Pretty Woman/Blind Fury/A Shock to the System/The Fourth War/Lambada

Gene Siskel - Host: [reviewing "Lambada"] This movie becomes an instant guilty pleasure for me, a film I'm almost embarrassed to admit held my attention. I'm ALMOST embarrassed, but not really, 'cause I'm prepared to defend it now against Roger's sure attack.

Roger Ebert - Host: You SHOULD be embarrassed, Gene, because first of all, this is NOT a good dance musical. It has very very few dance sequences in it, they're badly lit, badly photographed, badly choreographed.

Gene Siskel - Host: Right.

Roger Ebert - Host: And you're quite right: The camera is SO high...

Gene Siskel - Host: Right.

Roger Ebert - Host: ...On most of these people, that you cannot go to this movie and find out from it how the lambada is danced. I don't have a CLUE how to do the lambada from having seeing this movie. Then, we get to the story, which involves teaching poor kids how to find the cosine and use a protractor in order to line up their pool shots. This is like, I don't know if I wanna call this movie "Clean Dancing", instead of "Dirty Dancing", or it's like a remake of "Stand and Deliver". Who in the WORLD wants to go to a lambada movie that ends with a trigonometry bee? I mean, this movie, agh...

Gene Siskel - Host: Roger...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...The audience that I sat there and saw it with...

Gene Siskel - Host: Don't bring up...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...They were STUNNED. The last twenty, fifteen minutes...

Gene Siskel - Host: Wait a second...

Roger Ebert - Host: ...Of this movie consists of mathematical questions!

Gene Siskel - Host: I know. Wait a second...

Roger Ebert - Host: What does it have to do with ANYTHING?

Gene Siskel - Host: They were stunned. I was stunned. And I thought, you know, this picture... is obviously combining two wildly different things- first of all, I didn't even believe that they were in high school. When it says "high school" at the end- wait a second, I'm gonna cr- I'm criticizing it now. When they said "high school" at the end, I thought it was, I was shocked, I thought it was college!

Roger Ebert - Host: Well every high school student in this movie is played by an actor...

Gene Siskel - Host: Twenty-six.

Roger Ebert - Host: ...That looks like he's in his twenties, yes.

Gene Siskel - Host: Absolutely, and I liked that about it.

Roger Ebert - Host: WHY did you like that about it?

Gene Siskel - Host: Wait a second- I'm gonna tell you exactly why.

Roger Ebert - Host: I'm sure you will.

Gene Siskel - Host: Something that I said: The musical form... gets me.

Roger Ebert - Host: Where's the music? That's the, that's the key flaw in your argument.

Gene Siskel - Host: There's enough.

Roger Ebert - Host: "The musical form overcomes everything", there isn't enough music. And there isn't enough dancing.

Gene Siskel - Host: Can I ask you something? Were you bored by the picture, or were you captivated by the picture?

Roger Ebert - Host: I was stunned by the picture. I was stunned that anybody would make this picture. I was stunned by the fact that...

Gene Siskel - Host: There are parts of it that are so bad, and there are parts of it that are strong, and I do think you know a little bit how to do the dance: You just get close and work out.

Roger Ebert - Host: Gene, I knew that when I was seventeen years old. And this movie...

Gene Siskel - Host: Reminds you.

Roger Ebert - Host: ...Doesn't know as much as I knew when I was seventeen years old.

[to camera]

Roger Ebert - Host: Now let's recap the movies-

[back to Gene]

Roger Ebert - Host: About dancing OR about trigonometry.