Siskel and Ebert

I've got a bit of Critics' Corner for the burning.

Siskel and Ebert, who famously love these sub-genre films, they chose the film as one of their dogs of the week.

which is the first time i've heard that uh ebert was particularly unimpressed by the film's similarity to friday the 13th part two another slasher film from the summer of 1981 that he despised uh philadelphia daily news compared the film to friday the 13th but added where that film is periodically nasty the burning is all nastiness Maza of the New York Times fame wrote, the burning follows the one dead teen per 15 minutes of screen time formula.

The burning makes a few minor departures from the usual cliches of its genre, though it carefully preserves the violence and sadism that are schlock horrors.

It's funny.

My wife and I watch Siskel and Ebert on YouTube all the time now, from the late 70s all the way to now.

And it's great to watch.

And, man, it reminds us of how spoiled we were in the 80s when you would have like...

feel like a person in makeup.

And the Siskel and Ebert one was a miniature or whatever we want to call it.

So a few other ones too.

um how about those cops trying to just destroy him in that alley yeah oh my god so many great alleys alley scenes a lot of great alleys you know save money shooting an alley yeah john knew all the best alleys they were huge too uh she f's him up out the window i mean that was out of nowhere too that was a nice little like surprise scene You dirty mother effer.

Rotten Tomatoes, critics 29%, audience 45%, IMDb is 6.3, Letterboxd 3.0.

This is Siskel and Ebert talking about Screamers.

Our first film is Screamers.

And on this job, you know, you see everything once and then you see it again.

And the connective tissue between these two is Galea is the first movie that Roger Ebert ever reviewed.

And Rascal is the first movie that Gene Siskel ever reviewed.

And I love that Ryan uses his birthday movies as a great way to keep tying into Siskel and Ebert.

So I love this selection.

It was defending this awful piece of crap that's probably going to sell out.

And Siskel and Ebert, remember the days? Remember the time when we used to watch movies? Those two knuckleheads tell us what to go see.

Now we have Reddit and Shreddit and the rest of those things.

Nobody wants to watch anybody tell you what to do because they have their own pulpit now.

It's still very good, but I feel like in the last...

Siskel and Ebert notoriously gave this, or notorious to us, no one cares, gave it two thumbs down because they complained that the ending got too...

Gene Siskel in particular was like, the ending gets so ridiculous.

The whole movie's working on a certain vibe where it's grounded in a way, but it's still a movie, but then in the last 30 minutes it becomes this ridiculous thing i disagree with that a little bit i feel the whole movie's working on a thriller level so things a little heightened i don't think it gets too ridiculous it becomes like a proper climax where there's obstacles and things to deal with but i think that the ending is too neat it kind of happens and ties up too quickly where it's like you have this these roadblocks of like oh he's trying to watch her in the bar to protect her while she's kind of baiting this guy And there's a beer truck that goes in a way.

Yet McDormand unearths a surprising decency there, and in the process, she pretty well rescues the film.

All right, we'll maybe break down how that applies in a little bit, but perhaps the highest praise coming from Siskel and Ebert, who just said flat out it was the best film of 1996.

Now, not everyone was a fan of this movie.

James Berardinelli of Real Thoughts gave it a three out of five, noted that it was, quote, easy to admire what the Coens are trying to do in Fargo, but more difficult to actually like the film.

Like, you can't take that away from me, you know? Yes, what did my tattoo

say? Siskel and Ebert.

Siskel's the one that died first, right? Correct me if I'm wrong.

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