Made in America/Menace II Society/Cliffhanger/Hot Shots! Part Deux/The Long Day Closes

Gene Siskel - Host: [reviewing "Made in America"] Here's a film that is so caught up with being politically correct that it doesn't have the guts to write truly funny, believable dialogue about such a potent situation. Will Smith is relegated to playing an eye-popping clown, Ted Danson looks wasted and stiff, Whoopi Goldberg overacts, only Nia Long is a fresh face as the perfect daughter. "Made in America" is a TV pilot masquerading as a movie, safe and warm and boring as it can be.

Roger Ebert - Host: Y'know, that's funny, because I liked it a whole lot more than you did.

Gene Siskel - Host: I can't believe it.

Roger Ebert - Host: And I thought that, in particular, you're zeroing in on Ted Danson. In the beginning, his character was wildly overwritten in terms of the, uh, obnoxious car dealer behavior...

Gene Siskel - Host: Well, it's...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...But toward the end of the film, toward the last hour of the film, there's a lot of gentleness and a lot of warmth that comes in here, and I felt that it really did work.

Gene Siskel - Host: Guys like this, these car dealers, are very sharp people. Okay. Why not have him write real sharp, and try to figure out a way to get out of this, and run from it. You know what I'm saying?

Roger Ebert - Host: I can easily think of ways to make this movie better.

Gene Siskel - Host: Oh, yes.

Roger Ebert - Host: In fact, Gene, when you were saying the movie is predictable, if we didn't want to go to any movies unless they were unpredictable, we wouldn't have very many movies to go to. Because in Hollywood today, the whole formula for making a movie is just to combine parts from other movies. So that there hasn't been an original screenplay, not one screenplay in twenty is original, but I did feel that as unoriginal material, this DID work.

Gene Siskel - Host: [chuckles] What a heck of a compliment.

Roger Ebert - Host: How many other original movies have you seen this year? From America? Not many.

Gene Siskel - Host: Not many, but I don't give THEM positive reviews either.

[pause]

Gene Siskel - Host: Go ahead.

Roger Ebert - Host: Okay, I will. Our next movie

["Menace 2 Society"]

Roger Ebert - Host: IS an original movie, how's that?

Gene Siskel - Host: Yes, it is.