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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.

-Roger Ebert

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I Was Perfectly Content

Roger Ebert

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

A Film Is A Terrible Thing To Waste.

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

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.

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

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

Sometimes, It's All About The Casting.

We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World.

One Of The Gifts One Movie Lover Can Give Another Is The Title Of A Wonderful Film They Have Not Yet Discovered

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.

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

I Don't Think Bush Was Legitimately Elected President.

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

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

Because Of The Rush Of Human Knowledge, Because Of The Digital Revolution, I Have A Voice, And I Do Not Need To Scream.

Digital Revolution

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

Are Vampires Kinky? I Didn't Know.

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.

"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.

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.

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?"

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.

What Makes People Interesting Is The Spirit That Shines Through.

Ridley Scott's 'prometheus' Is A Magnificent Science-fiction Film, All The More Intriguing Because It Raises Questions About The Origin Of Human Life And Doesn't Have The Answers.

Raises Questions

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

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.

If You Plan To Miss This Movie, Better Miss It Quickly; I Doubt If It'll Be Around To Miss For Long.

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.

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

Kindness’ Covers All Of My Political Beliefs.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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."

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.

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

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

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.

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

Vegetarian Diet

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

I've Been Told That I Am Evil. I've Been Told That I Am Behind The Persecution Of Millions Of Americans. That I Have Encouraged Hate Toward Gays. I've Received Both Very Brief And Obscene Messages, And Very Long And Literate Messages That Tell Me A Vote For Crash Was Vote For Homophobia.

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

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.

Your Intellect May Be Confused, But Your Emotions Will Never Lie To You.

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.

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

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.

If There Is Such A Thing As A Lock On An Oscar Nomination, ... Hoffman Has One.

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.

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?

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

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.

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

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.

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.

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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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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.

I Value The Kind Of Prayer When You Stand At The Edge Of The Sea, Or Beneath A Tree, Or Smell A Flower, Or Love Someone, Or Do A Good Thing. Those Prayers Validate Existence And Snatch It Away From Meaningless Routine.

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.

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

Valentines Day Is Being Marketed As A Date Movie. I Think Its More Of A First-date Movie. If Your Date Likes It, Do Not Date That Person Again. And If You Like It, There May Not Be A Second Date.

I Believe Empathy Is The Most Essential Quality Of Civilization.

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.

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

To Make Others Less Happy Is A Crime. To Make Ourselves Unhappy Is Where All Crime Starts. We Must Try To Contribute Joy To The World. That Is True No Matter What Our Problems, Our Health, Our Circumstances. We Must Try. I Didn't Always Know This And Am Happy I Lived Long Enough To Find It Out.

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

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.

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

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 Academy Is Paranoid About Its Image.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

I Will One Day Be Thin, But Vincent Gallo Will Always Be The Director Of The Brown Bunny.

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

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.

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.

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.

Going To A Movie So You Won't Be Offended Is Like Eating Potato Chips Made With Olestra; You Avoid The Dangers Of The Real Thing, But Your Insides Fill Up With Synthetic Runny Stuff.

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.

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

Not Everyone Needs To Be Slammed Into A Category And Locked There.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

While I Am Usually In Despair When A Movie Abandons Its Plot For A Third Act Given Over Entirely To Action, I Have No Problem With The Way Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets Ends, Because It Has Been Pointing Toward This Ending, Hinting About It, Preparing Us For It, All The Way Through. What A Glorious Movie.

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

Life Always Has An Unhappy Ending, But You Can Have A Lot Of Fun Along The Way, And Everything Doesn't Have To Be Dripping In Deep Significance.

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.

Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy.

I Think Most People Are More Susceptible To Prejudice Than To Reason. And The Parrots Of Talk Radio Are Just Sending Out The Same Stuff. When I Look At My E-mails, I See The Same Limbaugh Rhetoric; Apparently, People Don't Have Any Ideas Of Their Own. And There's Just This Drumroll Of Anti-progressive Thought.

Sometimes You Only Need To Have A Few Words With A Person To Know You Would Like To Have Many More.

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

Socrates Told Us, "the Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living." I Think He's Calling For Curiosity, More Than Knowledge. In Every Human Society At All Times And At All Levels, The Curious Are At The Leading Edge.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Dogs Notice, They Share, They Draw Conclusions, They Like It When They're Able To Be Of Service And Are Touchingly Grateful When They're Praised.

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.

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

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.

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.

Steven Spielberg Makes Minority Report With The Newest Digital Technology; Other Directors Seem To Be Trying To Make Their Movies From It.

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.

The Bucket List Is A Movie About Two Old Codgers Who Are Nothing Like People, Both Suffering From Cancer That Is Nothing Like Cancer, And Setting Off On Adventures That Are Nothing Like Possible. I Urgently Advise Hospitals: Do Not Make The Dvd Available To Your Patients; There May Be An Outbreak Of Bedpans Thrown At Tv Screens.

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.

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

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

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

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

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

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

Time Is What The Depressed And Panicked Lack.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Am Grateful For The Gifts Of Intelligence, Love, Wonder And Laughter. You Can't Say It Wasn't Interesting.

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

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

Things You Can Control

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

Film Theory Has Nothing To Do With Film. Students Presumably Hope To Find Out Something About Film, And All They Will Find Out Is An Occult And Arcane Language Designed Only For The Purpose Of Excluding Those Who Have Not Mastered It And Giving Academic Rewards To Those Who Have. No One With Any Literacy, Taste Or Intelligence Would Want To Teach These Courses, So The Bona Fide Definition Of People Teaching Them Are People Who Are Incapable Of Teaching Anything Else.

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.

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

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

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

I Begin To Feel Like I Was In The Last Generation Of Americans Who Took A Civics Class.

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

Library Research

I Don't Require Movies To Be About Good People, And I Don't Reject Screen Violence.

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

Horror Fans Are A Particular Breed. They Analyze Films With Such Detail And Expertise That I Am Reminded Of The Canadian Literary Critic Northrup Frye, Who Approached Literature With Similar Archetypal Analysis.

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

Impending Death

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.

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

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.

Going To See Godzilla At The Palais Of The Cannes Film Festival Is Like Attending A Satanic Ritual In St. Peter's Basilica.

Cannes Film Festival

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

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

I Was Born Inside The Movie Of My Life. The Visuals Were Before Me, The Audio Surrounded Me, The Plot Unfolded Inevitably But Not Necessarily. I Don't Remember How I Got Into The Movie, But It Continues To Entertain Me.

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.

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

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.

If You Want To Save Yourself The Ticket Price, Go Into The Kitchen, Cue Up A Male Choir Singing The Music Of Hell, And Get A Kid To Start Banging Pots And Pans Together. Then Close Your Eyes And Use Your Imagination.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Last Year, I Reviewed A Nine-hour Documentary About The Lives Of Mongolian Yak Herdsmen, And I Would Rather See It Again Than Sit Through The Frighteners.

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.

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

What Every Human Being Should Do Is Eat A Vegetarian Diet Based On Whole Foods. Period. That's It. Animal Protein Is Bad For You. Dairy Is Bad For You. Forget The Ads: Milk And Eggs Are Bad For You.

Vegetarian Diet

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.

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.

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.

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

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 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.

Every Great Film Should Seem New Every Time You See It.

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.

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.'

Sarah Palin Lacked The Preparation Or Temperament To Be One Heartbeat Away From The Presidency, But What She Possessed In Abundance Was The Ability To Inflame Political Passions And Energize The John Mccain Campaign With Star Quality.

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.

My Motto: 'no Good Movie Is Depressing. All Bad Movies Are Depressing.'

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.

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