Something Short of Paradise/Wise Blood/In Search of Historic Jesus/Woyzeck

Siskel and Ebert go into more detail about smaller films than they usually would, due to the fall lull right before the holiday movies are released.

First they review "Something Short of Paradise", an alleged romantic comedy that has seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth as they bemoan the proliferation of substandard Annie Hall clones. This film answers the question - Why didn't stand -p comedian David Steinberg have a more prolific acting career?, while not answering the question as to how actress Susan Sarandon's career withstood such a bad film.

Next they review "Wise Blood", which has been given the Criterion treatment on DVD. But at the time of its release Siskel and Ebert are just confused by the purpose of this film. I admit that protagonist Hazel Motes is an unlikeable guy whose motives are hard to understand, but I'd say it boils down to this - Motes has great disdain for people who are religious based on faith in things not proved. At the same time Motes is always going on about how he has "a good car" based on no fact at all. It is in fact a broken down jalopy. When it is proven to him that his car is a hunk of junk, Motes breaks down and has a crisis. Both of these reviewers seemed to have missed this connection completely.

Next they review "In Search of Historic Jesus". This was supposed to be a film that proves that Jesus is the son of God. Instead it just asks lots of questions while displaying cheap production values and padding the film with lots of footage from other productions. They also take issue with the filmmakers' deceptive ad campaign, which was something that was uncommon for them to do.

Finally Siskel and Ebert review "Woyzeck", a film by Herzog. They both liked this film because of its themes, cinematography, and Klaus Kinski's performance.

Rather than have a dog of the week, they bring out Spot wearing a mailbag. They are answering some letters written to them by viewers. They answer questions about how to see some of the smaller films they recommend and also talk about the "begrudging respect" they have for one another.

This is a rather unusual episode in that in the absence of any blockbusters they have to go over, Siskel and Ebert have a chance to demonstrate what made them unique. They had a real dislike for filmmakers that tried to exploit the audience, they enjoyed smaller and foreign films, and they admitted it when they just don't get an offbeat film when it would be easy to pretend that they did for the sake of looking intellectual. I miss these guys and their authenticity and sense of humor.