Name: Siskel & Ebert Collection on Letterman, Part 2 of 6: 1990-91
Uploaded: 2019-07-22T22:29:12.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Siskel & Ebert Collection on Letterman, Part 2 of 6: 1990-91' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Siskel & Ebert Collection on Letterman, Part 2 of 6: 1990-91' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-22. Transcript available.

Siskel & Ebert Collection on Letterman, Part 2 of 6: 1990-91

Our first guests are authors, critics, so it's Roger and Gene is who this is.
I recognized them from the introduction.
What's the matter with me?
They're a host of their weekly...
Yeah, that's Roger right there.
There they are.
Just come on up, come on up.
Roger are.
Thank you.
Gene, nice to see you.
Do you want to call your jewelry?
It happens all the time.
More people call me Siskel than call me Ebert.
And he claims that no one ever calls him Ebert.
Really?
Now, how did it get to be Siskel and Ebert?
Now, you're Ebert, you're Siskel, but how did it get to be?
A coin flip, a coin flip.
Uh-huh.
And then you were going to alternate it after the first year, right?
Well, what happened there?
It was a little more complicated than a simple coin flip.
Uh-huh.
Intelligence?
In those days, you see, we were on a different show.
Yeah.
This was the old PBS show?
No, it was a Tribune entertainment show.
It was supposed to be Siskel and Ebert for the first two years.
Right.
And Ebert and Siskel for the next two years.
And when we went out to shoot the marquee on the movie theater, they didn't
have time to change the names to get an extra shot.
There you go.
And so they said, we'll do it in another two years, you see.
Yeah.
And they never did.
And so then when we went to our current show, everybody said, well, everybody
knows it's Siskel and Ebert, so...
Exactly.
They can't get used to it being Ebert and Siskel.
No, I wouldn't think so.
But nobody's upset about it.
Well, no, nobody's upset.
You would rather be...
I understand.
And I'm older.
E comes before S in the alphabet.
I'm the only one of the two of us that has ever won the Pulitzer Prize, that's
for sure.
Oh, very nice.
Now, besides...
And you're obviously quite popular with the audience.
Pretty funny.
Besides, simple fairness.
It was pretty funny, wasn't it?
I mean, simple fairness.
I think Dave asked you a question.
He said, pretty funny, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I forgot.
What was pretty funny?
When you guys left Chicago today, there was a big snowstorm, is that right?
Yeah.
Ten inches of snow?
Something like that, yeah.
And was the blizzard continuing as you climbed out?
It had more or less stopped.
Yeah.
And we finally got out.
Well, good.
I really appreciate you being here.
Let's talk about the big Academy Awards.
You want to do that?
Sure.
They were announced yesterday.
Yesterday morning, yes.
And I just, you know, I was worried that they would snub Barbara Streisand.
But best picture of the year.
Let's talk about these.
Did you guys see all of these?
Born on the Fourth of July?
Yes.
Dead Poets Society?
Yes.
Driving Miss Daisy?
Yes.
Field of Dreams?
Yes.
My Left Foot?
Yes, Officer.
I've seen two of these.
Which two have you seen?
I've seen Dead Poets Society and Field of Dreams.
Both on airplanes, by the way.
You know, that's no way to see a movie.
You can't see a movie on an airplane.
I mean, people are standing up and you can't hear anything.
But you can't get to L.A. sitting in a theater.
Well, so far the scorecard is two of us have been funny.
Do you ever go to the movie, like have you seen any of these movies at all?
Yeah, I've seen some of them.
Yeah, I've seen some of them.
You interview all these people on your show.
I mean, what do you talk to them about?
Well, of course, when they're here, I say that I've seen the film.
Yeah.
The last picture I actually saw in a theater was Jaws.
The original Jaws.
The original Jaws.
The summer of '75.
I enjoyed it.
15 years ago.
All right, what do you guys like here on the best picture of the year thing?
Well, I'll tell you, the one that I think is the best would be my left foot.
My left foot.
Now, this is a British film, I understand, right?
Yeah, very good.
No, I don't have to consult my notes.
These are my notes.
These are Swami Astaro's notes, who was going to be on instead of us.
Tell you what you liked best?
If we didn't make it because of the blizzard in Chicago.
The gentleman has a local show here on a cable operation who predicts things,
and every year he has his own predictions.
And so I ripped off his predictions, and I thought that since I hadn't really
made up my mind on the list, I would just give his predictions.
You made up the mind of what you prefer?
All right, let's get to the point here.
What I prefer or what I predict?
Who do you like is the best picture?
He asked you which one you predicted, not which one you preferred.
Oh, Lord.
You guys know Meg at Simon & Schuster?
My left foot is going to win the Oscar for best picture.
I hope everybody heard that.
I thought you asked me which one did you like.
Best picture of the year.
Who do you think will win that?
Win?
See, that's what he asked, a prediction.
Okay.
Driving Miss Daisy.
Driving Miss Daisy.
And what are you in Oscar, I think?
He thinks it will probably be field of dreams.
This is numerology that he uses.
He's wrong.
And what do you think?
Dead wrong.
I think it will probably be born on the 4th of July.
Born on the 4th of July.
Before we go any farther, I forgot to ask you one thing.
Who is in this academy?
Are you guys members of the academy?
You know, it has this amazing name, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences.
And that great name makes you think as if they're people, you know, in gowns
with beakers of acid and all this, studying these things.
People have a couple of movie credits, basically.
They live in Orange County and they're rich.
How many people?
And they're white.
About 3,572?
4,700 and something.
But do they know anything about critically evaluating films and the work that
goes into them?
A lot of them have not seen the films that they're voting for.
Is that true or not?
Absolutely true.
Well, their taste is pretty middle class anyway.
They kind of vote for the film that they think they would probably like to see
from what they've heard about it.
So you're saying they're essentially...
Did that qualify?
Did he get in?
No.
You know, I have a head cold.
We'll do a commercial here and then more with Cisco LaViva.
You know, you guys are very, very popular.
That's nice, isn't it?
Yes.
How many films do you see a year?
250.
About 500.
Oh, come on.
I do.
I go to five or six film festivals.
You haven't been to a film festival in five years.
We covered that last time we were...
I probably saw more movies at the Cannes Film Festival last year than you have
seen since Thanksgiving.
That's not true.
Oh, it probably is.
How many did you see at the Cannes Film Festival?
How many have you seen since Thanksgiving?
If you wanted to see every one available, how many would that be?
It would probably be about 400.
Good, because you saw 500.
All right, let's see.
Real smart.
No.
In terms of movies that...
I have movies that are released commercially in this country every year.
You have no interest whatsoever in keeping up with things that are happening in
the rest of the world or in the avant-garde.
This is going to shock you, Raj.
They can actually ship the film into Chicago, believe it or not.
You're joking.
No kidding.
These things actually are transportable.
Oh, never mind.
Good lord.
Best actor.
Who we got here?
Tom Cruise will win.
Really?
Yeah.
What about Henry V here?
Kenneth Branagh?
Yeah.
No chance at all.
According to Swami Starra, Branagh is going to be the winner.
That's what I said.
No chance at all.
Tom Cruise.
I think Tom Cruise will be the winner.
Best supporting actor?
I think...
See, that's a tough one.
Danny Aiello.
I think so, too.
I think because people are ticked off that Do the Right Thing was not nominated
for Best Picture.
Yeah.
This is the way you can vote for Do the Right Thing.
Mark your ballot for Danny Aiello.
Yes.
He doesn't belong in that category, though, as a lead performance.
No, he's really a leading actor.
And Robin Williams doesn't belong in the top category.
He was more of a supporting actor.
He was really a supporting actor.
Yeah.
He didn't have nearly as many lines in Dead Poets as Danny Aiello had in Do the
Right Thing.
Or as Martin Landau is not a supporting actor.
If you ask anyone what that movie was about, they'll tell you it was about his
character.
It seemed to be the story of his life.
So to speak.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I saw that.
I enjoyed it.
Oh, so you have seen more then?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know what's the matter.
Where were you flying that day?
I don't know what's the matter with me.
I don't know.
Should we continue this or not?
I don't know.
Best Actress?
Isabella Adjani.
Pauline Collins.
Jessica Tandy.
Jessica Tandy.
Pauline Collins was very good on Dynasty.
She's got my vote.
Jessica Tandy.
You know, people vote about as seriously as you just did.
Is that right?
No, I've talked to a number of big stars who have given their ballots illegally
in terms
of the way they're handed out to their spouses.
Yeah, just let them go ahead and do it.
Or if somebody's popular on a studio lot, they'll be asked questions.
Who should I vote for?
You've seen all the pictures.
I haven't.
The shocking thing.
The shocking thing is that Roger and Me wasn't nominated for Best Documentary.
Yeah.
I mean, I could not believe that.
I could not believe that.
If that film was not nominated as a documentary, what were the nominees in the
category?
Well, they have a very good movie called For All Mankind, which is about the
last 20
years of space travel.
They have one about knitting the AIDS quilt.
They have one about a county that's been overtaken by crack.
They have one about the life of Adam Clayton Powell and one about the life of
Earl Warren,
the Supreme Court Justice.
So it does seem like it would have fit right in there.
Yeah, right.
The quality of the work was worthy of the nomination.
I think that the distinction there is it's more of an entertainment.
It's a comic documentary with a wildly obviously...
But it doesn't mean it was less work to do.
No.
What happens is they have this committee that selects the nominees for a
documentary.
Every other category is selected by the peer groups.
Actors nominate actors.
Directors nominate directors.
Why can't they let documentary filmmakers select the five best documentaries?
Instead of having these experts, this is the second year in a row that they've
completely blown
it.
Last year, they didn't nominate the Thin Blue Line.
So in two years, the Academy hasn't had a chance to vote on the only two
documentaries
that most people have even heard about.
Yeah.
So an inequity right there.
Yes.
Wouldn't you agree?
Sure.
What do I do?
Didn't I just agree?
I thought I had agreed.
I don't know.
Should we run through the rest of these categories or not?
How many pages of this nonsense?
Do you guys want to do this?
We have one more category left.
Best Supporting Actress.
Best Supporting Actress.
Angelica Huston, Brenda Fricker.
I think she's going to win.
Brenda?
Yes.
I think she's...
This is the way to vote...
I think it's her best work, frankly.
This is the way to vote for My Left Foot.
And I think she has a chance of winning.
She played the mother in My Left Foot.
Nurturing this guy with cerebral palsy.
Any...
What was the worst movie you guys saw this year?
I'll tell you one recently.
Loose Cannons.
Loose Cannons, yeah.
Really?
With Gene Hackman and Dan Eckler?
Yeah, exactly.
And so you have two big stars, but they're getting...
After Lethal Weapon and its successor and the success of those pictures,
$100 million hits, we're getting a lot of these dumb cop buddy pictures.
Buddy films, sure.
And they just point them in the direction of garbage cans to knock over.
The problem is they're having more and more troubles getting the cops to be
different,
you see, because the partners have to be different.
Well, we seem to be infatuated with the world of cops.
Look, kids.
It's Siskel and Ebert.
Roger, nice to see you.
Steve, thank you very much.
I don't know.
I'll be right back.
What are you doing this weekend?
I'm grooving this evening.
I'll be around the town.
What are you going to be doing?
Uh, as you know, twice a year I do this.
And this