Zitat des Tages von Roger Ebert:
I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason.
It's rare to find a film that goes for broke and says, 'To hell with the consequences.'
Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.
I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.
Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.
I'm told we movie critics praise movies that are long and boring.
It is not enough for a movie to be righteous. It must also be watchable.
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.
I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.
If you can act as if something is true, in a sense that makes it true.
Every great film should seem new every time you see it.
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.
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.
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 Academy is paranoid about its image.
The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.
No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.
Sometimes it's all about the casting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.
Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can't give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.
Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.
Time is what the depressed and panicked lack.
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.
Most of us do not consciously look at movies.
There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don't you think?
We can't help identifying with the protagonist. It's coded in our movie-going DNA.
I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together.
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.
It often strikes me that the actors in high school movies look too old.
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.
If your religion doesn't respect the rights of other religions, it is lacking something.