This week, Siskel and Ebert review, Batchelor Hugh Grant's life turned upside down in nine
months.
A little boy's life is transformed by the Indian in the cupboard.
And Steven Seagal fights terrorists on a runaway train in Under Siege II.
What?
My water broke.
Well, we'll get you another.
No, my water broke.
This water broke?
Yeah.
And Julianne Moore tried to deal with the idea of having a baby in nine months.
One of five new movies we'll review this week on Siskel and Ebert.
Also on this show, the sequel to Steven Seagal's hit Under Siege and the controversial new
drama Kids.
I'm Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Time.
And I'm Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune.
Our first film is nine months, and let's get to the Hugh Grant issue right away.
The problem is that because of his arrest for dallying with a hooker, you stare at him
in this picture as Hugh Grant, and not at the character he's playing.
Watch.
You'll do it yourself.
We'll let the scene play.
Here, he doesn't want to commit to his pregnant girlfriend, Julianne Moore, and you'll watch
him and you'll think, now why would a great-looking successful actor like this guy, in love with
one of the world's great beauties, risk it all to visit a $60 prostitute?
Do you think I planned this?
Because I'm as flipped out about this as you are, Samuel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I suppose I just thought that birth control had a little teeny element of actual control
about it.
Thought it was supposed to be foolproof.
Actually, the movie nine months only comes alive when Robin Williams pops up in a very
funny cameo as a Russian doctor who is handling his first human pregnancy.
I have a computer program here that I've written myself that will calculate your due date very
accurately.
Okay?
Fine.
When was the first day of your last menopause?
Period.
End of sentence.
Less appealing is Tom Arnold as an obnoxious hanger-on who is forever intruding into Hugh
Grant's and Julianne Moore's privacy.
So you're going to keep the car?
Yeah, yeah, it's fine now, thanks.
It costs a bit of money, but it's only three months old.
But it only seats two people.
It always did.
Yeah, right, but you're going to have a baby now.
You're going to need something bigger.
Yeah, you could never fit a car seat in there.
You don't even have a seatbelt.
No, he couldn't.
I don't even know where the trunk is.
Listen, stop down by the lot.
I'll make you a good deal.
The story of nine months is familiar.
It's based on a French comedy, and you know where it's going, right down to the sexes
of the babies that Julianne Moore and Joan Cusack are going to have.
A mixed review for me on nine months.
The other thing I didn't like, Roger, is that Tom Arnold gets really annoying.
I know he's supposed to be playing annoying guys, but he is annoying.
My review was negative.
I didn't like it either, but I disagree with everything you said about it.
I thought Tom Arnold and Joan Cusack were the best things in the movie.
I thought-
Joan Cusack's funny.
Robin Williams was distracting.
You talk about not being able to think about anything else.
I was always thinking that's Robin Williams.
He's doing that same old schtick.
It's not very funny this time.
It's not very well written, and I don't like it.
As for Hugh Grant, I bought the character.
I mean, okay, so he was on television.
With this scandal, people are on television all the time, all the time.
In other words, while you were watching the picture, you didn't think about the scandal
at all.
I dealt with it.
I dealt with it, and I didn't deal with it for the next 90 minutes.
I just disposed of it, and then that was it, and I'm looking at the movie.
The problem with the movie is the people in this movie are dumb.
Yes, that's true.
I mean, the plot is totally predictable.
The people who are in the movie are the only ones who don't know how it's going to turn
out, and so it was just boring for me to watch them sitting there spinning their wheels in
the service of this movie that didn't really care about them as people enough to make them
interesting enough for us to watch.
We've got Hugh Grant who can play intelligent characters.
In fact, most of his career he's played an intelligent character.
Here he's playing a dodo, and it really hurts the picture.
Okay, now to our next movie.
It's the story of a little boy who receives a birthday gift of a toy Indian, and it provides
him with a wild fantasy life as the Indian comes alive in a wonderful new movie called
The Indian in the Cupboard.
It's based on a best-selling novel.
The film features cutting-edge special effects, but more than that, it has a story with real
energy as the Indian and the boy begin to relate to each other.
Were you always this small?
I'm not small.
You are big.
I'm not big, you are so small.
The Indian, played by a Native American actor named Lightfoot, begins to trust the boy,
played by Hal Scardino, and theirs is a charming, but still tension-filled relationship.
I can find tools.
How about a horse?
I can make you a horse.
A horse?
To ride.
Air-cord walk.
There's a bonus in this story later on when a toy cowboy also gets the Cupboard treatment.
He's played by David Keith.
A friend with all the toys is played by Rishi Bhatt, and it's refreshing to see a minority
actor cast in this role.
Listen, I'm going to keep them here tonight.
I have this under control.
Will you bring them to school tomorrow?
School?
Everybody's so big.
They're good friends together in this picture.
The Indian in the Cupboard is anything but predictable, unlike the Hugh Grant film, and
even though it features a cowboy and an Indian conflict, I think it's going to have appeal
to more than just little boys.
The script was written by Melissa Matheson, who also wrote E.T., and she honors in both
films the intelligence of young people.
Thumbs up for me for the Indian and the Cupboard.
You know, I don't give thumbs up to this movie, and I'll tell you, I thought it was kind of
sad and kind of creepy.
I think that it will have a strange effect on children.
It's one thing to have E.T. in your bed.
I was just responding to that question when you interrupted me.
It's one thing when you have E.T. in your bedroom, who can kind of take care of himself
and is kind of bright, but these little two-inch human beings who have been ripped out of their
lives and placed in this situation with this child who seems like a god to them and then
his responsibility for them, there's something very odd about that.
It's kind of unsavory.
You can't get into the enjoyment of the fantasy because you keep thinking, you keep thinking
about the reality.
I'll tell you what kids are going to do.
They're not going to be frightened of this or whatever you think is going to happen to
them.
They're going to play this game in their own heads with their own little toys.
You watch.
Kids do because they pretend like their toys are real.
So why are they going to be frightened by this movie?
Another problem is that the story never really has any place to go.
I mean, this phony conflict and then the friendship between the Indian and the cowboy and the little
moments when they're almost discovered and then they aren't, it's very slow going in
the middle of the movie.
The more I thought about it, the more I thought, gee, you know, the fact that they're real
little people, that they're actually there, brings us into a dimension where it isn't
fantasy anymore and it just doesn't work.
Something coming alive that's inanimate isn't fantasy.
I think you're off base.
When we come back, Steven Seagal bowels terrorists for control of a train in Under Siege 2 Dark
Territory.
I'm not even a good cook, but there are some things I'm good at.
When I bite into a York Peppermint Patty, I get the sensation that I'm speed skating.
I clean ice.
And right behind me, I break the world record.
York Peppermint Patty, get the sensation.
When you walk in, you know that you're going to get something different.
People that are working there are also very helpful.
Like a little kid in a candy store, they have a little bit of everything.
I've been shopping Pier 1 before shopping Pier 1 was cool.
They've changed.
They're more contemporary.
I don't cook, but I do set a cute table, so I get all my dishes and napkins at Pier 1.
I like picture frames.
They come in different colors, and I'm into that.
There's probably something for every room of my house.
You want something to stand out, shop at Pier 1.
Don't miss Pier 1's hot clearance sale going on now.
Cookie Man, what's wrong?
It's these new fat-free Snapples chocolate truffle cookies.
When those ladies see this rich chocolatey cream, I'm finished.
Come on.
There's no way they're getting in here.
Hello, Cookie Man.
New fat-free Snapples chocolate truffle cookies.
McCadden's in Boulder sells trucks, lots of GMC trucks at low everyday prices, all under
one roof in Boulder.
Check out the new Yukon or the all-new Jimmy.
At McCadden's, you'll save on your new Suburban or the full line of pickup trucks and conversion
vans.
Buy or lease your next truck or van from the McCadden family of quality GM cars and GMC
trucks.
For 26 years, it's McCadden's.
McCadden's in Boulder.
I just think about a pint of ice cream and boom, there's a spoon in my mouth.
When that little pint calls, I answer on the first ring.
Hello.
And why not?
These are brand new healthy choice pints.
Yeah, pints loaded with the good stuff.
A chewy fudge, gooey caramel, cappuccino mocha fudge.
They're rich, creamy, only two grams of fat.
It's magic.
And it's all mine.
With new healthy choice pints, I eat what I like.
Time for the big spoon.
Steven Seagal puts in a lot of mileage running back and forth on top of that train and under
Siege Two, Dark Territory, the sequel to his very effective 1992 hit.
In that movie, terrorists hijacked a battleship to sell us nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
In this movie, terrorists hijack a train and use it as a base for their computers, which
control a satellite that can cause earthquakes.
The villains are led by a brilliant but warped computer scientist played by Eric Boghossian.
He issues a dire warning to the passengers.
Your safety is our primary concern.
However, if you try anything stupid, federal regulations require that I kill you.
It's Seagal almost alone against the bad guys in a cliffhanger that uses every cliche in
the action book.
His sidekick, played by Morris Chestnut, is a porter on the train who rises to the occasion
and turns into an action hero.
Now, here's an amazing scene.
When two trains crash head on, Seagal is able to outrun the crash running backwards through
the cars.
I am not quite completely convinced that this is possible.
There are a lot of logical questions you might want to ask about the plot of Under Siege
2.
For example, the terrorist demands a billion dollars to blow up Washington and most of
the eastern seaboard.
But after he does that, what would American dollars be worth anymore?
These are the kinds of questions you're not supposed to ask, however, and so I put my
logic on hold and I enjoyed the movie for what it is, a goofy but effective high-tech
action adventure with good pacing, good special effects.
It was mindless fun, but it was fun.
Exactly.
I really liked the first picture, and so I expected when they did the second one, and
I hadn't heard anything about it, and even Seagal was in the newspaper saying his breakup
with his girlfriend might have affected his performance.
What performance?
You know what?
He's actually, he's not charming, but he's just fine.
He just presides over it.
He's quiet.
He doesn't push himself.
He whispers a little.
There's a little sense of amusement and the special effects.
I looked at the credits on this picture.
These are some of the best guys in the business, and they give you three movies full of fun
in this film.
It's constantly going, and the finale is really exciting.
Once again, in this movie, I love the fact that all of these doomsday computers always
have a digital readout, so you can see like it's 13 minutes and 59 seconds.
I've never been able to figure out why that is that nobody can see the readout except
the camera, just like the lights on the satellite that blink in outer space, as if there's anybody
up there to see them blinking, but the questions like that just aren't relevant because you're
sitting there, you're having a good time, you know what it is, and you like it.
Real good time.
Fellini, Federico Fellini, you know this story, told me that one of the surest bets for being
entertaining in a movie is just showing a train in motion, and this picture has lots
of train scenes.
Fellini, God bless him.
I love this picture.
Okay, although it never really convinced me why they needed a train instead of, for example,
a truck.
Coming up next, Kids, which is already the most controversial movie of the summer, and
it hasn't even opened yet.
This week in Denver, over 730 people will spend over $15,000 on a new car, an ordinary
new car.
But 200 special people won't settle for something ordinary.
You'll get the hottest new car in Colorado, Camaro, and even with the added safety of
antilock brakes and dual airbags, your Colorado's Best Chevy Geodealers can put you in a new
Camaro for under $15,000.
Of course, you could stick with something ordinary, not.
See your nearest Colorado's Best Chevy Geodealer today.
Count on us.
At Colorado 7, that means lending a hand, getting involved in our community.
Colorado 7 does an amazing job, not just with the Red Cross, but with the community in general.
They really care about what's going on in the community and they want to help.
They are sincere about wanting to help and wanting to help get that story out.
Count on us.
More than just words, a commitment to help our community when it really counts.
They're helping make Denver just that much more special.
Colorado's sunny climate is a drawing card for everyone who loves outdoor activities.
Too much sun, however, can be hazardous.
In a follow-up to the free skin cancer screenings offered by Channel 7 and HealthONE, we discovered
that more than 10% of those screened showed signs of possible skin cancer and one-third
had conditions that required further attention.
Please take care.
Be sure to wear sunblock and get regular skin checkups.
HealthONE and Channel 7, looking out for your health.