Roger Ebert: Trending quotes (page 10)

“It's the kind of movie where you ask people how they liked it, and they say, "Well, it was well made," and then they wince.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dead-ringers-1988 of Dead Ringers (23 September 1988)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews

People

“Attending this new version, I felt oddly as if I were watching a provincial stock company doing the best it could without the Broadway cast. I was reminded of the child prodigy who was summoned to perform for a famous pianist. The child climbed onto the piano stool and played something by Chopin with great speed and accuracy. The great musician then patted the child on the head and said, 'You can play the notes. Someday, you may be able to play the music.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/psycho-1998 of Psycho (6 December 1998)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Music , Speed

“Call me hardhearted, call me cynical, but please don't call me if they make Home Alone 3.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/home-alone-2-lost-in-new-york-1992 of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (20 November 1992)
Reviews, Two star reviews

Home

“Showgirls is the first big-budget "adults only" movie in a few years and, to be sure, it contains so much nudity that the sexy parts are when the girls put on their clothes. It contains no true eroticism, however, and that's why I think it reflects a grounding in sexual fantasy: Eroticism requires a mental connection between two people, while masturbation requires only the other person's image.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/showgirls-1995 of Showgirls (22 September 1995)
Reviews, Two star reviews

People , Girl , Thinking , Parting

“A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.”

Roger Ebert

First published in the "Movie Answer Man" column (18 September 2005) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050918/ANSWERMAN/509180304/1023

People , Tree

“But now here is the director's cut, which is 20 minutes shorter, lops off a couple of characters and a few of the infinite subplots, and is even more of a mess. I recommend that Kelly keep right on cutting until he whittles it down to a ukulele pick.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/southland-tales-2007 of Southland Tales (16 November 2007)
Reviews, One-star reviews

“"This sucks on so many levels." — Dialogue from "Jason X" Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jason-x-2002 of Jason X (26 April 2002)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

“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 visuals are grubby and drab. The characters are unkempt and have rotten teeth. Breathing tubes hang from their noses like ropes of snot. The soundtrack sounds like the boom mike is being slammed against the inside of a 55-gallon drum. The plot. … 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.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/battlefield-earth-2000 of Battlefield Earth (12 May 2000)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Hostility , Way , Time , Training

“You want loud, dumb, skillful, escapist entertainment? Twister works. You want to think? Think twice about seeing it.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/twister-1996 of Twister (10 May 1996)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews

Thinking

“I wonder who will find the film more uncomfortable - men or women? Both will recoil from the brutality of the scenes of the assault. But for some men, the movie will reveal a truth that most women already know. It is that verbal sexual harassment, whether crudely in a saloon back room or subtly in an everyday situation, is a form of violence - one that leaves no visible marks but can make its victims feel unable to move freely and casually in society.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-accused-1988 of The Accused (14 October 1988)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Women , Men , Truth , Feeling

“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.”

Roger Ebert

"A Film Critic's Windy City Home' in The New York Times (13 February 2005) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/magazine/13DOMAINS.html?ex=1266987600&en=ee5831db9aa9dafb&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt

Personality

“The Golden Thumb is not as good as the Oscar, but it is a lot of fun.”

Roger Ebert

"A Film Critic's Windy City Home' in The New York Times (13 February 2005)

“Once is the kind of film I've been pestered about ever since I started reviewing again. People couldn't quite describe it, but they said I had to see it. I had to. Well, I did. They were right.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/once-2007 of Once (24 December 2007)
Reviews, Four star reviews

People

“I had a hard time watching Wolf Creek. It is a film with one clear purpose: To establish the commercial credentials of its director by showing his skill at depicting the brutal tracking, torture and mutilation of screaming young women. When the killer severs the spine of one of his victims and calls her "a head on a stick," I wanted to walk out of the theater and keep on walking.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wolf-creek-2005 of Wolf Creek (23 December 2005)
Reviews, Zero star reviews

Women , Wolf , Time

“Sour Grapes is a comedy about things that aren't funny. It reminded me of Crash, an erotic thriller about things no one finds erotic. The big difference is that David Cronenberg, who made Crash, knew that people were not turned on by auto accidents. Larry David, who wrote and directed Sour Grapes, apparently thinks people are amused by cancer, accidental castration, racial stereotypes and bitter family feuds… The more I think of it, the more Sour Grapes really does resemble Crash (except that Crash was not a bad film). Both movies are like watching automobile accidents. Only one was intended to be.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sour-grapes-1998 of Sour Grapes (17 April 1998)
Reviews, Zero star reviews

People , Family , Thinking

“Hitchcock said a movie should play the audience like a piano. Death Race played me like a drum. It is an assault on all senses, including common. Walking out, I had the impression I had just seen the video game and was still waiting for the movie.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-race-2008 of Death Race (22 August 2008)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

Death , Game , Sense , Waiting

“Clerks spoke with the sure, clear voice of an original filmmaker. In Mallrats the voice is muffled, and we sense instead advice from the tired, the establishment, the timid and other familiar Hollywood executive types. The year that Clerks played at the Cannes Film Festival, I was the chairman of a panel discussion of independent filmmakers. Most of them talked about their battles to stay free from Hollywood's playsafe strategies. But Kevin Smith cheerfully said he'd be happy to do whatever the studios wanted, if they'd pay for his films. At the time, I thought he was joking.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mallrats-1995 of Mallrats (20 October 1995)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Sense , Time , Happiness

“The movie cheerfully offends all civilized notions of taste, decorum, manners and hygiene… is the movie vulgar? Vulgarity is when we don't laugh. When we laugh, it's merely human nature.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-wedding-2003 of American Wedding (1 August 2003)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Nature

“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”

Roger Ebert

which I am.
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God

God , Intelligence

“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.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-pink-panther-2006 of The Pink Panther (10 February 2006)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

School