpass the book by a longshot. In fact it doesn't surpass a See Dick and Jane book!
Wow. Reviews for Dune, Starman, and Runaway, all in one episode. All sci-fi classics! 1984, baby!! Classics of any genre don’t come out like this everyfew YEARS now! This was just ONE WEEK!!
I agree with Ebert's take on Dune, that it's an interesting bad movie. Thankfully it didn't destroy Lynch's career. Just two years later he bounced back with Blue Velvet using many of the same actors!
Well fortunately for Selleck, he would hit BIG with Three Men and a Baby with Steve Guttenberg of the Police Academy Movies and Ted Danson of TV's Cheers, Cynthia Rhodes who starred in the SMASH Film Flashdance scored BIG once again with Dirty Dancing and Kirstie Alley should've stayed with the Star Trek Movies as Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, The Terminator & Ghostbusters did better than the 3 films mentioned on here, but Alley would make up for it starring in the film Look Who's Talking? and she joined the cast of Cheers replacing Shelley Long and the ratings stayed intact which was still in the Nielsen Ratings Top 10 until 1993 with Season 9 becoming #1
@@bobrew461 Hollywood makes this impression of him but he's not. His Canadian films are impecable, and unlike Lynch who has Dune as a low point in his resume, Villenueve hasn't made a bad movie.
At the movies intro was so second rate compared to the intro scene of sneak previews,which is arguably iconic. Is did not impact the substance of coarse but it is interesting that PBS had the better opening
The only question I have her is why would you bother going to see a film adaption of a book that you didn't like? The film on its own merit is a wonderfully strange and epic bit of fluff, I cannot speak from the books because I never read them but the movie on its own merit is an exceptionally well made an interesting oddity... Most people just didn't seem to get it.
I loved starman a fun movie. Runaway is good it's now out dated Tom Selleck made it entertaining. Dune is being remade in 2020 well see if it's any good.
I haven’t seen dune in years. All I remember is I hated it. I liked the tv miniseries from the early 2000’s. Starman is a classic. Different for master John Carpenter but still a classic. Never heard of the Jack Lemmon film. Runaway… was a cheesy film that I liked as a kid but probably wouldn’t like now, probably but who knows.
2:10 It always makes me sad when I see people saying something is "hard to understand and confusing." So many people out themselves as being far less intelligent than they believe themselves to be by way of insulting movies.
@@joefelice5062 It has its flaws, but it's perfectly understandable. When you have people saying they can't follow a film so simple, how can you claim they aren't just pompous fools with inflated egos? I won't hesitate to call it as I see it when people are so boldly stating their opinions as facts and judging others. Dune isn't perfect, no movie is, but it's a wonderfully imaginative and creative world. If they can't understand the film, I think that says more about them than the movie.
Nobody From Nowhere One comment does not define an individual. If you watch a hundred or more of their reviews and maybe read some of their writing, you would find they are very insightful, articulate, and intelligent. There are plenty of films that are far more complex than Dune that have received positive reviews from S & E. And surely you know that the creators of Dune probably had their own criticism of what the studio execs did to the distributed release of the film. Respectfully it is pretty myopic and small-minded to make a sweeping claim of a person’s intelligence because he or she said that a film you like is “confusing”. I hope for your sake that you don’t ever find yourself wholly judged by one uttered statement out of a million.
the difference between siskel and ebert: ebert kind of guess there is something strange going on with dune, siskell gave up in 5 minutes... the difference between an average and a good critic
I used to respect Siskel and Ebert until this minute. Dune was a great movie, one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. These two blockheads want the story fed to them like pablum on a baby spoon. if they didn't get it tough luck for them.
Dune needs a 21st century reboot with James Cameron or Ridley Scott at the chair. It could be so good. You'd think Hollywood would've thought about that instead of doing the 48th Spiderman of 52nd Batman movie. I'm so goddam sick of comic book movies that I could puke. Hey, btw, Hollywood.....we're still hanging on Danny Glover's last line in Predator 2. It set up a sequel better than any other movie line I can think of.
Siskel really trashes Dune here, and rightly so. I think he should have blamed Dino DeLaurentis, though; he's the primary culprit here along with Lynch who clearly is just doing the film to have the experience of directing a big budget film whose story he could care less about. It's a tragedy we'll never get to see Jodorowsky's version which was completely story boarded, but never got the budget together.
Use any adjectives you like; the bottom line is the film doesn't work like the novel does. Personally, I think they should have done it in three parts like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There is too much information in the novel about a completely different world and galactic political structure to convey in a two hour movie for the story to unfold gracefully (which is why with Lynch's version, they ended up resorting to noncinematic story telling methods like voice over narration).
Greg Holt I think it should be a Netflix or HBO Tcable series than a movie as it doesn't translate as a movie as i hated both the Lynch film and the 2003 mini-series.
Didn't even realize they tried to do Dune as a mini series. HBO would never touch it; it's jinxed. No, we are never going to see another film adaptation of Dune, and that's probably a good thing.
I don't think the whole story of the production of 'Dune' was well known at the time. And the film (as far as I remember) was marketed as 'David Lynch's', so initially it would have seemed as if he just made a mess of it. It was a crazy idea to cover the novel in one film though and Lynch should have known better than to get involved.
Is Starman really better than Escape from New York, the Fog and the Thing? Haven't seen it but better than the Thing?! You'd think I would have heard of it if it was better than the freaking Thing..
Siskel had stated on many occasions before that he didn't like SF. Also, the studio brass stuck their nose and ruined this movie. Had the director been allowed to do his job, it would've been a different reaction of the critics.