The following program already in progress.
Now with more candy.
High school girls with their catty behavior toward classmates have often been compared to witches,
but the girls in our next movie, The Craft, may be the real thing.
That's the premise here, at least that's what their classmates think, as the new girl at school quickly learns.
Hey, whatever you do, stay away from them.
Why?
Well, you see the one on the right? She's a major slut.
I mean, I don't know if I'm experienced or anything, but...
the one in the middle, she's got these...
burn scars all over her body.
I haven't seen them, but friends of mine have.
Anyway, they're...
nah, they're mine.
What?
They're witches.
That's Robin Tunney as the new student who, it turns out, has powers of her own.
Ah!
Oh, wow!
Are you impressed?
I'm impressed!
They proceed to torture classmates and relatives,
but the only excitement in the craft is to wait for the witchcraft scenes.
Nothing else is the least bit interesting here,
and here is the girl's version of a beach party.
We invoked thee!
Murder!
Kill me!
I found sitting through the craft to be a depressing experience,
unhappy girls doing mean things,
and the weight between the special effects excruciating at times.
Thumbs down for me.
Thumbs down for me, too. I was disappointed in it.
I did feel that the girls, that there was a germ of an idea here.
Of course there was.
These four girls could have been made into more typical.
In other words, if this had been clueless plus black magic,
then you would have had a movie.
But unfortunately, they weren't interested in the clueless aspects,
even though these actresses are clearly capable of having given them anything like that that they wanted.
Instead, they're just going, they're shooting low,
they're going for the lowest comedy nominator,
the dumb plot, the dumb special effects, the dumb payoffs,
without any smart writing or any fun.
When we come back, I talk to Tom Hanks.
Tom takes from our upcoming primetime network special.
On sale now.
One of the greatest Disney classics is on video for the very first time.
Yeah.
Walt Disney's The Aristocats.
When you take three courageous cats,
two daredevil dogs,
and one conniving catnapper,
mix them all together and what do you get?
Trouble.
The wildest and funniest adventure ever.
This is outrageous.
Everybody wants to be a cat.
Bring this jazzy classic to your video collection.
Walt Disney's The Aristocats.
Available only for a limited time.
Chevy Astro.
The only truck tough enough to handle childhood.
Never again.
I'll never go back to hydrocortisone for my itching.
I switched to lanocaine.
New medical testing on itch nerves shows the direct action of lanocaine
relieves itching faster and keeps working better than maximum strength hydrocortisone.
Look, in the first crucial minute, lanocaine gave faster itch relief.
And the relief really lasts.
Over time, lanocaine kept working better.
Fast relief that lasts.
I like that.
Lanocaine not only relieves itching faster,
it keeps working better than maximum strength hydrocortisone.
It's a crisis situation.
Douglas Toyota, the Toyota warehouse inventory is overstocked.
The lots are overloaded.
Hundreds of vehicles will be sold regardless of profit.
Get a 96 Camry for $179 a month.
Yes, $179 a month for a 96 Camry.
Hey, I bought a car at half the price I expected.
We could have bought two at this price.
The overstock overload liquidation will end soon at Douglas Toyota, the Toyota warehouse.
If you wait, you will pay more.
To celebrate our 20th year on television,
Jean and I decided to do a special show interviewing four people
we think are right at the top of their professions.
Actors Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt, actress Meryl Streep,
and producer-director Steven Spielberg.
And these Cisco and Ebert interviews will run at 8 o'clock Eastern time,
7 Central, on May 15th on the CBS television network.
We talked for more than two hours apiece to our subject,
so there was a lot of good stuff that didn't make the final cut.
For example, this exchange with Tom Hanks.
But people would say, oh, I could be Tom Hanks.
Now, they couldn't.
But on the other hand, okay, now don't get this wrong,
there's an ordinary quality.
Yes, yes, yes.
I think there are two things that the movies do to us.
When we're sitting there watching them.
One is they make us aspire to glamorous, glamorousness.
There is glamour to it.
And that glamour can be something that's very glitzy
and something that's very Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,
but it can also be Al Pacino and Panic! and Needle Park.
There is something that can be incredibly glamorous about that.
That we know, I think, we can never go there,
we can never be there, we can never achieve that,
we would never fall to those expectations
and we would never achieve that.
We would never fall to those depths.
But even so, we're fascinated by it because it's just so glamorous.
The other aspect of going to the movies
is when we see ourselves up there on the screen
and we know that we're seeing ourselves.
And I think both of the experiences
give over to the same feeling of goodwill
when you walk out of the theater.
And here's a taste of Gene's interview with Brad Pitt,
who gave his first in-depth television interview.
Do you have the pictures that Nicholson had to work with?
Are they even being written? King of Marvin Gardens?
Easy Rider even?
I mean, is California your Easy Rider?
No, no, no way.
It doesn't move you emotionally,
it doesn't get you under the skin.
Pacino in Dogged Afternoon was under the skin.
Nicholson in Cougars Nest was under the skin.
And I don't think the emphasis for films, certainly,
as far as films would be as successful now is,
well, I can't say that, actually.
Actually, I can't say that.
I think they would be.
But, too, you've got to give them credit
because they took words on a page
and they filled everything in between, you know?
And a lesser man wouldn't have been able to do that.
I don't think I'd be able to do it yet.
Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, and Brad Pitt,
and that's just a sample of what to expect
in interviews there on May the 15th.
Now let's take another look at the movies
we reviewed on this week's show.
We split on the off-beat comedy The Paul Bearer
with David Schwimmer as a loser who learns to be a winner.
I enjoyed its charm and humor,
but Gene thought it was phony and contrived.
Two thumbs down, but somewhat affectionately on my part,
for Barb Wire with Pamela Anderson Lee
playing the Bogart role in a futuristic fantasy.
Two thumbs down for Last Dance with Sharon Stone on Death Row.
A split vote on the boxing satire The Great White Hype.
It starts out well, but loses its way,
but Gene admired its script and found it to be surprisingly good fun.
And finally, two more thumbs down for The Craft,
which might have made something of its teenage witches,
but settles instead for a meaningless plot
that loses all sorts of chances for satire.
So you liked The Great White Hype,
and I liked The Paul Bearer,
and basically it wasn't a great week.
I think that The Great White Hype on the list
is the most entertaining picture there.
That's it for this week.
Next week we'll be back with reviews of more new movies,
like Twister, the latest action thriller from the director of Speed.
That's next week, and until then, the balcony is closed.