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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.

-Roger Ebert

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Lebanon Was At One

Roger Ebert

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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.

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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.

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

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?

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Raises Questions

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Objective Truth

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Cannes Film Festival

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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?

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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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.

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

Impending Death

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

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?"

What Makes People Interesting Is The Spirit That Shines Through.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Most Of Us Do Not Consciously Look At Movies.

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.

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

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

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I Know As A Critic I'm Required To Have A Well-armored Heart. I Must Be A Cynical Wise Guy To Show My Great Sophistication. No Pushover, Me.

[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.

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.

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

Movies Absorb Our Attention More Completely, I Think.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Some Of These People Make My Skin Crawl.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

A Movie 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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Alice Roosevelt Longworth

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