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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.

-Roger Ebert

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I Begin To Feel

Roger Ebert

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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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

There's Nothing Like Impending Death To Rouse You From Existential Boredom.

Impending Death

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

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

Clouds Do Not Really Look Like Camels Or Sailing Ships Or Castles In The Sky. They Are Simply A Natural Process At Work. So Too, Perhaps, Are Our Lives.

Absolutists Frighten Me. During All The Endless Discussions On My Blog About Evolution, Intelligent Design, God, And The Afterworld, Numbering Altogether Thousands Of Comments, I Have Never Named My Beliefs, Although Readers Have Freely Informed Me That I Am An Atheist, And Agnostic, Or At The Very Least A Secular Humanist - Which I Am.

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.

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.

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.

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

Vegetarian Diet

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.

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

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

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.

All Good Art Is About Something Deeper Than It Admits.

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.

I Don't Think Bush Was Legitimately Elected President.

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

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.

It Does Seem True That A Lot Of People Will Do Anything, However Humiliating, For Fame.

People Read The Papers Not In The Hopes Of Learning Something New, But In The Expectation Of Being Told What They Already Know. This Is A Form Of Living Death. Its Apotheosis Is The Daily Poll In Usa Today, Which Informs Us What Percentage Of A Small Number Of Unscientifically Selected People Called A Toll Number To Vote On Questions That Cannot Possibly Be Responded To With A Yes Or No.

Learning Something New

What A Terrible Thing It Would Be To Be The Pope! What Unthinkable Responsibilities To Fall On Your Shoulders At An Advanced Age! No Privacy. No Seclusion. No Sin.

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.

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

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

There's Something Depressing About A Young Couple Helplessly In Love. Their State Is So Perfect, It Must Be Doomed. They Project Such Qualities On Their Lover That Only Disappointment Can Follow.

Pixar Is The First Studio That Is A Movie Star.

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.

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.

Friends Don't Let Jackasses Drink And Drive.

Drink And Drive

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.

3-d Is A Waste Of A Perfectly Good Dimension. Hollywood's Current Crazy Stampede Toward It Is Suicidal. It Adds Nothing Essential To The Moviegoing Experience. For Some, It Is An Annoying Distraction. For Others, It Creates Nausea And Headaches.

When I Write A Political Column For The Chicago Sun-times, When Liberals Disagree With Me, They Send In Long, Logical E-mails Explaining All My Errors. I Hardly Ever Get Well-reasoned Articles From The Right. People Just Tell Me To Shut Up. That's The Message: "shut Up. Don't Write Anymore About This. Who Do You Think You Are?"

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 Stopped Taking Notes On My Palm Pilot And Started Playing The Little Chess Game.

It's A Good Question, Because 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.

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.

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.

Because We Are Human, Because We Are Bound By Gravity And The Limitations Of Our Bodies, Because We Live In A World Where The News Is Often Bad And The Prospects Disturbing, There Is A Need For Another World Somewhere, A World Where Fred Astaire And Ginger Rogers Live.

Low Self Esteem Involves Imagining The Worst That Other People Can Think About You.

Rollerball Is An Incoherent Mess, A Jumble Of Footage In Search Of Plot, Meaning, Rhythm And Sense. There Are Bright Colors And Quick Movement On The Screen, Which We Can Watch As A Visual Pattern That, In Entertainment Value, Falls Somewhere Between A Kaleidoscope And A Lava Lamp.

From A Dramatic Viewpoint, There Are Few Professions That Grant Their Members Entry Into Other Lives, High Among Them Cops, Doctors, Clergymen, Journalists And Prostitutes. Perhaps That Explains Why They Figure In So Much Television And Cinema. Their Lives Are Lived In The Midst Of Human Drama.

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

When I Go To The Movies, One Of My Strongest Desires Is To Be Shown Something New. I Want To Go To New Places, Meet New People, Have New Experiences. When I See Hollywood Formulas Mindlessly Repeated, A Little Something Dies Inside Of Me: I Have Lost Two Hours To Boors Who Insist On Telling Me Stories I Have Heard Before.

New Experiences

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 Poor Mortals, But It Dreams To Us That We Can Fly.

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.

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

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.

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

Teenagers Used To Go To The Movies To See Adults Having Sex. Today Adults Go To The Movies To See Teenagers Having Sex.

Aren't You Getting Tired Of People Hating One Another? What Do They Think They Get Out Of It?

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.

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

And The Sexes Eyeing Each Other Uneasily, For Nothing Is Easier For A Teenager To Imagine Than Rejection.

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 Considers Not Only How We Relate To Others, But How We Relate To Our Ideas Of Others So That A Completely Phony, Non-human Replica Of A Dead Wife Can Inspire The Same Feelings That The Wife Herself Once Did. That Is A Peculiarity Of Humans: We Feel The Same Emotions For Our Ideas As We Do For The Real World, Which Is Why We Can Cry While Reading A Book, Or Fall In Love With Movie Stars. Our Idea Of Humanity Bewitches Us, While Humanity Itself Stays Safely Sealed Away Into Its Billions Of Separate Containers, Or "people.

Falling In Love

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 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

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

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

A Film Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

In The World Of Acting, Many Are Thin But Few Are Talented.

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.

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.

On This Ancient And Miraculous World, Where Such Beautiful Natural And Living Things Have Evolved, Something Has Gone Wrong When Life Itself Is Used As A Manufacturing Process.

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

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World.

It Is Not Enough For A Movie To Be Righteous. It Must Also Be Watchable.

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

This Sucks On So Many Levels." Dialogue From "jason X" Rare For A Movie To So Frankly Describe Itself. "jason X" Sucks On The Levels Of Storytelling, Character Development, Suspense, Special Effects, Originality, Punctuation, Neatness And Aptness Of Thought.

Families And Their Problems Go On And On, And They Aren't Solved, They're Dealt With.

There Are Few Lonelier Sights Than A Good Comedian Being Funny In A Movie That Doesn't Know What Funny Is.

A Remarkable Documentary That's Also One Of The Most Beautiful Nature Films I've Seen.

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.

Time Is What The Depressed And Panicked Lack.

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.

Jacques Tati Is The Great Philosophical Tinkerer Of Comedy, Taking Meticulous Care To Arrange His Films So That They Unfold In A Series Of Revelations And Effortless Delights.

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.

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

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.'

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.

If You Have To Ask What It Symbolizes, It Didn't.

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.

We Are Born Into A Box Of Time And Space. We Use Words And Communication To Break Out Of It And To Reach Out To Others.

No Movie Featuring Either Harry Dean Stanton Or M. Emmet Walsh In A Supporting Role Can Be Altogether Bad.

Supporting Roles

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.

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.

A Corner Is Important. It Provides Privacy And An Anchor And Lets You Exist Independently Of The Room.

Life's Missed Opportunities, At The End, May Seem More Poignant To Us Than Those We Embraced — Because In Our Imagination They Have A Perfection That Reality Can Never Rival.

The Genius Is Not In How Much Stanley Kubrick Does In “2001: A Space Odyssey,'' But In How Little. This Is The Work Of An Artist So Sublimely Confident That He Doesn't Include A Single Shot Simply To Keep Our Attention. He Reduces Each Scene To Its Essence, And Leaves It On Screen Long Enough For Us To Contemplate It, To Inhabit It In Our Imaginations. Alone Among Science-fiction Movies, “2001'' Is Not Concerned With Thrilling Us, But With Inspiring Our Awe.

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World... I Didn't Always Know This And Am Happy I Lived Long Enough To Find It Out.

We Live In A Box Of Space And Time. Movies Are Windows In Its Walls.

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.

Dogs Remember Every Favor You Ever Do For Them And Store Those Events In A Memory Bank Titled Why My Human Is A God.

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.

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

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.

Who Was The Real Hitchcock? I Interviewed Him Once And Haven't A Clue.

Art Is The Closest We Can Come To Understanding How A Stranger Really Feels.

I've Been Around A Long Time, And Young Men, If There Is One Thing I Know, It Is That The Only Way To Kiss A Girl For The First Time Is To Look Like You Want To And Intend Do, And Move In Fast Enough To Seem Eager But Slow Enough To Give Her A Chance To Say "so Anyway ..." And Look Up As If She's Trying To Remember Your Name.

Now I See That All Relationships Are Virtual, Even Those That Take Place In Person. Whether We Use Our Bodies Or A Keyboard, It All Comes Down To Two Minds Crying Out From Their Solitude.

Nicholas Sparks Recently Went On Record As Saying He Is A Greater Novelist Than Cormac Mccarthy. This Is True In The Same Sense That I Am A Better Novelist Than William Shakespeare.

As I Swim Through The Summer Tide Of Vulgarity, I Find That's What I'm Looking For: Movies That At Least Feel Affection For Their Characters. Raunchy Is Ok. Cruel Is Not.

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.

To Say That George Lucas Cannot Write A Love Scene Is An Understatement; Greeting Cards Have Expressed More Passion.

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.

I Like Smart Movies About Smart People, And Enjoy It When Most Of The Facts Are On The Table And We Can Contemplate Them Together.

Start. Don’t Look Back. If At The End It Doesn’t Meet Your Hopes, Start Again. Now You Know More About Your Hopes.

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.

It's Strange: We Leave The Movie Having Enjoyed Its Conclusion So Much That We Almost Forgot Our Earlier Reservations. But They Were There, And They Were Real.

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

That's What Fantasies Are For, To Help Us Imagine That Things Are Better Than They Are.

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

Things You Can Control

It's Funny That There Was So Much Disturbance About Having A Catholic In The White House With Kennedy, And When We Finally Get A Religion In The White House That's Causing A Lot Of Conflicts, And Concerns, And Disturbances For A Lot Of People, It's In The Bush Administration.

If You Find An Occupation You Love And Spend Your Entire Life Working At It, Is That Enough?

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

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

It Goes To Show You How We In The Press So Often Miss The Big Stories That Are Right Under Our Noses. There Is A Famous Journalistic Legend About The Time A Young Reporter Covered The Johnstown Flood Of 1889. The Kid Wrote: God Sat On A Hillside Overlooking Johnstown Today And Looked At The Destruction He Had Wrought. His Editor Cabled Back: Forget Flood. Interview God.

A Depressing Number Of People Seem To Process Everything Literally. They Are To Wit As A Blind Man Is To A Forest, Able To Find Every Tree, But Each One Coming As A Surprise.

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

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.

Because We Can Engineer Genetics, Because We Can Telecast Real Lives-of Course We Must, Right? But Are These Good Things To Do? The Irony Is, The People Who Will Finally Answer That Question Will Be The Very Ones Produced By The Process.

What In The World Is A Leave Of Presence? It Means I Am Not Going Away.

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

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

Library Research

Matthew Mcconaughey And Kate Hudson Star. I Neglected To Mention That, Maybe Because I Was Trying To Place Them In This Review's Version Of The Witness Protection Program. If I Were Taken Off The Movie Beat And Assigned To Cover The Interior Design Of Bowling Alleys, I Would Have Some Idea Of How They Must Have Felt As They Made This Film.

Of All The Purposes Of Education, I Think The Most Useful Is This: It Prepares You To Keep Yourself Entertained. It Gives You A Better Chance Of An Interesting Job.

You Can Have A Movie With Hardly Any Cuts, Or Very Few Cuts, That Is Fascinating, You Can't Take Your Eyes Away From It... Look At Some Of The Long Takes In Citizen Kane.

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.

[marlon] Brando Was The Only Guy Who Could Step Out Of That Shadow At The End Of That Movie And Be Worth The Wait.

Many Thrillers Follow Such Reliable Formulas That You Can Look At What's Happening And Guess How Much Longer A Film Has To Run.

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.

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.

Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

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.

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

We Feel The Same Emotions For Our Ideas As We Do For The Real World, Which Is Why We Can Cry While Reading A Book, Or Fall In Love With Movie Stars.

Falling In Love

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.

Lebanon Was At One Time Known As A Nation That Rose Above Sectarian Hatred; Beirut Was Known As The Paris Of The Middle East. All Of That Was Blown Apart By Senseless Religious Wars, Financed And Exploited In Part By Those Who Sought Power And Wealth. If Women Had Been In Charge, Would They Have Been More Sensible? It's A Theory.

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

Samurai Films, Like Westerns, Need Not Be Familiar Genre Stories. They Can Expand To Contain Stories Of Ethical Challenges And Human Tragedy.

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.

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

It Often Strikes Me That The Actors In High School Movies Look Too Old.

Exhilarating. Radical Grace Moved Me To Tears With Its Portrayal Of Good People Putting Their Beliefs Into Action In Ways That Transcend All Ideological Boundaries.

The Academy Is Paranoid About Its Image.

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.

Here It Is At Last, The First 150-minute Trailer. Armageddon Is Cut Together Like Its Own Highlights. Take Almost Any 30 Seconds At Random, And You'd Have A Tv Ad. The Movie Is An Assault On The Eyes, The Ears, The Brain, Common Sense, And The Human Desire To Be Entertained. No Matter What They're Charging To Get In, It's Worth More To Get Out.

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

We Laugh, That We May Not Cry.

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

What Makes People Interesting Is The Spirit That Shines Through.

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

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

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.

Marlon Brando Is The Most Influential Movie Actor Of The Century.

Dear Bill (o'reilly)...i Am Concerned That You Have Been Losing Touch With Reality Recently. Did You Really Say You Are More Powerful Than Any Politician? That Reminds Me Of The Famous Story About Squeaky The Chicago Mouse. It Seems That Squeaky Was Floating On His Back Along The Chicago River One Day. Approaching The Michigan Avenue Lift Bridge, He Called Out: Raise The Bridge! I Have An Erection!

Mad Dog Time Is The First Movie I Have Seen That Does Not Improve On The Sight Of A Blank Screen Viewed For The Same Length Of Time. Oh, I've Seen Bad Movies Before. But They Usually Made Me Care About How Bad They Were. Watching Mad Dog Time Is Like Waiting For The Bus In A City Where You're Not Sure They Have A Bus Line.

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

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

Some Movies Run Off The Rails. This One Is Like The Train Crash In The Fugitive. I Watched It In Mounting Gloom, Realizing I Was Witnessing Something Historic, A Film That For Decades To Come Will Be The Punch Line Of Jokes About Bad Movies.

Reese Witherspoon Is As Cute As A Button On Raggedy Ann's Overalls, But Irresistible Raw Sex Appeal Is Not One Of Her Qualities.

We Live In A Box Of Space And Time. Movies Are Windows In Its Walls. They Allow Us To Enter Other Minds, Not Simply In The Sense Of Identifying With The Characters, Although That Is An Important Part Of It, But By Seeing The World As Another Person Sees It.

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.

'abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter' Is Without A Doubt The Best Film We Are Ever Likely To See On The Subject - Unless There Is A Sequel, Which Is Unlikely, Because At The End, The Lincolns Are On Their Way To The Theater.

My Newspaper Job … Is My Identity.

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.

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

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.

I Think We Have To Get Beyond The Idea That We Have To Categorize People.

Praise Without Merit Is More Harmful Than Unearned Criticism.

I Just Assume I'm Right. Partially Out Of Conviction And Partially As A Pose.

To Die Is One Thing. How Much Worse To Know That All The Life That Ever Existed On This Planet, And All It Ever Achieved, Was To Be Obliterated?

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.

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.

Gene [siskel] Often Mentioned Something François Truffaut Once Told Him: The Most Beautiful Sight In A Movie Theater Is To Walk Down To The Front, Turn Around, And Look At The Light From The Screen Reflected On The Upturned Faces Of The Members Of The Audience.

No Matter What They're Charging To Get In, It's Worth More To Get Out.

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 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.

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.

Someone Once Said The Fundamental Reason We Get Married Is Because Have A Universal Human Need For A Witness.

Class Is Often Invisible In America In The Movies, And Usually Not The Subject Of The Film.

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

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.

What I Believe Is That All Clear-minded People Should Remain Two Things Throughout Their Lifetimes: Curious And Teachable.

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.

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.

I Was Perfectly Content Before I Was Born, And I Think Of Death As The Same State.

The Muse Visits During The Process Of Creation, Not Before.

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.

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.

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

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?

At The End Of The Day, Some Authors Will Endure And Most, Including Some Very Good Ones, Will Not. Why Do I Think Reading Is Important? It Is Such An Effective Medium Between Mind And Mind. We Think Largely In Words. A Medium Made Only Of Words Doesn't Impose The Barrier Of Any Other Medium. It Is Naked And Unprotected Communication. That's How You Get Pregnant. May You Always Be So.

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