Rocky V, Child’s Play 2, Home Alone, The Nasty Girl, 1990
Happy Endings – The Last Detail, Pretty Woman, Garry Marshall, Casablanca
Home Video – Mystic Video
Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews
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17 thoughts on “Rocky V, Child’s Play 2, Home Alone, The Nasty Girl, 1990”
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Rocky V had a few effective moments and good ideas, but really, the series should have ended after IV, if you ask me.
Love the first three Child Play films, and don’t really get their pearl-clutching outrage here. But then again, my biggst point of contention with these guys were their misguided and rather puritanical hatred for most horror/slasher films. At least they softened their views a bit with time, but in the 80’s they gave Tipper Gore a run for her money when it came to being oh so offended.
Home Alone 1 and 2 are not masterpieces of filmmaking, but cozy christmas classics, and for Roger to thumb down the two first installments but voting yes on the unwatchable part 3 is truly bewildering.
Well, one film doesn’t have anything to do with the other. There have been times where he has not liked the original film but the sequel was better. Short Circuit and Spider Man are examples. And as to Roger’s star review of Home Alone, he gave it 2.5 stars.
Roger made it clear he liked the child actor in Home Alone 3 better than Culkin. This was a cute kid who seemed more innocent and wouldn’t fully understand the damage he is doing to the intruders. When Culkin attacks the crooks he seems more like a spoiled brat. Also, the first two Home Alones were too overproduced. Slapstick doesn’t work too well when it looks like it’s happening on a million-dollar set. The spontaneity isn’t there. Because Home Alone 3 was lower budget, the slapstick feels more small-scale, spontaneous and realistic. If a guy is going to slip on a banana peel, it’s funnier if it happens on a normal, everyday, average-looking sidewalk. Decorating up a beautiful set, photographing it with a big wide angle and putting a big flowery music score on it doesn’t make it funnier, it just distracts from the comedy.
I get why they didn’t like Home Alone 1 and 2. I’m still shocked that Roger gave 3 thumbs up after that. That’s probably the review I find most shocking.
Well, I’m no slasher movie fan at all. But I just regard Friday the 13th and all those other 1980-1981 horror flicks as just Halloween ripoffs, and nothing beyond that. I guess they did take it a step too far when they classified them as sick women-in-danger flicks (see 1980 PBS show).
I thought the Rocky series got silly starting with III, with IV getting really ridiculous, and V just plain awful.
Too bad neither Gene nor Roger saw Rocky Balboa, Creed, and Creed 2. Wonder what they would’ve thought? As for Home Alone, overrated crap. Didn’t waste my money seeing it in the theater and saw it on cable and didn’t care for it. I didn’t laugh at the slapstick at all and the whole business with the neighbor was taken out of To Kill a Mockingbird.
On rare occasion, a sequel is better than the original. Short Circuit 2 and Spider-Man 2 are good examples. So is Star Trek II. Some think Star Wars Episode V is better than IV. But Roger must’ve been the only person ever that thought Home Alone 3 is better than 1.
I don’t know what he was thinking when Roger wrote that review. I mean, he didn’t like the first movie for being “unrealistic”, then he didn’t like the second movie for it’s use of cartoon violence. Did Roger forget that HE said these things?
Their Home Alone review was definitely unpopular on Youtube. And naturally that page is full of S & E hate so I won’t bother commenting there. An avid S & E follower (sha11235) said he also didn’t care for the film and got savagely insulted for that. Have some civility, folks!
To their credit, they did take a second look at the film and its huge popularity a few weeks later and made reasonable assumptions on that.
I understand Gene not liking Pesci’s performance, since he just saw Joe a few weeks earlier as a scary, ruthless wiseguy in “Goodfellas”. Not sure about Roger’s objection to the movie not being realistic. It’s about a kid who was left home alone becoming smart and resilient. I don’t think reality matters here. Of course nothing made less sense than Roger’s “Home Alone 3” review!
I’ve criticized them before but I never wrote hate mail to them.
Wanna know something funny? Sha11235 on youtube is ME!!!!!!! I am not joking! Oh, you said I’m an avid Siskel and Ebert follower, but you may not have realized that I’m on here too as well as youtube and I have commented on this show there as well as many other clips.
Also, they talked about its success months later to analyze why it did so well. They did not change their opinions on it. I can see what they said as to why it did well. There were some factors that you can see on this website, since it is on here so I don’t need to list them.
I didn’t realize sha12345 was you. Well. just like S & E, you’re entitled to your opinion and you don’t have to change it just because it’s unpopular. Heck, I have a few unpopular opinions myself, such as over Lord of the Rings and American Beauty. Youtube is sadly full of trolls with no civility and no limit to their offensive insults toward people with differing viewpoints!
It’s 11235. Don’t worry about the mistake and how could you know that was me anyway? Yes, I’m entitled to my opinion.
And it was good that S & E took a second look at Home Alone a few weeks later and commented on its popularity and gave good reasons for that and how their viewpoints differ from the audiences’.
They decided to discuss the success of the film. Why not? By the way, Roger made an error with Breakfast Club. He said it was 4 kids in detention. No, it was five. And Roger did give the film 2.5 stars in the paper so it wasn’t that he thought it was terrible. Read his review at his website if you don’t have his Video Companion and you can see what he did praise about the film and what he didn’t like. He didn’t think it was the worst film of the whole year.
Home Alone has always sucked but now it’s become completely unwatchable since I saw that Michael Jackson documentary. All I can think of is creepy Micahel Jackson and that feminine Macauly Culkin frolicking around Neverland.
I get kind of confused when Roger says a film is well-made but morally objectionable but sometimes thumbs them up (Last Boy Scout) and sometimes down (Child’s Play 2).