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Dice Rules Is One Of The Most Appalling Movies I Have Ever Seen. It Could Not Be More Damaging To The Career Of Andrew Dice Clay If It Had Been Made As A Documentary By Someone Who Hated Him. The Fact That Clay Apparently Thinks This Movie Is Worth Seeing Is Revealing And Sad, Indicating That He Not Only Lacks A Sense Of Humor, But Also Ordinary Human Decency.

-Roger Ebert

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Dice Rules Is One

Roger Ebert

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Dice Rules Is One Of The Most Appalling Movies I Have Ever Seen. It Could Not Be More Damaging To The Career Of Andrew Dice Clay If It Had Been Made As A Documentary By Someone Who Hated Him. The Fact That Clay Apparently Thinks This Movie Is Worth Seeing Is Revealing And Sad, Indicating That He Not Only Lacks A Sense Of Humor, But Also Ordinary Human Decency.

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Sometimes Two People Will Regard Each Other Over A Gulf Too Wide To Ever Be Bridged, And Know Immediately What Could Have Happened, And That It Never Will.

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

What's Sad About Not Eating Is The Experience, Whether At A Family Reunion Or At Midnight By Yourself In A Greasy Spoon Under The L Tracks. The Loss Of Dining, Not The Loss Of Food.

One Of The Most Sublime And Hazardous Moments In Human Experience Comes When Two People Lock Eyes And Realize That They Are Sexually Attracted To One Another. They May Not Act On The Knowledge.they May File It Away For Future Reference. They May Deny It. They May Never See Each Other Again. But The Moment Has Happened, And For An Instant All Other Considerations Are Insignificant.

Film Has Become A Marketed Commodity, And The Opportunities And Audiences For Art Cinema Have Grown Smaller. There Is A General Downturn In Cultural Literacy, Perhaps Because Of Television.

In These Days Of High-tech Video Games, It's Remarkable That Kids Once Got Incredibly Thrilled While Pushing Little Metal Racing Cars Around A Cardboard Track: The Toy Car Was Yours, And You Invested It With Importance And Enhanced It With Fantasy And Pitied It Because It Was Small, Like You Were. Such Games Were Weapons Against The Ennui Of Endless Saturdays.

Only Enormously Talented People Could Have Made Death To Smoochy . Those With Lesser Gifts Would Have Lacked The Nerve To Make A Film So Bad, So Miscalculated, So Lacking Any Connection With Any Possible Audience.

I Felt It Would To Add A Great Deal To My Legend For Eccentricity.

It Is Comforting To Think That We Can Love So Powerfully That Fate Itself Wheels And Turns At The Command Of Our Souls.

When I Am Writing My Problems Become Invisible And I Am The Same Person I Always Was. All Is Well. I Am As I Should Be.

Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

It Is Quite Possible For The Vulgar To Be Funny, But To Succeed, It Must Rise To A Certain Genius.

Praise Without Merit Is More Harmful Than Unearned Criticism.

No Movie Has Ever Been Able To Provide A Catharsis For The Holocaust, And I Suspect None Will Ever Be Able To Provide One For 9/11. Such Subjects Overwhelm Art.

No Good Movie Is Too Long And No Bad Movie Is Short Enough.

I'd Rather Be Called A N*gger Than A Slave.

It Is Reckless To Make Broad Generalizations About Any Group Of People.

What Every Human Being Should Do Is Eat A Vegetarian Diet Based On Whole Foods. Period.

Vegetarian Diet

Are Vampires Kinky? I Didn't Know.

We All Are Born With A Certain Package. We Are Who We Are: Where We Were Born, Who We Were Born As, How We Were Raised. We're Kind Of Stuck Inside That Person, And The Purpose Of Civilization And Growth Is To Be Able To Reach Out And Empathize A Little Bit With Other People. And For Me, The Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy. It Lets You Understand A Little Bit More About Different Hopes, Aspirations, Dreams And Fears. It Helps Us To Identify With The People Who Are Sharing This Journey With Us.

Nobody Looks Perfect. We Have To Find Peace With The Way We Look And Get On With Life.

Wes Anderson's Mind Must Be An Exciting Place For A Story Idea To Be Born. It Immediately Becomes More Than A Series Of Events And Is Transformed Into A World With Its Own Rules, In Which Everything Is Driven By Emotions And Desires As Convincing As They Are Magical.

There Are Often Lists Of The Great Living Male Movie Stars. How Often Do You See The Name Of Nicolas Cage? He Should Always Be Up There. He's Daring And Fearless In His Choice Of Roles, And Unafraid To Crawl Out On A Limb, Saw It Off And Remain Suspended In Air.

Vincent Gallo Has Put A Curse On My Colon And A Hex On My Prostate. He Called Me A 'fat Pig' In The New York Post And Told The New York Observer I Have 'the Physique Of A Slave-trader.' He Is Angry At Me Because I Said His 'the Brown Bunny' Was The Worst Movie In The History Of The Cannes Film Festival... It Is True That I Am Fat, But One Day I Will Be Thin, And He Will Still Be The Director Of 'the Brown Bunny.'

Cannes Film Festival

But Considering That I Walked In Expecting No Complexity At All, Let Alone The Visual Wonderments, "snow White And The Huntsman" Is A Considerable Experience.

To Make Others Less Happy Is A Crime. To Make Ourselves Unhappy Is Where All Crime Starts.

Here Is A Children's Film Made For The World We Should Live In, Rather Than The One We Occupy. A Film With No Villains. No Fight Scenes. No Evil Adults. No Fighting Between The Two Kids. No Scary Monsters. No Darkness Before The Dawn. A World That Is Benign. A World Where If You Meet A Strange Towering Creature In The Forest, You Curl Up On Its Tummy And Have A Nap.

It Is Universally Agreed That Jean Renoir Was One Of The Greatest Of All Directors, And He Was Also One Of The Warmest And Most Entertaining.

They're Not Trying To Prevent Hollywood From Making Movies. They're Asking That The Most Powerful Image-building Machinery In The World Stop Grinding Out Killer Dykes And Twisted Homo Sex Fiends As If Sexual Orientation Had Anything To Do With Criminal Behavior.

I Wear A Pedometer, A Little Device That Counts Every Step. It Works As A Goad, Because You Walk Additional Distances To Pile Up The Numbers. The Average Person Walks 2,000 To 3,000 Steps A Day. I Walk 10,000 Steps A Day. I Have Lost A Lot Of Weight As A Result.

Most Of Us Do Not Consciously Look At Movies.

There Are No Guarantees. But There Is Also Nothing To Fear. We Come From Oblivion When We Are Born. We Return To Oblivion When We Die. The Astonishing Thing Is This Period Of In-between.

Most People Choose Movies That Provide Exactly What They Expect, And Tell Them Things They Already Know. Others Are More Curious. We Are Put On This Planet Only Once, And To Limit Ourselves To The Familiar Is A Crime Against Our Minds.

If You Pay Attention To The Movies They Will Tell You What People Desire And Fear. Movies Are Hardly Ever About What They Seem To Be About. Look At A Movie That A Lot Of People Love, And You Will Find Something Profound, No Matter How Silly The Film May Be.

The Idea That A Book Can Advise A Woman How To Capture A Man Is Touchingly Naive. Books Advising Men How To Capture A Woman Are Far Less Common, Perhaps Because Few Men Are Willing To Admit To Such A Difficulty. For Both Sexes, I Recommend A Good Novel, Offering Scenarios You Might Learn From, If Only Because They Reflect A Lot Of Doubt.

The Problem With Being Sure That God Is On Your Side Is That You Can't Change Your Mind, Because God Sure Isn't Going To Change His.

It's The Same The World Over. A Hollywood Production Comes To Town, And The Locals All Turn Movie Crazy.

I Began To Realize That I Had Tended To Avoid Some People Because Of My Instant Conclusions About Who They Were And What They Would Have To Say. I Discovered That Everyone, Speaking Honestly And Openly, Had Important Things To Tell Me.

I Am Proudly A Liberal. I Am Also Patriotic, Reasonable, Pro-american, And Stand For Family Values.

Open-heart Surgery Is Now Part Of A Typical Life Experience For Many People. Folks Talk Casually About 'having A Stent Put In,' As If They Had Their Tires Rotated.

The Purpose Of Civilization And Growth Is To Be Able To Reach Out And Empathize With Other People... For Me, The Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy.

One Sign Of A Great Actor Is When He Can Be Alone By Himself On The Screen, Doing Almost Nothing, And Producing One Of A Film's Defining Moments.

Defining Moments

I'm Kind Of Glad The Web Is Sort Of Totally Anarchic. That's Fine With Me.

The Film Argues To The Young That The Old Were Young Once, Too, And Contain Within Them All That The Young Know, And More.

I Am Not A Believer, Not An Atheist, Not An Agnostic. I Am Still Awake At Night, Asking How? I Am More Content With The Question Than I Would Be With An Answer.

Yes, I Was Fat, But I Dealt With It By Simply Never Thinking About It. It Is Useful, When You Are Fat, To Have A Lot Of Other Things To Think About.

The Fact Is, Most People Are Not Going To Be Rich Someday. And We've Had A Concerted Policy Of Taking Money Away From The Poor And Giving It To The Rich Wholesale, And At The Same Time, We Have The Runaway Corporations, And The Greed.

James Cameron's Films Have Always Been Distinguished By Ground-breaking Technical Excellence.

Beguiled By George S. Bush's Easy Smile And Casual Indifference To The Details, We Are On The Brink Of Electing Him To Office. This Isn't Choosing A President, It's Casting The Lead In A Sitcom About The Presidency.

In The Vast Majority Of Movies, Everything Is Done For The Audience. We Are Cued To Laugh Or Cry, Be Frightened Or Relieved; Hitchcock Called The Movies A Machine For Causing Emotions In The Audience. Bresson (and Ozu) Take A Different Approach. They Regard, And Ask Us To Regard Along With Them, And To Arrive At Conclusions About Their Characters That Are Our Own. This Is The Cinema Of Empathy.

Films To The Degree That They Glorify Mindlessness And Short Attention Span They Are Bad, To The Degree That They Encourage Empathy With People Not Like Ourselves And Encourage Us To Think About Life, They Are Good.

A Few Actresses Have All But Set Up Shop As Women Of A Certain Age Who Attract Younger Lovers. I Think Of Susan Sarandon, Cameron Diaz And Isabelle Huppert.

I Begin To Feel Like I Was In The Last Generation Of Americans Who Took A Civics Class. I Begin To Feel Like Most Americans Don't Understand The First Amendment, Don't Understand The Idea Of Freedom Of Speech, And Don't Understand That It's The Responsibility Of The Citizen To Speak Out.

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

All I Require Of A Religion Is That It Be Tolerant Of Those Who Do Not Agree With It.

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When I Write, I Fall Into The Zone Many Writers, Painters, Musicians, Athletes, And Craftsmen Of All Sorts Seem To Share: In Doing Something I Enjoy And Am Expert At, Deliberate Thought Falls Aside And It Is All Just There. I Think Of The Next Word No More Than The Composer Thinks Of The Next Note.

There Are Two Things You Can't Argue In Film: Comedy And Eroticism. If Something Doesn't Make You Laugh, No One Can Tell You Why It's Funny, And It's Difficult To Reason Someone Out Of An Erection.

The Right Really Wants To Punish You For Having An Opinion. And I Think Both The Left And The Right Should Celebrate People Who Have Different Opinions, And Disagree With Them, And Argue With Them, And Differ With Them, But Don't Just Try To Shut Them Up.

Why Do Alcoholics Begin Down The Same Hazardous Road Day After Day? They Are In Search Of That Elusive Window Of Well-being That Opens When You Drink Your Way Out Of A Hangover And Aren't Yet Drunk All Over Again. The Alcoholic's Day Consists Of Trying To Keep That Window Open.

It's The Worst Kind Of Bad Film: The Kind That Gets You All Worked Up And Then Lets You Down, Instead Of Just Being Lousy From The First Shot.

I Am Utterly Bored By Celebrity Interviews. Most Celebrities Are Devoid Of Interest.

What You See Is So Much Less Than What You Get.

I Believe Empathy Is The Most Essential Quality Of Civilization.

People Never Think Of Themselves As Choosing To Be Politically Correct. They Simply Think In The Way That They Do.

We Think Of First Love As Sweet And Valuable, A Blessed If Hazardous Condition.

Friends Don't Let Jackasses Drink And Drive.

Drink And Drive

To Call "a Lot Like Love" Dead In The Water Is An Insult To Water.

We Can't Help Identifying With The Protagonist. It's Coded In Our Movie-going Dna.

You Slide Down In Your Seat And Make Yourself Comfortable. On The Screen In Front Of You, The Movie Image Appears—enormous And Overwhelming. If The Movie Is A Good One, You Allow Yourself To Be Absorbed In Its Fantasy, And Its Dreams Become Part Of Your Memories

If Hollywood Stars Speak Out, So Do All Sorts Of Other People. Now Hollywood Stars Can Get A Better Hearing.

One Difference Between Film Noir And More Straightforward Crime Pictures Is That Noir Is More Open To Human Flaws And Likes To Embed Them In Twisty Plot Lines.

Crowds Can Be Frightening. They Have A Way Of Impressing The Low, Base Taste Upon Their Members. Watching The Way Thousands Of People In His Audience Could Not Think For Themselves, Could Not Find The Courage To Allow Their Ordinary Feelings Of Decency And Taste To Prevail, I Understood Better How Demagogues Are Possible.

One Of The Weapons Marvel Used In Its Climb To Comic-book Dominance Was A Willingness To Invent New Characters At A Dizzying Speed. There Are So Many Marvel Universes, Indeed, That Some Superheroes Do Not Even Exist In One Another's Worlds, Preventing Gridlock.

I Believe That If, At The End, According To Our Abilities, We Have Done Something To Make Others A Little Happier, And Something To Make Ourselves A Little Happier, That Is About The Best We Can Do.

Of All The Arts, Movies Are The Most Powerful Aid To Empathy, And Good Ones Make Us Into Better People.

A Young Girl Is Possessed By A Devil, And Constantine Shouts, 'i Need A Mirror! Now! At Least Three Feet High!' He Can Capture The Demon In The Mirror And Throw It Out The Window, See, Although You Wonder Why Supernatural Beings Would Have Such Low-tech Security Holes.

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It Is All Very Well And Good For Linda Lovelace, The Star Of The Movie, To Advocate Sexual Freedom; But The Energy She Brings To Her Role Is Less Awesome Than Discouraging. If You Have To Work This Hard At Sexual Freedom, Maybe It Isn't Worth The Effort.

The Golden Thumb Is Not As Good As The Oscar, But It Is A Lot Of Fun.

Dr. Leonard Shlain, Chairman Of Laparoscopic Surgery At California Pacific Medical Center, Said They Took Some Four And Five Year-olds And Gave Them Video Games And Asked Them To Figure Out How To Play Them Without Instructions. Then They Watched Their Brain Activity With Real-time Monitors. At First, When They Were Figuring Out The Games, He Said, The Whole Brain Lit Up. But By The Time They Knew How To Play The Games, The Brain Went Dark, Except For One Little Point.

The Layout Was Griping, The Glide Is Awesome. Two Ten-inch Fins Up, Way Up.

If A Movie Is Really Working, You Forget For Two Hours Your Social Security Number And Where Your Car Is Parked. You Are Having A Vicarious Experience. You Are Identifying, In One Way Or Another, With The People On The Screen.

In Blue Crush , We Meet Three Hawaiian Surfers Who Work As Hotel Maids, Live In A Grotty Rental, And Are Raising The Kid Sister Of One Of Them. Despite This Near-poverty, They Look Great; There Is Nothing Like A Tan And A Bikini To Overcome Class Distinctions.

Anyone Who Reads Advice Books About Romance Has One Problem To Begin With: Bad Taste In Literature.

I Was Instructed Long Ago By A Wise Editor, "if You Understand Something You Can Explain It So That Almost Anyone Can Understand It. If You Don't, You Won't Be Able To Understand Your Own Explanation." That Is Why 90% Of Academic Film Theory Is Bullshit. Jargon Is The Last Refuge Of The Scoundrel.

Why Are Some People Bullied? Because They Are Different. How? It Doesn't Matter.

We Laugh, That We May Not Cry.

The Buried Code Of Many American Films Has Become: If I Kill You, I Have Won And You Have Lost. The Instinctive Ethical Code Of Traditional Hollywood, The Code By Which Characters Like James Stewart, John Wayne And Henry Fonda Lived, Has Been Lost.

There Is A Movie Called “fargo” Playing Right Now. It Is A Masterpiece. Go See It. If You, Under Any Circumstances, See “little Indian, Big City,” I Will Never Let You Read One Of My Reviews Again.

It Has Been Said That The Reason We Establish Relationships Is To Assure Ourselves Of A Witness To Our Lives.

I Had A Hard Time Watching "wolf Creek." It Is A Film With One Clear Purpose: To Establish The Commercial Credentials Of Its Director By Showing His Skill At Depicting The Brutal Tracking, Torture And Mutilation Of Screaming Young Women. When The Killer Severs The Spine Of One Of His Victims And Calls Her "a Head On A Stick," I Wanted To Walk Out Of The Theater And Keep On Walking.

Oh, Here Comes Mel Blanc, The Voice Of Bugs Bunny And Jimmy Smits!

Blockbusters Run The Mainstream Industry. We May Never Again Have A Decade Like The 1970s, When Directors Were Able To Find Such Freedom.

Nothing Could Be More Boring Than An Absolutely Accurate Movie About The Law.

Why Is It That English, Drama And Music Teachers Are Most Often Recalled As Our Mentors And Inspirations? Maybe Because Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

When A Girl Says She Likes You As A Friend, What She Means Is: "rather Than Have Sex With You, I Would Prefer To Lose You As A Friend."

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Never Marry Anyone You Could Not Sit Next To During A Three-day Bus Trip.

Movies That Encourage Empathy Are More Effective Than Those That Objectify Problems.

I Was Perfectly Content Before I Was Born, And I Think Of Death As The Same State. What I Am Grateful For Is The Gift Of Intelligence, And For Life, Love, Wonder, And Laughter. You Can't Say It Wasn't Interesting. My Lifetime's Memories Are What I Have Brought Home From The Trip.

The Children Of Birmingham Did Not Really Die In The State Of Alabama, However, Because Alabama Is A State Of Mind, And In The Minds Of The [white] Men Who Rule Alabama, Those Children Had Never Lived [...] Their Blood Is On So Many Hands, That History Will Weep In The Telling...and It Is Not New Blood. It Is Old, So Very Old.

Dice Rules Is One Of The Most Appalling Movies I Have Ever Seen. It Could Not Be More Damaging To The Career Of Andrew Dice Clay If It Had Been Made As A Documentary By Someone Who Hated Him. The Fact That Clay Apparently Thinks This Movie Is Worth Seeing Is Revealing And Sad, Indicating That He Not Only Lacks A Sense Of Humor, But Also Ordinary Human Decency.

Resentment Is Just A Way Of Letting Someone Else Use Your Mind Rent-free.

Show Me A Sexual Practice That Involves Ice Cubes And Hot Sauce, And I Will Show You A Sexual Practice That Would Be Improved Without Them.

A Lot Of First Novels Are Written Long Before They're Actually Put Down On Paper.

When We're Discussing Who To Invite To A Dinner Party, My Wife Chaz And I Sometimes Use The Shorthand, 'good Value For Money,' Which Indicates Guests Expected To Be Entertaining.

Of What Use Is Freedom Of Speech To Those Who Fear To Offend?

Freedom Of Speech

I Have No Fear Of Death. We All Die. I Consider My Remaining Days To Be Like Money In The Bank. When It Is All Gone, I Will Be Repossessed.

The Time In Between My Clapping Is Ma. If You Just Have Non-stop Action With No Breathing Space At All, It's Just Busyness, But If You Take A Moment, Then The Tension Building In The Film Can Grow Into A Wider Dimension. If You Just Have Constant Tension At 80 Degrees All The Time You Just Get Numb.

Breathing Space

When We Go To The Movies, We Identify With The Characters We See. That's Why We Go To The Movies; We Have A Voyeuristic Experience; We Have An Out Of The Body Experience. The Screen Is More Real Than Our Thoughts Are At The Moment We Are Looking At The Film And We Place Ourselves In The Place Of The People On The Screen, And When They Behave Nobly, It Makes Us Feel Noble, When They Are Sad And When They Have Lost Love, We Feel Sad; We Can Identify With That.

It's Rare To Find A Film That Goes For Broke And Says, 'to Hell With The Consequences.'

Movies Are Not About Moving, But About Whether To Move.

[d]oes The Real World Have Any More Substance Than Visions And Hallucinations When We're Having Them? At Any Given Moment, What's Happening In Our Minds Is All And Everything That Happens.

Time Is What The Depressed And Panicked Lack.

In Hollywood, 'under Development' Means 'all I Have Is The Title.'

It Amazes Me That Filmmakers Will Still Film, And Audiences Will Still Watch, Relationships So Bankrupt Of Human Feeling That The Characters Could Be Reading Dialogue Written By A Computer.

The Moment A Man Stops Dreaming Is The Moment He Petrifies Inside.

It's Not What A Movie Is About, It's How It Is About It.

All But A Very Few Of Us Are In Debt. We Exist As Entities Who Borrow Money And Spend The Rest Of Our Lives Making Interest Payments On A Debt Tally That Never Seems To Budge. Whatever Wealth We Have, In Labor, Property Or Cash, Is Suctioned To The Top.

It Is Human Nature To Look Away From Illness. We Don't Enjoy A Reminder Of Our Own Fragile Mortality.

It Is Hard Enough To Be Good At All, But To Be Good In Comedy Speaks For Your Character.

We Exist To Have Our Wealth Moved Up The Economic Chain Out Of Our Reach.

I Am, Beneath Everything Else, A Fan. I Was Fixed In This Mode As A Young Boy And Am Awed By People Who Take The Risks Of Performance.

A Movie Is Not About What It Is About. It Is About How It Is About It.

The Movie "ed Wood," About The Worst Director Of All Time, Was Made To Prepare Us For "stargate."

The Last Airbender Is An Agonizing Experience In Every Category I Can Think Of And Others Still Waiting To Be Invented.

It's Hard To Explain The Fun To Be Found In Seeing The Right Kind Of Bad Movie.

I Don't Think Bush Was Legitimately Elected President.

And I Think Both The Left And The Right Should Celebrate People Who Have Different Opinions, And Disagree With Them, And Argue With Them, And Differ With Them, But Don't Just Try To Shut Them Up.

I Am Informed That 5,000 Cockroaches Were Used In The Filming Of Joe's Apartment. That Depresses Me, But Not As Much As The News That None Of Them Were Harmed During The Production.

A Film Like Hoop Dreams Is What The Movies Are For. It Takes Us, Shakes Us, And Makes Us Think In New Ways About The World Around Us. It Gives Us The Impression Of Having Touched Life Itself.

You Can't Just Tell Actors, Especially Young Ones, To 'act Happy' And Expect Them To Do It. They Must In Some Essential Way Be Happy.

What We Have Here Is A Rousing Boy's Adventure Story, Adapted From Stories That Edgar Rice Burroughs Cranked Out For Early Pulp Magazines. They Lacked The Visceral Appeal Of His Tarzan Stories, Which Inspired An Estimated 89 Movies; Amazingly, This Is The First John Carter Movie, But It Is Intended To Foster A Franchise And Will Probably Succeed.

Immortals Is Without Doubt The Best-looking Awful Movie You Will Ever See. Eiko Ishioka's Costume Designs Alone Deserve An Oscar Nomination. "they Weren't At All Historically Accurate," Grumbled A Woman In The Elevator After The Sneak Preview, As If Lots Of Documentation Exists About The Wardrobes Of The Gods. She Added: "i Guess That's What We Deserve For Using Free Tickets We Got At A Blackhawks Game.

I Know Aliens From Other Worlds Are Required To Arrive In New Mexico, But Why Stay There?

Political Correctness Is The Fascism Of The 90's, It Is This Rigid Feeling That You Have To Keep Your Ideas And Your Way Of Looking At Things Within Very Narrow Boundaries Or Else You'll Offend Someone. Certainly One Of The Purposes Of Journalism Is To Challenge Just That Way Of Thinking, And Certainly One Of The Purposes Of Criticism Is To Break Boundaries, That's Also One Of The Purposes Of Art.

Parents And Schools Should Place Great Emphasis On The Idea That It Is All Right To Be Different. Racism And All The Other 'isms' Grow From Primitive Tribalism, The Instinctive Hostility Against Those Of Another Tribe, Race, Religion, Nationality, Class Or Whatever. You Are A Lucky Child If Your Parents Taught You To Accept Diversity.

I've Never Found Kicks To The Groin Particularly Funny, Although Recent Work In The Genre Of The Buddy Movie Suggests Audience Research Must Prove Me Wrong.

Why Has Scandinavia Been Producing Such Good Thrillers? Maybe Because Their Filmmakers Can't Afford Millions For Cgi And Must Rely On Cheaper Elements Like, You Know, Stories And Characters.

A Film Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

Clint, My Hero, Is Coming Across As Sad And Pathetic. He Didn't Need To Do This To Himself. It's Unworthy Of Him.

The Movie Cheerfully Offends All Civilized Notions Of Taste, Decorum, Manners And Hygiene... The Movie Is Vulgar? Vulgarity Is When We Don't Laugh. When We Laugh, It's Merely Human Nature.

In The World Of Bad Movies, 'death To Smoochy' Is A Towering Achievement.

If A Movie Isn't A Hit Right Out Of The Gate, They Drop It. Which Means That The Whole Mainstream Hollywood Product Has Been Skewed Toward Violence And Vulgar Teen Comedy.

A Lot Of People Just Go To Movies That Feed Into Their Preexisting And Not So Noble Needs And Desires: They Just Go To Action Pictures, And Things Like That. But If You Go To Foreign Films, If You Go To Documentaries, If You Go To Independent Films, If You Go To Good Films, You Will Become A Better Person Because You Will Understand Human Nature Better. Movies Record Human Nature In A Better Way Than Any Other Art Form, That's For Sure.

My Books Are A Subject Of Much Discussion. They Pour From Shelves Onto Tables, Chairs And The Floor, And Chaz Observes That I Haven't Read Many Of Them And I Never Will. You Just Never Know. One Day I May - Need Is The Word I Use - To Read Finnegans Wake, The Icelandic Sagas, Churchill's History Of The Second World War, The Complete Tintin In French, 47 Novels By Simenon, And By Love Possessed.

Fellini Was More In Love With Breasts Than Russ Meyer, More Wracked With Guilt Than Ingmar Bergman, More Of A Flamboyant Showman Than Busby Berkeley... Amarcord Seems Almost To Flow From The Camera, As Anecdotes Will Flow From One Who Has Told Them Often And Knows They Work. This Was The Last Of His Films Made For No Better Reason Than Fellini Wanted To Make It.

An Actress Should Never, Ever, Be Asked To Run Beside A Van In Red Disco Boots For More Than About Half A Block, And Then Only If Her Child Is Being Kidnapped.

The Screenplay Is So Well-written In A Scruffy, Fanzine Way That You Want To Rub Noses In It - The Noses Of Those Zombie Writers Who Take 'screenwriting' Classes That Teach Them The Formulas For 'hit Films.'

Much Has Been Written About Generation X And The Films About It. Clerks Is So Utterly Authentic That Its Heroes Have Never Heard Of Their Generation. When They Think Of "x," It's On The Way To The Video Store.

All I Know Is, It Is Better To Be The Whale Than The Squid.

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World. That Is True No Matter What Our Problems, Our Health, Our Circumstances. We Must Try.

Because I Don't Give The Studios Advanced Quotes Or An Advanced Look At My Reviews. I Think The Readers Deserve To Read My Reviews Before The Studios Do.

Skateboarding Is Forever, And Things Like College And Girls Only Ruin An Endlessly Savored Adolescence.

We Are Put On This Planet Only Once, And To Limit Ourselves To The Familiar Is A Crime Against Our Minds.

All Over The Web There Are Some Very Good Critics And It's Become For People Who Are Interested. It's Become A Very Good Way To Get To Reviews And Involve Yourself In Discussions.

A Truly Strong Woman Will Choose A Stong Man Who Disagrees With Her Over A Weak One Who Goes Along.

To Call It An Anticlimax Would Be An Insult Not Only To Climaxes But To Prefixes. It's A Crummy Secret, About One Step Up The Ladder Of Narrative Originality From It Was All A Dream. It's So Witless, In Fact, That When We Do Discover The Secret, We Want To Rewind The Film So We Don't Know The Secret Anymore. And Then Keep On Rewinding, And Rewinding, Until We're Back At The Beginning, And Can Get Up From Our Seats And Walk Backward Out Of The Theater And Go Down The Up Escalator And Watch The Money Spring From The Cash Register Into Our Pockets.

And Yet, Even So, There Is A Way To Find Happiness. That Is To Be Curious About All Of The Interlocking Events That Add Up To Our Lives. To Notice Connections. To Be Amused Or Perhaps Frightened By The Ways Things Work Out. If The Universe Is Indifferent, What A Consolation That We Are Not.

Battlefield Earth Is Like Taking A Bus Trip With Someone Who Has Needed A Bath For A Long Time. It's Not Merely Bad; It's Unpleasant In A Hostile Way.

If There's Anything I Hate More Than A Stupid Action Comedy, It's An Incompetent Stupid Action Comedy. It's Not So Bad It's Good. It's So Bad It's Nothing Else But Bad.

A Lot Of People Just Go To Movies That Feed Into Their Preexisting And Not So Noble Needs And Desires: They Just Go To Action Pictures, And Things Like That.

Here's How Much I Know About Hockey. Mike Royko And I Were In A Tiny Bar One Winter Night, And The Radio Kept Reporting Goals By The Blackhawks. I Mentioned How Frequently The Team Was Scoring. 'you're Listening To The Highlights,' Royko Observed.

Some Of These People Make My Skin Crawl.

People Send Me E-mails Saying, "you're A Movie Critic. You Don't Know Anything About Politics." Well, You Know What, I'm 60 Years Old, And I've Been Interested In Politics Since I Was On My Daddy's Knee. During The 1948 Election, We Were Praying For Truman. I Know A Lot About Politics.

An Honest Bookstore Would Post The Following Sign Above Its 'self-help' Section: 'for True Self-help, Please Visit Our Philosophy, Literature, History And Science Sections, Find Yourself A Good Book, Read It, And Think About It.

I Know It Is Coming, And I Do Not Fear It, Because I Believe There Is Nothing On The Other Side Of Death To Fear. I Hope To Be Spared As Much Pain As Possible On The Approach Path. I Was Perfectly Content Before I Was Born, And I Think Of Death As The Same State.

It Is An Interesting Law Of Romance That A Truly Strong Woman Will Choose A Strong Man Who Disagrees With Her Over A Weak One Who Goes Along. Strength Demands Intelligence, Intelligence Demands Stimulation, And Weakness Is Boring. It Is Better To Find A Partner You Can Contend With For A Lifetime Than One Who Accommodates You Because He Doesn't Really Care.

It's Like The High School Production Of Something You Saw At Steppenwolf, With The Most Gifted Students In Drama Class Playing The John Malkovich And Joan Allen Roles.

I Was Indeed A Snob, If You Agree With This Definition: 'a Person Who Believes That Their Tastes In A Particular Area Are Superior To Those Of Other People.' I Do Believe That. Not Superior To All Other People, But To Some, Most Probably Including Those Who Think Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen Is A Great Film. That Is Not Simply Ego On My Part. It Is A Faith That After Writing And Teaching About Films For More Than 40 Years, My Tastes Are More Evolved Than Those Of A Fanboy.

It's Not Often A Thriller Keeps Me Wound Up As Well As 'headhunters' Did. I Knew I Was Being Manipulated And Didn't Care. It Was A Pleasure To See How Well It Was Being Done.

I Remember When A Coke Came In A Six-ounce Bottle, And Delicious It Was. Now It Comes In Sizes So Big That I Question How The Human Bladder Can Deal With The Intake.

Doing Research On The Web Is Like Using A Library Assembled Piecemeal By Pack Rats And Vandalized Nightly.

Library Research

I Think We Have To Get Beyond The Idea That We Have To Categorize People. We Can Now Have Action Movies With Two Stars Where One Might Be African American And One Might Be Asian American. One Of Them Doesn't Have To Be White, And The Other One Doesn't Have To Be The Ethnic Sidekick. We're Way Over That. And I Think It's Happening In Society, Too.

"dirty Love" Wasn't Written And Directed, It Was Committed. Here Is A Film So Pitiful, It Doesn't Rise To The Level Of Badness. It Is Hopelessly Incompetent... I Am Not Certain That Anyone Involved Has Ever Seen A Movie, Or Knows What One Is.

In My Reviews, I Feel It's Good To Make It Clear That I'm Not Proposing Objective Truth, But Subjective Reactions; A Review Should Reflect The Immediate Experience.

Objective Truth

My Favorite Love Scenes In Movies Don't Involve Passion, They Involve Nobility Or Sacrifice.

Grave Of The Fireflies Is An Emotional Experience So Powerful That It Forces A Rethinking Of Animation... It Belongs On Any List Of The Greatest War Films Ever Made.

The Academy Is Paranoid About Its Image.

Many People Believe The Names Of In 'n Out And Steak 'n Shake Perfectly Describe The Contrast In Bedroom Techniques Between The Coast And The Heartland.

Sometimes Miraculous Films Come Into Being, Made By People You've Never Heard Of, Starring Unknown Faces, Blindsiding You With Creative Genius.

When I Go To A Great Movie, I Can Live Somebody Else's Life A Little Bit For A While. I Can Walk In Somebody Else's Shoes. I Can See What It Feels Like To Be A Member Of A Different Gender, A Different Race, A Different Economic Class, To Live In A Different Time, To Have A Different Belief.

I Find That When I Am Actually Writing, I Enter A Zone Of Concentration Too Small To Admit My Troubles.

Crouching Tiger Is Nevertheless A Gloriously Big Epic, Starring The Hong Kong Action Stars Chow Yun-fat And Michelle Yeoh In A Visionary Adventure Where The Characters Seem Set Free From The Force Of Gravity.

Life Is Made Up Of Challenges That Cannot Be Solved But Only Accepted.

It's Easier To Identify With Loss Than Love, Because We Have Had So Much More Experience Of It.

Improvisation Is A Weird Word Because We Often Think It Means That You Make Things Up Out Of Whole Cloth Right There On The Spot, And That's Rarely The Case In Acting. You Have To Know Who The Character Is, What The Situation Is And What Is Needed.

Growing Up, I Missed The Whole 'three Stooges' Thing. Either They Weren't On The Station In My Hometown, Or We Hadn't Bought A Tv Set Yet, Or They Came To Town Too Late For Me. I'm Pretty Sure That At The Right Age, I Would Have Loved Them.

I Believe That Young People Wearing Hoods, Unless They Are Very Young, Can Be Frightening. What Are They Hiding? Why Don't They Want To Come Out Into The Light With The Rest Of Us? They May Be Perfectly Nice, But The Hoods Send An Uncertain Statement.

Just Write, Get Better, Keep Writing, Keep Getting Better. It's The Only Thing You Can Control.

Things You Can Control

Catholic Theology Accounts For The Fact That There's Evil In The World. People Say, Well, How Could God Let This Happen. Well, What God Did Was Set The Mechanism In Motion And Then Allow People To Do The Best They Can Under The Circumstances That They're Dealt In Order To Gain Grace And Get Into Heaven.

There Must Be A Better Reason To Have A Baby Than To Provide A Plot Point In A Rom-com. Don't You Think?

I Do Not Fear Death. I Know It Is Coming, And I Do Not Fear It, Because I Believe There Is Nothing On The Other Side Of Death To Fear.

All Good Art Is About Something Deeper Than It Admits.

Jane Austen Wrote Six Of The Most Beloved Novels In The English Language, We Are Informed At The End Of Becoming Jane, And So She Did. The Key Word Is Beloved. Her Admirers Do Not Analyze Her Books So Much As They Just Plain Love Them To Pieces.

Sometimes, It's All About The Casting.

We Don't Have A Lot Of Class-conscious Filmmaking.

A Movie Isn't Good Or Bad Based On Its Politics. It's Usually Good Or Bad For Other Reasons, Though You Might Agree Or Disagree With Its Politics.

The Ability Of So Many People To Live Comfortably With The Idea Of Capital Punishment Is Perhaps A Clue To How So Many Europeans Were Able To Live With The Idea Of The Holocaust: Once You Accept The Notion That The State Has The Right To Kill Someone And The Right To Define What Is A Capital Crime, Aren't You Halfway There?

The Right Really Dominates Radio, And It's Amazing How Much Energy The Right Spends Telling Us That The Press Is Slanted To The Left When It Really Isn't. They Want To Shut Other People Up. They Really Don't Understand The First Amendment.

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Winston Churchill

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