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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.

-Roger Ebert

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It Considers Not Only

Roger Ebert

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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.

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Falling In Love

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

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Raises Questions

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Live In The Present

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

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

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

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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.

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

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

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'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.

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."

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.

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

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

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

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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.

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

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Impending Death

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.

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

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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.

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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.

We Laugh, That We May Not Cry.

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.

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

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.

[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.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

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'm Told We Movie Critics Praise Movies That Are Long And Boring.

Praise Without Merit Is More Harmful Than Unearned Criticism.

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

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.

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

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.

Occasionally An Unsuspecting Innocent Will Stumble Into A Movie Like This And Send Me An Anguished Postcard, Asking How I Could Possibly Give A Favorable Review To Such Trash. My Stock Response Is Ebert's Law, Which Reads: A Movie Is Not About What It Is About. It Is About How It Is About It.

'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.

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.

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.'

We Are The Playthings Of The Gods.

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