Siskel & Ebert (1988) - Tucker, Vibes, Cocktail, Clean And Sober, Bagdad Cafe

In this episode, Siskel and Ebert review: Tucker, Vibes, Cocktail, Clean And Sober and Bagdad Cafe.

[@Xayjohns]

You know, it's crazy. When I think about what my favorite shows of all time are, as much as I love this show, I never thought of it as being one of my all-time favorite shows. But it absolutely is.

[@TheNameisPlissken1981]

I completely agree and until KZbin, I had forgotten just how much I missed these guys and this great show!

[@reneedennis2011]

​@@TheNameisPlissken1981I agree! I loved this series as a kid!

[@mowm88]

14:16 Roger was a recovering alcoholic so he knows what he's talking about with the Keaton Movie

[@creeg84]

Say what they want about Cocktail, but anytime I see it on TV, the remote drops. Total guilty pleasure.

[@ricardocantoral7672]

Clean and Sober was proof that Keaton was definitely not restricted to comic roles. Morgan Freeman was great in it as well.

[@markelijio6012]

Clean and Sober (1988) was great fun with Michael Keaton and Morgan Freeman. This was the first of two American pictures were produced and directed were directed by Emmy nominee Glenn Gordon Caron His second and final great American picture that came to an greater end was Disney's Picture Perfect (1997). Now he's doing lots of television with better skills as both creator/exec producer on Medium and Bull, two of television's long running programs for CBS Television Studios.

[@Hack_The_Planet_]

Happy to have these 2 back

[@gspendlove]

Apparently, Cocktail was supposed to be a weighty drama based on Heywood Gould's semiautobiographical novel about life as a bartender in New York City. Universal bought it, and kept telling Gould to rewrite the script because the lead character was an a-hole. Then they put it in turnaround, after which Disney bought it and gave Gould the same rigamarole. After that, Tom Cruise got involved, and he wanted the character younger and more idealistic, so Gould rewrote it again. And then they screened it for test audiences, who hated it. So they edited out some of the heavier stuff and did reshoots, where they had Tom and Bryan Brown throwing bottles around and added more footage of bikini babes. Kelly Lynch's character suffered the most severe of those cuts. They took out all of her frankly depressing backstory, giving Kelly just a few minutes of screen time. Both Bryan and Kelly were not very happy with the finished product. Nevertheless, it was pretty popular with audiences, becoming the 8th highest-grossing film of 1988 worldwide. But the critics hated it.

[@timreeves8937]

Yep, rewatching it now it is VERY apparent (with us knowing about such things now) that this was like two completely different stories. As Siskel said, the first half hour almost has nothing to do with the rest of the film. The love story angle was obviously tacked on, then took over the movie.

[@Sorcerers_Apprentice_11]

@@timreeves8937i like that it switches up though. It adds realism. Life is unpredictable.

[@edreid7872]

Cocktail... Silly movie, but I love it... Talk about a guilty pleasure..😂

[@janetremsing6988]

👍🙂😢I miss this show!

[@sergey_is_sergey]

Me too although Ebert loves spoiling movies by revealing twists and major plot points.

[@davidnelson6874]

I liked Clean And Sober. Highly recommended.

[@gheller2261]

I remember seeing it in the theater with a date and both of us fell asleep.

[@INFILTR8US]

@@gheller2261 It's cool bro, we can't all be born with good taste.

[@gmh471]

@@INFILTR8US You refer to liking Clean and Sober as proof of your good taste? Okeydokee.

[@gspendlove]

Clean and Sober's a masterpiece. It will resonate with anybody who's ever struggled with a drug and/or alcohol problem. The only people who wouldn't like it are idiots who aren't smart enough to understand it.

[@Wildcock23]

@@gspendlove Hardly a “masterpiece,”… it’s pretty good though.

[@cmleidi]

I think BAGDAD CAFE has a lot of energy, and it does use the location in an effective and beautiful way. I remember liking VIBES as a kid when it would show up on cable. I was less enamored of it when I saw it recently.

[@yournamehere6002]

CLEAN AND SOBER was a great film!

[@jessecoffey4737]

I think Siskel & Ebert's, for the time being, are the only surviving period television reviews of the film _Vibes,_ which, I seem to recall, had also gotten panned by Pat Collins of then-independent station WWOR-TV in Secaucus, N.J., and by Michael Medved of _Sneak Previews_ (Jeffery Lyons, Medved's co-host, thought more highly of it). Unfortunately, in one of the tape-over jobs I most regret, I think I recorded the latter two reviews over with a homemade _Three Stooges_ compilation back in 2010. I hope someone else has those other reviews I mentioned and posts them someday.

[@tomfrankiewicz4030]

Isn't funny or sad, or both that a television show about movie reviews is intellectually superior to almost anything on TV today

[@Xayjohns]

I feel an immediate sense of comfort whenever I start watching them. I was born in the 90s and I watched them whenever I could, and Ebert and Roeper as well.

[@HanzSygnal]

I liked Baghdad Café, great song in the film, but Ebert was right, what was that even about? ( I knew Siskel would hate it lol)

[@KristineMaitland]

That's easy. Bagdad Cafe is about growth, community and friendship. It was a film that was ahead of it's time and arguably too un-American. It was a film you could see being made in Europe or Australia. Love this film.

[@emanuellawton7942]

There was a CBS sitcom based on this movie starring Whoopi Goldberg.

[@Xayjohns]

What movie?

[@emanuellawton7942]

@@Xayjohns "Bagdad Cafe"

[@Xayjohns]

@@emanuellawton7942 Oh. Interesting.

[@erichauenstein5095]

Cocktail was a very good movie and Time went by when he got his bar she is fully at the end of her pregnancy sometimes they want All movies to win awards ( which it should have) but a very good movie and he only wanted to bed a Rich woman not for her to pay for everything 🤭🤪

[@moviola12]

Tucker is flawed but still good.

[@timreeves8937]

Tucker was a disappointment and their criticism is spot on. It really was too basic with a very pandering speech at the end with the "someday we will be buying other people's stuff" line which was way too on the nose and made up for the times. Bridges overplayed him as almost a salesman with loud talking and patter rather than a guy with a legit innovator with a love of cars. "Flash of Genius" made much later was a much better movie about a car guy with a great idea that gets screwed.

[@ElectrickSoundz]

🎉

[@DonPeyote420]

I got tricked into watching Vibes by that first scene Ebert was talking about and I agree with his review, the movie is pretty boring

[@danielcarrerasnieves7437]

No audio

[@Hack_The_Planet_]

It works for me just fine on my phone, maybe you were too early?

[@danielcarrerasnieves7437]

​@@Hack_The_Planet_ works now!

[@hungwilliam44]

enable your ears.

[@GuyWithTheThingOnTheTable]

Cocktail wouldn't have even made a good TV movie

[@timreeves8937]

Cocktail was a bad movie. It was incoherent and maybe Cruise's worst. The first half hour of the movie was clearly the "original idea" for the movie with Cruise's character all about being a high paid bartender under the tutelage of the supposedly wise older bartender where his advice is not good and the older guy actually made a mess of his life, where Cruise's character eventually sees that and learns from it. . But it is now obvious the studio and many people interfered with this and put on a completely separate plot with Shue's character, because the original idea was too dark and they wanted new movie star Cruise to have a hot girl love interest. This movie always stands out to me because it is like two completely different movies in one, mashed together.

[@Jbaxter85]

My reviews Tucker 👎🌟🌟 Vibes 👎🌟 Cocktail 👎🌟🌟 Clean & Sober 👍🌟🌟🌟 Bagdad Cafe 👍🌟🌟🌟

[@hungwilliam44]

They cover some thin gruel this episode but hey I'll take it. I don't buy the praise for Clean & Sober. I'm sure it's boring.

[@Xayjohns]

Why do you say that?

[@hungwilliam44]

@@Xayjohns Well, X, if that is your real name, I think they're so used to being disappointed by all the crappy movies they've seen and they don't want to be seen as negative all the time they sometimes heap praise on mediocre films like Funny Farm and Down & Out in Beverly Hills to name a few. Also, sobriety is boring. What a snooze yo.

[@Xayjohns]

@@hungwilliam44 Ok.

[@terryjackson324]

Clean is sober was Great great performance by Keaton.

[@alramone1]

@@hungwilliam44 I don't think S&E were cynical enough to give good reviews to mediocre movies just for their image. Michael Keaton was still an underrated actor at the time and I'm inclined to watch Clean & Sober after seeing their reviews. However, I do agree with you that sobriety in real life is indeed boring.