"The Dogs of 1981" special - movie reviews - Sneak Previews with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel 

Especially if they both have something snarky to say about a movie they both hate a movie.

Though to be fair a lot of them would still suck even for their time regardless

Or maybe it shows that there are ALWAYS bad movies, and that people should be less fixated on nostalgia.

@@Laissez-faire402 Yes. The amount of people blinded by nostalgia is unbelievable.

1981 wasn't that long ago, relatively speaking. The movies in 1981 that were bad are STILL bad. Difference is audiences could discern the difference between crap and quality. And for the most part the better films rose to the top. 40+ years later the bar has been lowered so far to the point, Hollywood doesn't even try anymore. It's not nostalgia, it's an objective 1 to 1 comparison of the overall quality of films that used to be released.

@@thetimewaveyou know that these two have the ability to be wrong about something, right? Not everything they dislike was complete shit, and I’m sure some of your favorite movies actually fall into that category.

Neat story but I sorta doubt that Raiders lacked "buzz" considering that Spielberg already helmed Jaws and Close Encounters. In fact, it opened at #1 with pretty healthy earnings.

@@WheresPoochie Were you there at the screenings? Did you work in the industry? Have you studied the data? I appreciate that it might not seem so in retrospect, but this information is accurate. In fact, Raiders' opening was not, actually, a hot opening. Sure, it grossed about $8 million its first week. Its main competition was Mel Brooks' History of the World Part One, which, interestingly, had much higher per capita attendance than Raiders, grossing nearly $5 million on fewer than HALF the screens (under 500) Raiders was on (more than a thousand). One week later, Cannonball Run opened in about 500 more screens than Raiders and grossed more than $12 million while Superman II grossed another $14 million at the same time. A week later, still, Bill Murray's R-rated comedy Stripes and James Bonds' For Your Eyes Only would both open to grosses almost the equal Raiders' opening. (The flop of summer '81 was Disney's PG-rated Dragonslayer.) Raiders did not have a huge opening market campaign. In fact, Disney spent more on Dragonslayer. Word of mouth was what quickly brought people out, often for repeat viewings. The magic of Raiders was that it simply played all summer. Under the Rainbow, however, was genuinely thought to be the hot picture for the summer... until viewings. Chevy Chase was hot property (and was still two more summers away from his first Vacation hit.) And Carrie Fisher had just come off of her second Star Wars film. But word had gotten so bad by its July release that it barely appeared on 400 screens and opened to about $2 million, one of the lowest of the summer. It was a huge misfire in an industry that often misfires. Again, I appreciate that Raiders just seems like it was this giant massive juggernaut from the beginning, but it just wasn't.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” was a lot of fun to watch, and both Spielberg and Lucas clearly enjoyed making the film. But, when producers have little to no faith in their own film, that is a bad sign.

@@WheresPoochie He did, but more recently he'd just spit the bit on 1941, the biggest budget he'd gotten to work with to date. So it's not like Spielberg could do no wrong. Harrison Ford had some buzz by then, but wasn't considered an A list star who could carry a blockbuster. It was uncertain at the time what kind of appetite audiences had for pulpy treasure hunter epics that intersect with Nazi occultism. I have no insider knowledge of the movies of that time, but I could see how not everyone expected a smash hit.

@@WheresPoochie I think, too, that Michael is pointing out that he was seeing it with other exhibitors long before the studio publicity machine had cranked up, before critics had the chance to review it, etc. I remember when Raiders came out, and reviewers were talking it up, but I had barely even heard of it before it hit theaters. E.T. was the same way, in fact. Yes, it was marketed as being by the director of "Jaws" but in 1981 the average person didn't pay attention to directors' names the way they do now. This was before not only the internet and social media, but also before mainstream movie magazines like Movieline Magazine and Premiere, or entertainment magazines like Entertainment Weekly, and around the same time that Entertainment Tonight was on the air. The reason Raiders hit big off the bat was because it was unanimously talked up by critics in its opening weekend and because people saw it, walked out, told all of their friends that it's a perfect movie, and then walked back into the theater to see it again.

Roger Ebert's review essays are even more of a "masterclass" for film review. His entire history of reviews are published in several books. They are excellent.

Some of Siskel and Ebert’s programs would actually make for good curriculum for classes relating to media as literature or film criticism or film history.

If I remember correctly the actor that played the Lone Ranger was so bad that another actor dubbed his dialogue....

John Smith yup. Played by a stupid idiot by the name of Klinton Spilsbury. He had most of his dialogue done by James Keach because he couldn’t memorize simple little lines. He was also drunk and combative during the filming. He easily won(hands down) for worst actor at the Golden Raspberry Award. Well earned and well deserved.

I saw the '81 Ranger at an industry screening a couple months before its release. Exec types frequently appeared unimpressed at screenings in those days; no one wanted to appear too enthusiastic in case the film was a box office dud! But the execs HATED the '81 Ranger. The film was terrible, the studio wanted a huge guarantee from exhibitors, and nobody could see any mass appeal for a western in 1981. Exhibitors ended up staying away from the film as much as audiences. It ended up being unpleasant for everyone. Did Hollywood learn anything? Ask Johnny Depp.

the thing is, the film gets a lot right, but the main actor was gay, as they later found out and dubbed his voice with James Keach. The film does have a pacing problem,

Good point.

Was Halloween II really bad though.

​@@davidgmorris181340it was disappointing because it was basically a copy of the first movie.

I mean in general, they always agreed on what’s really good and what’s really bad. It was the stuff in the middle that they had the most professional disagreements on.

@@thekingofmovies193 It also takes place over the same night, so why would it be that different? Halloween II is fine and they got the slasher genre completely and totally wrong (women in peril being a lazy take especially), but it’s fun to watch them miss the mark.

Puppy!

Yeah, cute takeoff on Jaws. But he should've also walked by a section that said Masterpieces.

I liked that intro, too!

What's funny is it was on the shelf for two years. Why didn't they keep it on there??????

I'll pay you five bucks to say that out loud standing in the middle of the Champs-Elysses in Gay Paris

@@danorthsidemang3834 You know why the French think he's funny? Because he makes us look like dopes.

@@sha11235 Today, a film with bad mojo can avoid the costs and risks of a theatrical release and simply go straight to home video. Back in those days, there were not huge opportunities for a film after it had been in the theatres beyond TV and re-releases. Hardly Working was a total embarrassment for the studio and Lewis, and I was embarrassed to sell tickets (well, a few) for it. Aside from Jerry's personal problems, it was a time of change in entertainment. Lewis' style of entertainment was on its way out, already on life-support with its legends dying out and making last gasp appearances on such shows as The Love Boat. Jerry's aging schtick in Hardly Working was barely any different than what the likes of Sid Caesar were doing on The Love Boat. The movie just made it look so much worse.

Lewis had a lot of clout in Hollywood. I imagine nobody had the nerve to tell him his movie was garbage.

They are watching classics together all the time.

Clearly you dont know the real life story. They hated each other and wished cancer on each other, and then they both died of cancer. They are on seperate clouds.

@@RageMojo really? Then y was Gene Siskel best man at Roger’s wedding? Tell me that didn’t mean anything.

@@RageMojoWay off. They had a very professional relationship. They were different people but were friendly in the end. Their competitiveness drove them in the early days, but they warmed to each other over time. You should listen to the multi part podcast “Gene and Roger” for the truth. “Gene was a lifelong friend, and our professional competition only strengthened that bond. As a critic, he was passionate and exciting. As a husband and a father, his love knew no bounds.” - Roger Ebert

Anything with Adrienne Barbeau is worth watching.

Including that movie on here is an insult. It's all-American fun.

The gag reel was funnier than the movie itself.

Indeed it really will. One of the few huge all star cast movies that actually worked. Everyone from Roger Moore to Terry Bradshaw all had a ball and contributed greatly to the fun nature it showed, they weren't faking a bit of it. That's what that genre of film lacks a lot of the time. The actors in a random all star big cast movie are usually miserable, there are way too many characters, and the plot's a mess. Cannonball manages to juggle the characters well and doesn't lose track of the main plot goal which is impressive. It'll always be a fun ride. Such a shame part 2 got lost sadly.

Technically, they did not move to ABC. In 1982, after a dispute with WTTW-TV (which produced the show for PBS), they moved to Tribune Entertainment, where they created "At The Movies" (and their thumb-rating system). In 1986, they moved to Buena Vista Television (Disney, if you will) where they created a third, self-titled program, which by far was the longest running they've ever helmed. Both shows were syndicated affairs, so they appeared not only on ABC stations, but also stations affiliated with CBS, NBC, Fox, the WB and UPN (the last two of these networks launched in 1995) along with a smattering of local independents looking to spice up their programming lineups. In some areas, the same station carried both programs upon their respective debuts. As a side note, after Disney bought ABC in 1996, Siskel & Ebert began taping their show out of ABC O&O WLS-TV.

Well, you obviously have more knowledge of the show than me. I stand corrected.

@@jessecoffey4737 You are correct about their moving from PBS to commercial syndication. PBS actually wanted to move them, but they did it on better terms. In NYC, At the Movies aired on WPIX TV and when they went to Disney in 1986, it aired on various stations during its run. By the way, from what I know, they taped in the CBS studio until 2001, then moved over to the ABC studio. Read this in Richard Roeper's book.

@Trzn Correct, cause when they started working for Disney, they did the show at CBS O&O WBBM-TV, and probley got space their because Siskel was once a contributor to WBBM-TV. When Disney bought out ABC then the show was moved crosstown to WLS-TV ABC7. Siskel must have pulled a few strings along the way to keep the spats with Roger Ebert going.

@@jessecoffey4737 I thought the Romans invented the thumb-ratings system. Or the Fonz.

Absolutely. That’s a more dangerous part of human nature that also leads to being so sure of oneself in one way or another.

I need a beer. 🍻

My dad took me to see this film. I never forgave him for it. The trailer for Raiders of the Lost Ark was on before the movie, and it was better than the whole movie.

Patrick Langan especially since James Keach did most of Klinton Spilsbury’s dialogue. Terrible performance.

There was basically another version of this in the mid-1970's. It starred Michael Sarrazan and is called The Gumball Rally. Then Burt Reynolds and company dusted of the plot and changed the film's title to Cannonball Run.

Gumball Rally was such a fun movie!

Car and Driver was one of the funniest magazines in the world - not one of the funniest *car* magazines, but one of the funniest magazines, period - back when Yates was writing for it.

I could never figure out why he gave his gun to Laurie who by some miracle of luck shot him in the eyes,,,,,,the book described him as being reborn each time he died.....

20 minutes? Weak

I couldn't finish it in one sitting.

Clay3613 that pole climbing scene @ the university alone made me want to shut it off as well.

HEAVEN'S GATE isn't so bad if you see it in a foreign language without subtitles!

@@Blaqjaqshellaq Very funny.

It just put me to sleep with it's length.

It’s not even close to historically accurate

I have watched the directors cut version of that film and i think it was actually a good movie.

I just remember the ending was was dusty and incomphrensible..couldn`t tell was happening,,

Peter Biskind writes in his great book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" that HEAVEN'S GATE became (in)famous because it was the film that ended the Auteur Era of the 1970's, where major directors could pretty much do whatever they wanted (and produced some of the greatest films ever in the process) and producers/film production companies were there to be told by those directors to shut up and sit down. A film from an Auteur-type was eventually going to be such a complete disaster that it would allow the producers/companies to regain control of the filmmaking process in Hollywood. Biskind notes that REDS or 1941 could have been That Film. But the movie that got that tag was HEAVEN'S GATE.

Dare I say Sneak Previews was also somewhat educational, at times.

Yes, I think Sneak Previews was the better show. They were allowed more time to discuss film and they didn't always have to focus on the biggest releases.

Numinous20111 yes.

It was his first movie.

Are you still friends with your movie friend?

@@Drew791 Nope. We eventually drifted apart. Haven't seen or heard from him since the late 1980s. Though I know where he is today and what has happened to him (got a civil service job, got married, has a couple of kids, etc) since then.

Yes, you liked it with the mind of a 12 year old…kind of says it all

They were still terrible movies. If a few thousand people jumped off a bridge, would you do it as well?

Now it's fairly easy to watch Heaven's Gate in its complete version for free I gave it a try and quit after about an hour. Beautiful-looking but unfocused, rambling and uninvolved, which is pretty much what Ebert said. I would add that the dialogue is just awful.

​@@ianfryer8386most of Michael Cihminos work is unfocused

When you do a sequel or remake, you're saying: "Look, folks, we don't have any new ideas." Also they cut the budgets because the concept is considered "pre-sold." There are some exceptions like the "Back to the Future" series; "Road Warrior"; and "Terminator II"; but they're the exceptions.

That bit cracked me up, too.

Jay Sherman would continue the gag in 1994, hehe.

@@ShamrockParticle “It stinks!”

@@cactusjackNV Agreed, so much jingoistic right-wing blow-em-up junk put out by these corporate movie product machines to anesthetize the public of the real issues.

Disney’s mantra

"Dearth" means there isn't enough of something, a scarcity. That's the opposite of what they're saying about remakes and sequels.

God...I didn't. Mom made me sit through the whole thing as a 5-year-old in the theater until I got so execrably ill by the maracas scene I had to go to the bathroom and heave. A borefest punctuated by a fever dream of a lousy Carmen Miranda sequence both Siskel and Ebert highlight. Compared to that, "The Empire Strikes Back" was an ambrosia cleanse. My parents had lousy taste in movies.

I actually saw it in the theater in August 1981, I was 9 and found it funny. If I were to watch it today, as a grumpy old man, I wonder if I'd like Chu Chu and the Philly Flash today.

Siskel and Ebert really hated the 80s do they? Who do you think hated that decade the most when it comes to movies?

I think Honky Tonk Freeway may have snuck into the previous year's Worst Films show. Forgotten now, that was a particularly notorious film in the UK as it was produced by British company EMI Films and was directed by a big-name British director, John Schlesinger. The film was ruinously expensive and lost almost its entire cost, an absolute disaster for what was the last remaining major British movie studio.

@@ianfryer8386 S&E's 1980 worst film list only had seven films; _Honky Tonk Freeway_ was nowhere on it.

@@jessecoffey4737 Darn. They certainly did it at some point - I watched their review some time over the last week.

@@ianfryer8386 Where can it be found?

You mean his Movie Home Companion? It's a good thing he deleted these reviews from later editions so his readers won't rent them on video.

@@patrickshields5251 Same shit. Actually, he would delete bad reviews more than good ones due to bad films fading faster from the memory than good ones.

@@sha11235 Yeah. But only a few positive reviews were deleted so he can put more room in future editions. You know his 3 star review of The Secret of NIMH? Only in the first edition published in 1985.

@@patrickshields5251 He did this in other editions, like Year of the Quiet Sun and Violets Are Blue (4 and 3 stars). Then after the 1995 edition, he got rid of other 3 star reviews, including Cop and a Half.

@@sha11235 I think a couple of 4 star reviews he deleted after the 1996 edition were Working Girl and Bye Bye Brazil. His Restoration and Revival section was no longer used in the 1998 version because he was working on his pet project, The Great Movies.

I never understood why part 2 is so generally hated by fans of Halloween ... Both are just as boring, and part 2 just felt like more of the same thing as the first. 3 was really the only interesting one of the franchise... Michael Myers is a snooze fest

I like part 2 better than the first movie.

I liked the roller-skating scene (was an extra on a Jeff Bridges movie a few years ago and wish I had had the nerve to ask him about it) but the rest was pretty tedious.

@@steveconn Jeff Bridges is one of the few defenders of the film.

Not a bad Cult Though

Samuel Stephens only a spectacular clip if you love dust

If you read Roger's review, he talks about how after the NY opening run the critics ran gagging from the theater and they tried editing it.

They were, these guys hated most all horror movies.

Especially those bad films. Throw them into the garbage.

Well at least it wasn't Halloween III; no Michael Myers, no Jamie Lee Curtis, no point in watching.

Yes it was, better than the first one.

Rich & Famous is also a remake: www.imdb.com/title/tt0036230/

I'm glad it's not just me that hated the dreary The Postmen Always Rings Twice remake. I recall that it had a pretty good critical reputation

Except in Trump World

Yeah, like the Munchkin Mayor did that. Just garbage.

It’s because they got them for cheap

@@sdot5389 Ha ha. I'm glad they did. I've got fond memories of those bad movies. I just recently did a painting of the hot chicks in the Lamborghini from Cannonball Run. They're like little snippets of images projected on your brain that won't stop pestering you until you give them your full attention. Like popping a zit or something.

No. It’s not about the bunnies.

I liked Dukes of Hazard when I was a kid…..terrible as an adult.

@Jay McDanieL On your list of horror films, don't forget "Halloween 4," with Danielle Harris giving the best performance of a young actress I've ever seen. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised by that sequel.

@@citygirl5705 Halloween 4 suffers from no Dean Cundey.

It's a little weird. But he felt that it sucked. Stars are relative anyway.

@Trzn This.

amanda davis Ebert always gives extra stars for technical reasons. In his written review he calls Halloween 2 polished & good looking.

Maybe "The Day the Clown Cried" was also ahead of its time. ;)

@@Studeb One day maybe we'll find out.

Lewis wrote a filmmaking book that Scorsese studied like crazy as a film student. No kidding.

@@Studeb From what I know, that movie will never see the light of day.

Jerry Lewis invented Video Assist! Something every director uses to this day.

"I think Halloween II is an abomination and a horrible movie. I was really disappointed in it. The director has gone on and done some other films and I think his career is launched now. But I don’t think he had a feel for the material. I think that’s the problem, he didn’t have a feeling for what was going on." -John Carpenter

Yes. United Artists basically went out of business. After that, the studios held their directors on a shorter leash. Here's a good treatment of the story: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XnG-KZwrCxs.html

@@williamwingo4740 It goes beyond that, it destroyed the New Hollywood movement.

Nope! That's a myth. Just like Unicorns...

@@williamwingo4740 I watched this documentary a couple of months ago, and it was very interesting. Thank you for providing the link.

It killed off United Artists' existence and led to the foundation of MGM/UA.

Which is appropriate, since it was awful, but awful in fascinating ways. Cimino went from best filmmaker of the day to WTF overnight.

I think they thought Halloween was a bigger target. They liked the first one, but not the second one.

Exactly. Friday the 13th II falls into the generic slasher film category that they mentioned at the top of the show. They loved the first Halloween so much that they were heavily disappointed with its sequel. So that's why it was mentioned.

I always wondered how Jason knew where she lived 😂.

The dog was Sneak Previews..the Skunk was when the show became syndicated later..and then they sadly eliminated the segment

notgrillo collector/ gamer yeah the 🦨 skunks name was Aroma the educational 🦨 skunk with our stinker of the week. 1st was the dog 🐶 than later the 🦨 skunk.

My favorite Marty Scorsese film !

@@ricardocantoral7672 Now you don't see that opinion a lot. Raging Bull is my def favorite MS film. KoC is right there for me with Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Those are my top 4.

@@darwinblinks I love black comedies and few match the brilliance of King of Comedy !

For three months they were talking about the furor that had attacked the theatrical version before reconstructing the real original version before releasing to theaters.