100 (or More) Great Quotes by Roger Ebert: An Interactive List

[Spinal]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ku-xlarge_zps7736f55b.jpg

1. "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."

[Spinal]

2. “This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.” (Freddy Got Fingered)

[Winston*]

3. "Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks. "
(Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo)

[Spinal]

4. "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny."

[Kurosawa Fan]

5. "Here are some things, however, that I do not believe: That Mrs. Brody could be haunted by flashbacks to events where she was not present and that, in some cases, no survivors witnessed. That the movie would give us one shark attack as a dream sequence, have the hero wake up in a sweat, then give us a second shark attack, and then cut to the hero awake in bed, giving us the only thing worse than the old "it's only a dream" routine, which is the old "is it a dream or not?" routine. That Mrs. Brody would commandeer a boat and sail out alone into the ocean to sacrifice herself to the shark, so that the killing could end. That Caine's character could or would crash-land his airplane at sea so that he and two other men could swim to Mrs. Brody's rescue. That after being trapped in a sinking airplane by the shark and disappearing under the water, Caine could survive the attack, swim to the boat, and climb on board - not only completely unhurt but also wearing a shirt and pants that are not even wet. That the shark would stand on its tail in the water long enough for the boat to ram it. That the director, Joseph Sargent (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Joseph%20Sargent&Class=%25&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20131231), would film this final climactic scene so incompetently that there is not even an establishing shot, so we have to figure out what happened on the basis of empirical evidence.

There is one other thing I can't believe about "Jaws the Revenge (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=REVIEWS01&TITLESearch=Jaws%20the%20Reven ge&ToDate=20131231)," and that is that on March 30, Michael Caine (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Michael%20Caine&Class=%25&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20131231) passed up his chance to accept his Academy Award in person because of his commitment to this movie. Maybe he was thinking the same thing as the marine biologist in the movie: that if you don't go right back in the water after something terrible happens to you, you might be too afraid to ever go back in again."

Jaws: The Revenge

Sorry it's so long. It's totally worth it though. I couldn't find a spot to edit.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Hah! That review also has the line (I may be paraphrasing - memory): "What shark wouldn't want revenge on the wife of the man who killed it?"

[Rowland]

2. “This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.” (Freddy Got Fingered)I've used variations of this line in the past. Thankfully nobody I've used it towards has been familiar with Ebert's review of Freddy Got Fingered. :lol:

[Boner M]

6. "This movie should be cut into free ukulele picks for the poor." (Mad Dog Time, again)

[Spinal]

7. "Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they're referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it's up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them. Star Wars works like that."

[Spinal]

8. "Was there no one connected with this project who read the screenplay, considered the story, evaluated the proposed film and vomited?" (Last Rites)

[Winston*]

9. "I've never had chemo, as Edward and Carter must endure, but I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya. Your list is more likely to be topped by keeping down a full meal, having a triumphant bowel movement, keeping your energy up in the afternoon, letting your loved ones know you love them, and convincing the doc your reports of pain are real and not merely disguising your desire to become a drug addict."
(The Bucket List)

[Spinal]

10. “A case can be made for the movie, but it would involve transforming the experience of viewing the film (which is excruciatingly boring) into something more interesting, a fable about life and death. Just as a bad novel can be made into a good movie, so can a boring movie be made into a fascinating movie review.” (Taste of Cherry)

[Rowland]

10. “A case can be made for the movie, but it would involve transforming the experience of viewing the film (which is excruciatingly boring) into something more interesting, a fable about life and death. Just as a bad novel can be made into a good movie, so can a boring movie be made into a fascinating movie review.” (Taste of Cherry)This is a great quote, and very reflective of how fascinating reviews can often be more edifying than the movies they are inspired by.

[ledfloyd]

11. "Think about these things, reader. Don’t sigh and turn the page. Think that I have written them and you have read them, and the odds against either of us ever having existed are greater by far than one to all of the atoms in creation." (Red)

[Mysterious Dude]

12. "What James Mason, as the old master of Falconhurst, is doing in this film is beyond me; He told one interviewer he needed the money for his alimony payments, but surely jail would have been better." (Mandingo)

[Spinal]

13. "The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project." (Catwoman)

[Spinal]

14. "The performers in most skin flicks seem so impervious to ordinary mortal failings, so blasé in the face of the most outrageous sexual invention, that finally they just become cartoon characters. [Sylvia] Kristel actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are. It's a relief, during a time of cynicism in which sex is supposed to sell anything, to find a skin flick that's a lot better than it probably had to be." (Emmanuelle)

[Ivan Drago]

Are we limiting these to his reviews or can they be from At The Movies, too?

15. "Our next movie is Mr. Deeds, and it deserves that title almost as much as Scooby-Doo deserves to be called Citizen Kane." (Mr. Deeds review on an episode of Ebert & Roeper At The Movies)

[Spinal]

Are we limiting these to his reviews or can they be from At The Movies, too?


No limits.

16. "You know that for Gene speech is a second language?" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkwVz_jK3gA)

[Spinal]

17. "I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine." (The Human Centipede)

[Spinal]

18. "The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented."

[Spinal]

19. "I am forced to conclude that [Armond] White is, as charged, a troll. A smart and knowing one, but a troll."

[baby doll]

This is a great quote, and very reflective of how fascinating reviews can often be more edifying than the movies they are inspired by.Except Taste of Cherry is actually pretty awesome. To be sure, it obviously wasn't Ebert's kind of movie, and it's obvious the only reason he and his editor felt that it was worth writing about in the first place when he hadn't reviewed any of Kiarostami's film up till that point was because it won the Palme d'or at Cannes. In other words, Kiarostami's reputation was getting too big to be contained in a kind of festival ghetto where Ebert could ignore him (and Angelopoulos and late Godard), and his task in that review was to jam the genie back in the bottle.

[Rowland]

Except Taste of Cherry is actually pretty awesome. To be sure, it obviously wasn't Ebert's kind of movie, and it's obvious the only reason he and his editor felt that it was worth writing about in the first place when he hadn't reviewed any of Kiarostami's film up till that point was because it won the Palme d'or at Cannes. In other words, Kiarostami's reputation was getting too big to be contained in a kind of festival ghetto where Ebert could ignore him (and Angelopoulos and late Godard), and his task in that review was to jam the genie back in the bottle.I don't know the context of the quote and Ebert's alleged motives behind it as well as you apparently do. I was merely regarding the substance of the quote on its own isolated terms.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Or he didn't like the movie.

[Rowland]

Or he didn't like the movie.I was trying to suggest as much without outright stating it, but this will do as well.

[MadMan]

20. "My guess is that African Americans will be offended by the movie, and whites will be embarrassed. The movie will bring us all together in paralyzing boredom." (BAPS)

[baby doll]

Or he didn't like the movie.Obviously. But more than that, his review betrays certain ideological biases; the presence of a film like Taste of Cherry at Cannes gets in the way of business as usual because it's too uncommercial to appeal to a wide audience.

From his review of Kiarostami's Ten:


The fatal flaw in his approach is that no ordinary moviegoer, whether Iranian or American, can be expected to relate to his films. They exist for film festivals, film critics and film classes.

From a festival report from 2003:


In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point.

[Sxottlan]

Star Trek 4: "Because humpback whales are extinct in the 23rd century, they must journey back through time to the 20th century, obtain some humpback whales, and return with them to the future - thus saving Earth. After they thought up this notion, I hope the writers lit up cigars."

[Yum-Yum]

22. "Look at those freckles. I can never get enough of freckles." (Transporter 3)

[Spinal]

23. "In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point."

[Boner M]

23. "In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point."
Yeah, this is kinda why I stopped reading him.

[ledfloyd]

Too much negativity in this thread.

24. "Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita'' in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life'' represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.

When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself."

[Boner M]

25. "Now here is the essential part. Bresson suggests that we are all Balthazars. Despite our dreams, hopes and best plans, the world will eventually do with us whatever it does. Because we can think and reason, we believe we can figure a way out, find a solution, get the answer. But intelligence gives us the ability to comprehend our fate without the power to control it. Still, Bresson does not leave us empty-handed. He offers us the suggestion of empathy. If we will extend ourselves to sympathize with how others feel, we can find the consolation of sharing human experience, instead of the loneliness of enduring it alone." (Au Hasard Balthazar)

[Grouchy]

Yeah, this is kinda why I stopped reading him.
I'm on the fence with this one.

On the one hand, the main reason Ebert's reviews angered me was his conformism. His notion of what a film should be and what constitutes a "film for the critics" (which is something that exists, obviously, and sucks) was very off at times. Therefore, when Almodóvar, Lynch and Gilliam started making films, Ebert gave them all bad reviews against the critical consensus. However, once that consensus became undisputed praise from critics and audiences, he started loving them. Same with Kiarostami, actually - he gave Certified Copy a glowing review.

But, on the other hand, Taste of Cherry is an unwatchable piece of shit, practically an endurance test. I agree with every word of his negative review.

[Boner M]

I don't think it's conformism, just populism verging on pandering. As I said in the RIP thread, he was a gateway to cinephilia, but he also treasured gateways as such: and I think what he saw in the exaltation of Kiarostami over more accessible Iranian filmmakers was an increasing divide between mainstream and niche tastes.

He even recanted his statements on Ceylan's Distant (the film he's indirectly referring to in quote #23) when it was released in the US, admitting that he was fickle in his dismissal, seeing 4-5 films per day in Cannes.

[Spinal]

To me, that quote speaks to Ebert's value as a film critic. He encouraged his readers to branch out and push themselves and try new things. But that quote also speaks to his willingness to remind filmmakers the dangers of losing touch with your audience. Was he always right? No. But he sure as hell was right about Taste of Cherry.

[Spinal]

26. "Make no mistake: The Cannes version was a bad film, but now Gallo's editing has set free the good film inside. The Brown Bunny is still not a complete success -- it is odd and off-putting when it doesn't want to be -- but as a study of loneliness and need, it evokes a tender sadness. I will always be grateful I saw the movie at Cannes; you can't understand where Gallo has arrived unless you know where he started."

[Boner M]

To me, that quote speaks to Ebert's value as a film critic. He encouraged his readers to branch out and push themselves and try new things.
:rolleyes:

The implication that Angelopolous doesn't feature "gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing" (at least the films of his I've seen), or that Kiarostami isn't audacious... blech. The pining for a lost 'golden age' is once again just pining for being younger.

[Spinal]

:rolleyes:

Absolutely true. The Great Movies list is a starting point for many people to explore and discover.

[Boner M]

I'm talking about that particular quote. Thank god Ebert's here to lead us to the Coens and Tarantino!

[Boner M]

But anyway, I don't want to derail this thread into negativity. On that note..

26. "When you're angry with the world and yourself to the same degree, you're running in place. It takes a great deal of energy. It can be exhausting. You lash out at people. You're hard on yourself. It all takes place in your head. After a time people give up on you. They think you don't give a damn and don't care about yourself. If they only knew." (Greenberg)

[ledfloyd]

25. "Now here is the essential part. Bresson suggests that we are all Balthazars. Despite our dreams, hopes and best plans, the world will eventually do with us whatever it does. Because we can think and reason, we believe we can figure a way out, find a solution, get the answer. But intelligence gives us the ability to comprehend our fate without the power to control it. Still, Bresson does not leave us empty-handed. He offers us the suggestion of empathy. If we will extend ourselves to sympathize with how others feel, we can find the consolation of sharing human experience, instead of the loneliness of enduring it alone." (Au Hasard Balthazar)
Stuff like this is what I value Ebert for. He really understood what it meant to be human and valued that quality above all others in film.


Same with Kiarostami, actually - he gave Certified Copy a glowing review.
Go back and reread his Certified Copy review. He gave it ***1/2, but it reads much more like a ** review.

[Spinal]

I'm talking about that particular quote. Thank god Ebert's here to lead us to the Coens and Tarantino!

If Fassbinder and Kurosawa seem too mainstream for you now, I guess you know who to thank. :)

[Spinal]

27. "Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated." (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover)

[Spinal]

28. "I sometimes find myself the advocate of what might be called a generic theory of film criticism. That's to say I think movies should be judged, in part, in terms of the expectations we have for them. A handful of movies rise above their genres: Bonnie and Clyde is no gangster film, for example, and Stagecoach is more than a Western. But most of the time, when we go to the movies, we go seeking more modest rewards: A decent spy picture, for example, or a passable musical. If you can accept this system of judgment, then The Devil in Miss Jones is maybe a three-star dirty movie."

[ledfloyd]

29. "The film's portrait of everyday life, inspired by Malick's memories of his hometown of Waco, Texas, is bounded by two immensities, one of space and time, and the other of spirituality. "The Tree of Life" has awe-inspiring visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life on a microscopic level and the evolution of species. This process leads to the present moment, and to all of us. We were created in the Big Bang and over untold millions of years, molecules formed themselves into, well, you and me.

And what comes after? In whispered words near the beginning, "nature" and "grace" are heard. We have seen nature as it gives and takes away; one of the family's boys dies. We also see how it works with time, as Jack O'Brien (Hunter McCracken) grows into a middle-aged man (Sean Penn). And what then? The film's coda provides a vision of an afterlife, a desolate landscape on which quiet people solemnly recognize and greet one another, and all is understood in the fullness of time."

[Spinal]

30. Now, Gene, that's totally unfair because you realize that these reviews are relative. Benji the Hunted is not one-third the film, one-tenth the film that the Kubrick film is [Full Metal Jacket], but you know that the same thing happens ... that you review films within context. So, it's not fair for you to compare those two reviews. And you know it and you should be ashamed of yourself."

I saw this episode when I was a kid and this heated exchange (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRYatL4adDQ) always stuck with me.

[Spinal]

31. "Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. 'Wouldn't you say,' she asked, 'that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?' No, I said, I wouldn't say that. 'But what about Basketball Diaries?' she asked. 'Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?' The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. 'Events like this,' I said, 'if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory.'

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of 'explaining' them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy." (Elephant}

[Dead & Messed Up]

32. "But, even so, you may be asking, how can I defend this depraved trash? I do not defend it. I praise it. And it is not depraved, although some reviews have seen it that way. It is about depravity.

If you can see beyond the immediate impact of Romero's imagery, if you can experience the film as being more than just its violent extremes, a most unsettling thought may occur to you: The zombies in "Dawn of the Dead" are not the ones who are depraved. They are only acting according to their natures, and, gore dripping from their jaws, are blameless.

The depravity is in the healthy survivors, and the true immorality comes as two bands of human survivors fight each other for the shopping center: Now look who's fighting over the bones! But "Dawn" is even more complicated than that, because the survivors have courage, too, and a certain nobility at times, and a sense of humor, and loneliness and dread, and are not altogether unlike ourselves. A-ha."

[Spun Lepton]

33. "The plot involves ... excuse me for a moment, while I laugh uncontrollably at having written the words 'the plot involves.'" (The Beyond)

[Spinal]

34. "I also have the greatest respect for you, Gene, but if you have a flaw, it is that you are parsimonious with your enjoyment, parceling it out as if you are afraid you will prematurely expend your lifetime share."

[DavidSeven]

35. "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.

[...]

Armageddon reportedly used the services of nine writers. Why did it need any? The dialogue is either shouted one-liners or romantic drivel. "It's gonna blow!'' is used so many times, I wonder if every single writer used it once, and then sat back from his word processor with a contented smile on his face, another day's work done."

[DavidSeven]

It was always fun when Ebert went on a tear. I had to resist reposting the entire review.

[Spinal]

36. "Note: The movie is rated R, so that the Columbine killers would have been protected from the 'violent images,' mostly of themselves." (Bowling for Columbine)

[Spinal]

37. "Most worried of all is Judas, who advises Christ to maintain a low profile. He doesn't of course; but in deference to the several readers who didn't like my review of The Last of Sheila because I gave away too much of the plot, I won't reveal what happens to Christ in the end." (Jesus Christ Superstar)

[Dead & Messed Up]

38. "Indeed, the movie is pulled so violently in opposite directions that it pulls itself apart. If the sexual scenes are real, then why do we need the sendup of the "Donna Reed Show"? What are we being told? That beneath the surface of Small Town, U.S.A., passions run dark and dangerous? Don't stop the presses.

The sexual material in "Blue Velvet" is so disturbing, and the performance by Rosellini is so convincing and courageous, that it demands a movie that deserves it."

[Spinal]

39. "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 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."

[baby doll]

To me, that quote speaks to Ebert's value as a film critic. He encouraged his readers to branch out and push themselves and try new things. But that quote also speaks to his willingness to remind filmmakers the dangers of losing touch with your audience. Was he always right? No. But he sure as hell was right about Taste of Cherry.I think the whole notion of filmmakers "losing touch with their audience" is absolute bullshit. Not everybody's a pathetic whinging pussy like Dan Kois ("Boo hoo, this movie is too esoteric!") or Jonathan Franzen. Some people like movies and books that are more challenging. Not the majority of people, obviously, and not all difficult films are interesting, but the problem isn't that filmmakers like Kiarostami are out of touch; the problem is with viewers who lack curiosity and philistine reviewers who honor and legitimize their narrow tastes.

[Spinal]

I think the whole notion of filmmakers "losing touch with their audience" is absolute bullshit. Not everybody's a pathetic whinging pussy like Dan Kois ("Boo hoo, this movie is too esoteric!") or Jonathan Franzen. Some people like movies and books that are more challenging. Not the majority of people, obviously, and not all difficult films are interesting, but the problem isn't that filmmakers like Kiarostami are out of touch; the problem is with viewers who lack curiosity and philistine reviewers who honor and legitimize their narrow tastes.

There's a middle ground. And I maintain that Ebert was successful at holding it. To lump him in with "philistine reviewers" who encourage viewers to have "narrow tastes" is simply not accurate no matter how many times you repeat it. Your anti-populist hostility was just the sort of thing that he was successful at avoiding. That is the reason why he was so successful. 'Challenging' is a good thing for a film to be sometimes. But it is no more or less valuable than a film being 'exciting', 'fun', 'hilarious', 'sexy', 'moving' or 'inspiring'. Maybe it's you who has narrow tastes.

[baby doll]

There's a middle ground. And I maintain that Ebert was successful at holding it. To lump him in with "philistine reviewers" who encourage viewers to have "narrow tastes" is simply not accurate no matter how many times you repeat it. Your anti-populist hostility was just the sort of thing that he was successful at avoiding. That is the reason that why he was so successful. 'Challenging' is a good thing for a film to be sometimes. But it is no more or less valuable than a film being 'exciting', 'fun', 'hilarious', 'moving' or 'inspiring'. Maybe it's you who has narrow tastes.There are quite a few films by Kiarostami that I would describe as being exciting, fun, hilarious, moving, or inspiring as well as challenging. Well, maybe not hilarious--droll, amusing, and witty would be more accurate.

Obviously not every movie needs to be very challenging. I'm perfectly capable of enjoying a light romantic comedy like Silver Linings Playbook, but there were vast oceans of cinema that Ebert didn't even acknowledge--particularly, the avant-garde but also more demanding narrative filmmakers. Every so often, when one of these filmmakers got too big to ignore (as when Taste of Cherry won the Palme d'or), he would take a peak inside and then slam the door shut. I don't see that as being especially pluralist.

[Pop Trash]

Taste of Cherry isn't very good. The ending is risible.

[Grouchy]

Whenever people praise that ending, I feel like reminding them that the Monty Python had already done it 30-something years earlier. And then it was funny and meant something.

EDIT: Imamura, too, even earlier.

[Dead & Messed Up]

40. "One friend of mine already says she won't see "A Fish Called Wanda" because she has heard that dogs die in it (she is never, of course, reluctant to attend movies where people die). I tried to explain to her that the death of a pet is, of course, a tragic thing. But when the object is to inspire a heart attack in a little old lady who is a key prosecution witness, and when her little darling is crushed by a falling safe, well, you've just got to make a few sacrifices in the name of comedy."

[Pop Trash]

Whenever people praise that ending, I feel like reminding them that the Monty Python had already done it 30-something years earlier. And then it was funny and meant something.

EDIT: Imamura, too, even earlier.

Yup. Holy Mountain too. Godard to a certain extent as well. It isn't that I'm against 4th wall breaking per se, it's just in the movies we mentioned it seems to make sense contextually. With Taste of Cherry it felt as if something like Bicycle Thieves or Mouchette ended with the film crew and actors milling about on set.

I remember when The Brown Bunny came out and was trashed by a lot of people, one of my film nerd friends mentioned that if it were made in Iran by Kiarostami it would be labeled a masterpiece and I basically agreed with him. Incidentally, Ebert disliked that as well at least initially.

[Dukefrukem]

40: "OK, here's the f***ing review"
Young People Fucking

[baby doll]

Yup. Holy Mountain too. Godard to a certain extent as well. It isn't that I'm against 4th wall breaking per se, it's just in the movies we mentioned it seems to make sense contextually. With Taste of Cherry it felt as if something like Bicycle Thieves or Mouchette ended with the film crew and actors milling about on set.Given how withholding Taste of Cherry is in its handling of exposition, having an obscurely motivated coda that seems to drive most viewers nuts strikes me as an entirely appropriate ending for the movie.


I remember when The Brown Bunny came out and was trashed by a lot of people, one of my film nerd friends mentioned that if it were made in Iran by Kiarostami it would be labeled a masterpiece and I basically agreed with him. Incidentally, Ebert disliked that as well at least initially.Had your friend seen the film or was he just being an ass-hole? I haven't seen the longer cut of The Brown Bunny that Ebert panned at Cannes, but as a fan of the shorter release version, I'd love to see it (assuming it still exists), especially as a number of reviewers (notably, Manohla Dargis) praised it highly.

[Ezee E]

If Fassbinder and Kurosawa seem too mainstream for you now, I guess you know who to thank. :)

As well as a quote from a 4-star Bresson film.

[Sxottlan]

Zodiac: "I found the newspaper office intriguing in its accuracy. For one thing, it is usually fairly empty, and it was true on a morning paper in those days that the office began to heat up closer to deadline Among the few early arrivals would have been the cartoonist, who was expected to work up a few ideas for presentation at the daily news meeting, and the office alcoholics, perhaps up all night, or already starting their recovery drinking. Yes, reporters drank at their desks 40 years ago, and smoked and smoked and smoked."

[Spinal]

This thread doesn't work if we don't count properly.

43. "I am left with this question: After Ashlynn Yennie's first movie role was in the first Human Centipede movie, and now her second is in Human Centipede Two, do you think she'll leave show business?"

[Winston*]

44. "This is a painful movie to watch. But it is also exhilarating, as all good movies are, because we are watching the director and actors venturing beyond any conventional idea of what a modern movie can be about. Here there is no plot, no characters to identify with, no hope. But there is care: The filmmakers care enough about these people to observe them very closely, to note how they look and sound and what they feel." (Naked)

[Spinal]

45. "This is my happening and it freaks me out!"

[Pop Trash]

46. "GERMAN TOURIST
You come to my hotel – there I haff many musical tapes! We listen to them together, and zen we make love! Verstehen?"

From the unproduced screenplay for Who Killed Bambi?

[Spinal]

47.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LSzP9YV3jbc

[Ezee E]

47.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LSzP9YV3jbc

Nice one. It's always great reading Ebert bash into readers with bad questions.

[Melville]

48. "You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!"

49. "Z-Man? There is no Z-Man, varlet. And indeed, it's not a game we play. I am Superwoman!"

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is so great.

[Mysterious Dude]

50. "By the end of the movie Cody believes in Barney, because it's pretty hard not to believe in something that's purple and 8 feet tall and standing right there in front of you." (Barney's Great Adventure)

[Mara]

51. The insight of "Heavenly Creatures" is that sometimes people are capable of committing acts together that they could not commit by themselves. A mob can be as small as two persons. Reading in the paper recently about a crowd of teenage boys who beat an innocent youth to death, I was reminded of this film. Sometimes tragedies happen because each person is waiting for someone else to say "no!"

[Spinal]

52. "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." (Rollerball)

[Dead & Messed Up]

53. "The telephone rings at 3 a.m. and a pregnant woman puts on her police uniform to go out into the Minnesota winter and investigate a homicide. "Eggs,'' her sleepy husband says. He'll make her eggs. We see the them eating on a Formica table in the kitchen; steps lead down to the back door. He stays at the table as she goes outside. Then she returns, his head tilting as he hears her. "Hon,'' she says, "prowler needs a jump.''

This is the scene where "Fargo'' shows how it is going to take a story about pathetic criminals and make it into a great movie."

[Morris Schæffer]

54. "Robert Louis Stevenson's Mr. Hyde was about the same size as Dr. Jekyll, but here Hyde expands into a creature scarcely smaller than the Hulk, and gets his pants from the same tailor, since they expand right along with him while his shirt is torn to shreds"

55. "As the car hurtles down the non-existent streets of Venice, enemy operatives stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the rooftops and fire at it with machineguns, leading us to hypothesize an enemy meeting at which the leader says, "Just in case they should arrive by submarine with a fast car which hasn't been invented yet, I want thousands of men to line the rooftops and fire at it, without hitting anything, of course."

56. "It's hard enough for gondolas to negotiate the inner canals of Venice, let alone a sub the size of an ocean liner, but no problem; "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" either knows absolutely nothing about Venice, or (more likely) trusts that its audience does not. At one point, the towering Nautilus sails under the tiny Bridge of Sighs and only scrapes it a little. In no time at all there is an action scene involving Nemo's newfangled automobile, which races meaninglessly down streets that do not exist, because there are no streets in Venice and you can't go much more than a block before running into a bridge or a canal. Maybe the filmmakers did their research at the Venetian Hotel in Venice, where Connery arrived by gondola for the movie's premiere." [The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen]

[dreamdead]

55. "He [Stillman] has made a film Scott Fitzgerald might have been comfortable with, a film about people covering their own insecurities with a facade of social ease. And he has written wonderful dialogue, words in which the characters discuss ideas and feelings instead of simply marching through plot points as most Hollywood characters do.

Not very much happens in "Metropolitan," and yet everything that happens is felt deeply, because the characters in this movie are still too young to have perfected their defenses against life. They care very deeply about what others think of them, their feelings are easily hurt, their love affairs are really forms of asking for acceptance."
--Metropolitan review

[ThePlashyBubbler]

56.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OkwVz_jK3gA

[Skitch]

That #47 video was awesome. Just fucking awesome. What movie were they talking about though?

[amberlita]

Youtube says it's "Better Luck Tomorrow"

Ebert on what may be my most hated movie, Sweet November:


Read no further if you do not already know that she has another reason for term limits. She's dying. In the original movie the disease was described as "quite rare, but incurable." Here we get another clue, when Nelson opens Sara's medicine cabinet and finds, oh, I dunno, at a rough guess, 598 bottles of pills. The girl is obviously overmedicating. Give her a high colonic, send her to detox, and the movie is over.

Nelson is one of those insulting, conceited, impatient, coffee-drinking, cell-phone-using, Jaguar-driving advertising executives that you find in only two places: the movies and real life. His motto is: Speed up and smell the coffee. Sara, on the other hand, acts like she has all the time in the world, even though (sob!) she does not. She sits on the hood of Nelson's car and commits other crimes against the male libido that a woman absolutely cannot get away with, unless she looks exactly like Charlize Theron and insists on sleeping with you, and even then, she's pushing it.

[Kurious Jorge v3.1]

Youtube says it's "Better Luck Tomorrow"


yep

[MadMan]

29. "The film's portrait of everyday life, inspired by Malick's memories of his hometown of Waco, Texas, is bounded by two immensities, one of space and time, and the other of spirituality. "The Tree of Life" has awe-inspiring visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life on a microscopic level and the evolution of species. This process leads to the present moment, and to all of us. We were created in the Big Bang and over untold millions of years, molecules formed themselves into, well, you and me.

And what comes after? In whispered words near the beginning, "nature" and "grace" are heard. We have seen nature as it gives and takes away; one of the family's boys dies. We also see how it works with time, as Jack O'Brien (Hunter McCracken) grows into a middle-aged man (Sean Penn). And what then? The film's coda provides a vision of an afterlife, a desolate landscape on which quiet people solemnly recognize and greet one another, and all is understood in the fullness of time."All of that is beautiful, and I remember once again why I read his reviews in the first place.


33. "The plot involves ... excuse me for a moment, while I laugh uncontrollably at having written the words 'the plot involves.'" (The Beyond)One of my favorite reviews from him.

[Spinal]

58. "All my life I have deplored those who interpret something only on its most simplistic level. I grant you that artworks like Andres Serrano's 'Piss Christ' are hard to embrace and you will never find it displayed in my home, but I understand the impulse behind it."

[Spinal]

59. "I have long known and admired the Chicago Reader’s film critic, Jonathan Rosenbaum, but his New York Times op-ed attack on Ingmar Bergman is a bizarre departure from his usual sanity. It says more about Rosenbaum’s love of stylistic extremes than it does about Bergman and audiences. Who else but Rosenbaum could actually base an attack on the complaint that Bergman had what his favorites Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson lacked, 'the power to entertain — which often meant a reluctance to challenge conventional film-going habits?' In what parallel universe is the power to entertain defined in that way?"

[MadMan]

60. "I am forced to conclude that White is, as charged, a troll. A smart and knowing one, but a troll."That is the best summing up of White that I have read in a while. Best to treat him like any Internet troll, although sadly he can't be banned....

[Spinal]

I listed that one already. But it's worth posting twice I suppose.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Doh. Disregard and proceed accordingly.

[Rowland]

From Ebert's four-star review for John Huston's 1967 Reflections in a Golden Eye, which was otherwise largely derided at the time.

60. "There is a scene in which [Brando] slowly breaks down and begins to cry, and his face screws up in misery. The audience laughed, perhaps because it’s supposed to be ‘funny’ to see a man cry. The audience should have been taken outside and shot.”

[Grouchy]

Reflections in a Golden Eye got bad reviews? It's a very good film.

[Rowland]

Reflections in a Golden Eye got bad reviews? It's a very good film.It was apparently trashed at the time of its release, and Ebert was not only one of the few critics to defend the film, he put it on his top ten list for the year. So there you go, that's one reason for you to like the guy. :P

[Mr. Pink]

61. "I believe in giving every movie the benefit of the doubt. I walked into The Waterboy, sat down, took a sip of my delicious medium roast coffee, and felt at peace with the world. How nice it would be, I thought, to give Adam Sandler a good review for a change. Good will and caffeine suffused my being, and as the lights went down I all but beamed at the screen.

Then Adam Sandler spoke and all was lost."

[Spinal]

62. "There is a new Adam Sandler on view in Punch-Drunk Love --angry, sad, desperate. In voice and mannerisms he is the same childlike, love-starved Adam Sandler we've seen in a series of dim comedies, but this film, by seeing him in a new light, encourages us to look again at those films. Given a director and a screenplay that sees through the Sandler persona, that understands it as the disguise of a suffering outsider, Sandler reveals depths and tones we may have suspected but couldn't bring into focus."

[ledfloyd]

63. "There will be many who find To the Wonder elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."

[Spinal]

64. "There has been criticism of Kim Basinger, who is said to be too attractive and even glamorous to play Rabbit's mother, but this strikes me as economic discrimination: Cannot poor people as well as rich people look like Kim Basinger? Given the numbers of ugly people who live in big houses, why can't there be beautiful people living in trailers?" (8 Mile)

[Pop Trash]

65. "Many people don't realize that all bad movies are depressing and no good movies are."
(re: using 'it's depressing' as a pejorative against a movie)

[Pop Trash]

http://4funz.com/Funny-Pictures/memes/other/img-moar-192

[Mysterious Dude]

66. "The lesson, I guess, is that if you are a 12-year-old orphan in a Bulgarian forced labor camp, you need not despair, because the world is filled with good luck and helpful people and besides, you speak all those languages." (I Am David)

[Dead & Messed Up]

67. "Nichols stays on top of his material. He never pauses to make sure we're getting the point. He never explains for the slow-witted. He never apologizes. His only flaw, I believe, is the introduction of limp, wordy Simon and Garfunkel songs and arty camera work to suggest the passage of time between major scenes." (The Graduate)

[Ivan Drago]

68. "This movie is called Highlander 2: The Quickening....and what a title!" (Siskel and Ebert, at the 5:05 mark of this video)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JivTQtkdXk

[Mysterious Dude]

69. "'Baby Geniuses' is about toddlers who speak, plot, scheme, disco dance and beat up adults with karate kicks. This is not right."

[Rowland]

70. ""Narrow Margin" is a clumsy version of the Idiot Plot, dressed up as a high-gloss chase thriller. The Idiot Plot, of course, is any plot that would be resolved in five minutes if everyone in the story were not an idiot. And rarely has there been a film in which more idiots make more mistakes than in this one."

[Rowland]

71. "Speaking of movies that go over the top, "Running Scared" goes so far over the top, it circumnavigates the top and doubles back on itself; it's the Mobius Strip of over-the-topness. I am in awe. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Then it throws in the kitchen sink, too, and the combo washer-dryer in the laundry room, while the hero and his wife are having sex on top of it."

[Yxklyx]

71. "Speaking of movies that go over the top, "Running Scared" goes so far over the top, it circumnavigates the top and doubles back on itself; it's the Mobius Strip of over-the-topness. I am in awe. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Then it throws in the kitchen sink, too, and the combo washer-dryer in the laundry room, while the hero and his wife are having sex on top of it."

Has anyone else seen this? I've queued it up...

[Sycophant]

I apparently watched it on or a day before March 1, 2008 and said "Whoa."

I can't remember much more than that. It is something to behold. I remember that much.

[Mysterious Dude]

The one thing I remember about Running Scared is that, at one point, one of the kids wanders into a house that just happens to be occupied by a husband and wife who are also child pornographers and serial killers working as a team. That's some bad luck.

[Rowland]

The one thing I remember about Running Scared is that, at one point, one of the kids wanders into a house that just happens to be occupied by a husband and wife who are also child pornographers and serial killers working as a team. That's some bad luck.No, I think they lure him into their van with ice cream. They also project Nosferatu shadows.

It's coming out on Blu-ray in a few months. I was a fan, I'll revisit to see if I still like it.

[Raiders]

I found it to be just batshit enough to work as a darker, more twisted cousin to something like Scorsese's After Hours or even Adventures in Babysitting, where nighttime reveals a city full of horrors. The last act is pretty disappointing though.