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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.

-Roger Ebert

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In These Days Of

Roger Ebert

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.'

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

We Spend Too Much Time Hiding Illness.

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

Are Vampires Kinky? I Didn't Know.

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.

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

Impending Death

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I Do Suspect My Star Ratings Average Too High. But, Of Course, Star Ratings Are Ridiculous. I'm Stuck With Them.

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

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.

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

We Laugh, That We May Not Cry.

Teaching Prejudice To A Child Is Itself A Form Of Bullying. You've Got To Be Taught To Hate.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Sometimes, It's All About The Casting.

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

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.

When I Had Been A Film Critic For Ten Minutes, I Treated Doris Day As A Target For Cheap Shots. I Have Learned Enough To Say Today That The Woman Was Remarkably Gifted.

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

'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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

'marley' Does What Is Probably The Best Possible Job Of Documenting An Important Life.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Think Most People Are More Susceptible To Prejudice Than To Reason.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Urgently Advise Hospitals: Do Not Make The Dvd Available To Your Patients; There May Be An Outbreak Of Bedpans Thrown At Tv Screens.

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

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

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

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.

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

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

Vegetarian Diet

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.

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

I Don't Think Bush Was Legitimately Elected President.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Cinema, For Me, Has Always Been Something Like Music Composed With Photographic Images.

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.

Supernatural Beings

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Steve Coogan Picks Up Enough To Lecture An Interviewer: This Is A Postmodern Novel Before There Was Any Modernism To Be Post About. Later It's Claimed That Tristram Shandy Was No. 8 On The Observer's List Of The Greatest Novels, Which Cheers Everyone Until They Discover The List Was Chronological.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Praise Without Merit Is More Harmful Than Unearned Criticism.

Artists Are Rarely Members Of The Popular Crowd.

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

Freedom Of Speech

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 Think That Probably The - I Don't Give Quotes To Studios. They Have To Get Those Out Of The Paper Or From Television. So They Wouldn't Have Had My Quote Opening Day.

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

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

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

Things You Can Control

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

Pearl Harbor Is A Two-hour Movie Squeezed Into Three Hours, About How On December 7, 1941, The Japanese Staged A Surprise Attack On An American Love Triangle. Its Centerpiece Is 40 Minutes Of Redundant Special Effects, Surrounded By A Love Story Of Stunning Banality. The Film Has Been Directed Without Grace, Vision, Or Originality, And Although You May Walk Out Quoting Lines Of Dialog, It Will Not Be Because You Admire Them.

One, Don't Wait For Inspiration, Just Start The Damned Thing. Two, Once You Begin, Keep On Until The End. How Do You Know How The Story Should Begin Until You Find Out Where It's Going?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pixar Is The First Studio That Is A Movie Star.

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

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

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 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 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.

Most Of Us Do Not Consciously Look At Movies.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Supporting Roles

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?

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.

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.

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

It Is More Erotic To Wonder If You're About To Be Kissed Than It Is To Be Kissed.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I'll Tell You, I Think That The Internet Has Provided An Enormous Boost To Film Criticism By Giving People An Opportunity To Self Publish Or To Find Sites That Are Friendly.

(guy) Pearce, As The Hero, Makes The Mistake Of Trying To Give A Good And Realistic Performance. (jeremy) Irons At Least Knows What Kind Of Movie He's In, And Hams It Up Accordingly.

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.

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

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.

Movies Are Like A Machine That Generates Empathy.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

If You Can Act As If Something Is True, In A Sense That Makes It True.

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."

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.

[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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

"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.

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.

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