Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Up Close and Personal/Muppet Treasure Island/Fargo/Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam/The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1996)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : "Fargo" is the best movie the Coen Brothers have ever made: A quirky, infectious American masterpiece.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, you know, last year, back in January, I said I didn't expect to see a better film all year than "Crumb".

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah.

  Gene Siskel - Host : And I didn't. It was a real good call; even you put it second on your list.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, I'm gonna make the same call here now in March.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Okay.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Because there won't be a better film than this. I mean, you called it a masterpiece, I'll go out on a limb and say that, too. And I wanna go even further and say this: That the Coen Brothers now, if you look at "Blood Simple", "Raising Arizona", and "Barton Fink"... these guys are creating one fantastic, original piece of work every single time.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Mm-hmm.

  Gene Siskel - Host : These guys deserve to be known with some of the finest directors that have worked in motion pictures. And there isn't a, a dull moment here, there isn't an unoriginal moment. They have a very precise way of dialogue that is accurate. It IS the way people talk. As well as the speech pattern of "ey, ey, yeah, yeah." and all that. They've got the words right, too.

  Roger Ebert - Host : They have the words exactly right. You know what I liked, too, was the stylistic freedom they gave themselves. This is a very violent movie.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes.

  Roger Ebert - Host : It's a very funny movie. At the end, there's some poetry and some whimsy...

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

  Roger Ebert - Host : There's stuff in this movie about the minutia of the routine, of a long marriage.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes, yes.

  Roger Ebert - Host : There is stuff about two partners that don't get along.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Father and son- father-in-law and son-in-law!

  Roger Ebert - Host : Oh, that's fabulous.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh my gosh!

  Roger Ebert - Host : And what about the son, who goes off to McDonald's, gets up from the dinner table?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh, but listen...

  Roger Ebert - Host : There's just one detail after another. Yeah.

  Gene Siskel - Host : They even have the accountant assistant to the big boss, I mean, that's very clever writing there. Y'know, a family business and there's the loyal helper there...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah.

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...Who hates the son-in-law.

  Roger Ebert - Host : This movie has one...

  Gene Siskel - Host : It's a great...

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Treasure in it after another!

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...A great American movie.

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam"]  Heidi Fleiss, who has gone to jail, is basically the least guilty out of all these people, and Ivan Nagy, who walked free...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...Is basically the guy who's pulling all the strings.

  Gene Siskel - Host : The puppet master.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And at the end of the movie, after she knows that he has betrayed her, after he has turned her into the police, that she is going to jail, THEN, on camera, for Nick Broomfield, he makes a call to her and sweet-talks her, and we can hear both sides of the conversation, and so that he wants to prove that he can still have his control over her. And then he smiles like this at the camera, and it's the portrait of the most incredible evil that I've ever seen in a documentary. This man, who says, "Look, I destroyed her, and I can still control her", WHAT a snake.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, I don't know about the MOST incredible evil we've seen in a documentary...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Okay, I over-spoke.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yes you did.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Just a little bit. ONE of. One of. How's that?

  [Gene chuckles]