CBS Special: Siskel & Ebert Special, May 21 1990
Danny Devito, David Lynch, War of the Roses, Mel Gibson, Hamlet, Kathleen Turner, Jack Valenti, Body Heat, Jewel of the Nile, Prizzi’s Honor, Crimes of Passion, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry, White Hunter Black Heart.
Roger and Gene bring up the rating system again. They talk to director Zalman King who directed Wild Orchid. King showed where the film was edited to get an R rating. Roger seemed to put King at unease in suggesting the film was pornographic. Roger talks to Jack Valenti about ratings.
Some pretty cool Eastwood and Turner footage not seen anywhere else.
Jack Valenti was an idiot.
It seems like to me that Siskel and Elbert should be members and presidents of the ratings board rather Jack idioti because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about it, and as for the lawyers who they’re shouldn’t be two ratings they can just take their comments and shove it because they’re solution is not better either.
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It seems like Hamlet was strictly neutral for Gibson’s career. The film wasn’t a hit but he got decent reviews. His career trajectory didn’t change from it at all. He kept doing mainstream movies for a few years after that. Obviously his big career change would come when he proved himself as a director, first with a respectable debut with Man Without a Face, then with the incredible awards success of Braveheart and ultimately with the even more astonishing box office success of Passion of the Christ. With Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge, Gibson would complete directing five successful films that gave him his credibility as a serious filmmaker more than the Hamlet role did.