Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Good Morning, Vietnam/Leonard Part 6/Eddie Murphy Raw/Housekeeping/Siesta (1987)

Roger Ebert: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : [reviewing "Leonard Part 6"]  Maybe at some point, there was an inspiration for a good comedy here, I dunno, they certainly were not reluctant to spend a lot of money looking ridiculous in this movie, and sometimes that works. But not this time. The whole movie is a mess, and even though Cosby has disowned it, he cannot escape all the blame. I don't think so. In one scene, his twenty-year-old daughter brings home a sixty-six-year-old man that she wants to marry. Cosby is appalled; this guy is robbing the cradle! What does he do? He calls for a sandwich and a Coke. And then he holds the Coke bottle prominently next to his face for the rest of the scene. First it says "Coca-Cola", and then the next shot, it says "Coke", in case you missed the point. Who released this movie? Columbia. Who owns Columbia? Coca-Cola. What is Coca-Cola doing with this movie? They have a lot of products in this movie, Gene, that you can get a tie-in where you can get the product in connection with buying a ticket for the movie. I think that that is an all-time low: Bill Cosby, the richest man in show business, $67.5 million income last year, reduced to holding a Coca-Cola bottle next to his face in order to get a picture made at Columbia. He ought to be ashamed of himself.

  Gene Siskel - Host : ...Boy, you're upset. And you know, I am TOO!

  Roger Ebert - Host : [laughs] 

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, I am too, because this man can be funny.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yes.

  Gene Siskel - Host : All right, you said he's prostituted himself, I say he's, I say the fact is, he's disappointed his legions of fans.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yes. Yes.

  Gene Siskel - Host : There will be tons of people who will go to this movie, y'know, if they've seen him in "Uptown Saturday Night", or "Let's Do it Again" with Sidney Poitier, years ago, he WAS funny. Boy, if they go, will they feel ripped off. It'll be like, y'know, getting some Jell-o products that he sells and finding out there's nothing in the box. There's nothing in the can here!

  Roger Ebert - Host : That's right, Cosby owes it to himself. Everybody knows that when you do a weekly television series, you only have a little bit of time every year to make a movie.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : You can make about, it's like Tom Selleck's got the same problem, he can make about one movie a year. But the plus is, you've got nine months to have you and your agents look for the right script. If THIS is the script they found, they ought to start making a movie every OTHER year.

  Gene Siskel - Host : [chuckles]  Or every leap year.

• Gene Siskel - Host : [reviewing "Eddie Murphy Raw"]  He's foul, but very funny, talking in brutally honest comedic terms about sex and marriage. The concert tails off at the end somewhat with a tired bit about how badly white people dance; most of us know that, but more often than not- at least us two- more often than not, Eddie Murphy lives up to the concert film standards set by the man he calls his idol, Richard Pryor, and that is high praise indeed. I really liked "Eddie Murphy Raw", and I knew that I would. He should release, I think, a concert film every year. The parts that are written for him, by and large, with the exception of "48 Hours", really haven't been that good.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Gene, I don't think this film deserves comparison to Richard Pryor in any way, because what Richard Pryor has is insight and sympathy with the humanity of the people that he's making fun of, and that's the one thing that's lacking in this concert film by Eddie Murphy. It's an extremely juvenile film; the humor is extremely callow. You talk about the attack on Johnny Carson's wife. I don't believe anybody can get away with talking about blacks the way Eddie Murphy talks about women in this film. On the basis of what he says in this film, and the way he uses the key four letter word as a club, this movie HATES and despises and puts down and rejects women, and sees them ONLY in terms of their sexual functions.

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, not at all.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yes, it does.

  Gene Siskel - Host : No no, let me answer. Let me answer. Because the film comes around and goes right back and throws it back at men. Yes, it is more loaded against women than it is against men, but Roger, where is your sense of humor?

  Roger Ebert - Host : It doesn't...

  Gene Siskel - Host : The man is on-

  [crosstalk] 

  Roger Ebert - Host : He sees everybody in terms of what takes place right between their belt and their knees.

  Gene Siskel - Host : That's a joke.

  Roger Ebert - Host : That's the only part of the human being that he's interested in.

  Gene Siskel - Host : He's making a joke.

  Roger Ebert - Host : He doesn't have any interest at all in their personalities, in their problems, in their humanity...

  Gene Siskel - Host : One of their problems is...

  Roger Ebert - Host : This is BATHROOM HUMOR, Gene! Bathroom humor!

  Gene Siskel - Host : And it's very funny.

  Roger Ebert - Host : It's not that- if you think it's funny, then maybe you need to grow up along with Eddie Murphy!

  Gene Siskel - Host : [sarcastic]  Oh Roger, that's right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : You can BOTH go to Richard Pryor and learn how to be mature.

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, let me tell you: It is very, very funny. Oddly, people who haven't seen this film are gonna agree: "Gee, Roger's right, it should be clean. It should be clean." You've really played to the audience.

  Roger Ebert - Host : No no no, I'm not saying it should be clean. I'm not playing to the audience, I'm not saying it should be clean, I have nothing against four letter language. I love it when Richard Pryor uses it; Richard Pryor uses it as poetry, Eddie Murphy uses it as a bludgeon.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Okay, I disagree with you. I think Richard Pryor is a genius, I think Eddie Murphy is getting there.