Rush/Naked Lunch/The Prince of Tides/Fried Green Tomatoes/Madame Bovary

Roger Ebert - Host: [reviewing "Naked Lunch"] Y'know... in a long time of reviewing movies, I've rarely seen a movie that leaves me more at a loss for words.

Gene Siskel - Host: Well, I had that reaction.

Roger Ebert - Host: I admire what Cronenberg and Weller and Davis have done here.

Gene Siskel - Host: Right.

Roger Ebert - Host: It's a very good job. It is a brilliant job. It is one of the most unpleasant movies I've ever seen. And I hated most of it. I, I was, I was repelled by William Burroughs, this low-talking, uh, guy with a monotone who tries to kind of keep a straight face while he realizes that he's totally hallucinating on everything in his life. Even his wife re-appears to him. I hated, as you so delicately put it, the talking bug buttocks. This was my... favorite image of the year. There are many other images in this movie that are so unsavory, so disgusting, and so vile, so... deliberately so, I'm at a loss. I can't deny the artistry and talent of the movie, and I can't say that I liked it at all.

Gene Siskel - Host: Okay, well let me push you, though.

Roger Ebert - Host: Pushed away by it.

Gene Siskel - Host: But that's the same review you gave to "The Last Boy Scout", and you gave that thumbs up. So what are you giving this?

Roger Ebert - Host: It's a LOT of difference. We could do a whole show on the difference between these two films.

Gene Siskel - Host: No...

Roger Ebert - Host: I guess I have to vote thumbs down, but at the same time with a footnote, that I admired what he did... and I hate it.

Gene Siskel - Host: [chuckles] Okay, strange.