Review of Magnolia in Chicago Sun-Times (7 January 2000) http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/magnolia-2000
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Magnolia is operatic in its ambition, a great, joyous leap into melodrama and coincidence, with ragged emotions, crimes and punishments, deathbed scenes, romantic dreams, generational turmoil and celestial intervention, all scored to insistent music. It is not a timid film. … The movie is an interlocking series of episodes that take place during one day in Los Angeles, sometimes even at the same moment. Its characters are linked by blood, coincidence and by the way their lives seem parallel. Themes emerge: the deaths of fathers, the resentments of children, the failure of early promise, the way all plans and ambitions can be undermined by sudden and astonishing events. … All of these threads converge, in one way or another, upon an event there is no way for the audience to anticipate. This event is not "cheating," as some critics have argued, because the prologue fully prepares the way for it, as do some subtle references to Exodus. It works like the hand of God, reminding us of the absurdity of daring to plan. And yet plan we must, because we are human, and because sometimes our plans work out.
Magnolia is the kind of film I instinctively respond to. Leave logic at the door. Do not expect subdued taste and restraint, but instead a kind of operatic ecstasy. At three hours it is even operatic in length, as its themes unfold, its characters strive against the dying of the light, and the great wheel of chance rolls on toward them.
Roger Ebert Quotes
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/red-1994 of Three Colors: Red (2 December 1994)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: We are connected with some people and never meet others, but it could easily have happened otherwise. Looking back over a lifetime, we describe what happened as if it had a plan. To fully understand how accidental and random life is — how vast the odds are against any single event taking place — would be humbling. … This is the kind of film that makes you feel intensely alive while you're watching it, and sends you out into the streets afterwards eager to talk deeply and urgently, to the person you are with. Whoever that happens to be.
Review of The Tree of Life (2 June 2011) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110602/REVIEWS/110609998
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is a film of vast ambition and deep humility, attempting no less than to encompass all of existence and view it through the prism of a few infinitesimal lives. The only other film I've seen with this boldness of vision is Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and it lacked Malick's fierce evocation of human feeling. … I don't know when a film has connected more immediately with my own personal experience. In uncanny ways, the central events of The Tree of Life reflect a time and place I lived in, and the boys in it are me. If I set out to make an autobiographical film, and if I had Malick's gift, it would look so much like this. … There is a father who maintains discipline and a mother who exudes forgiveness, and long summer days of play and idleness and urgent unsaid questions about the meaning of things. … 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. … 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.
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Context: I have no patience for churches that evangelize aggressively. I have no interest in being instructed in what I must do to be saved. I prefer vertical prayer, directed up toward heaven, rather than horizontal prayer, directed sideways toward me. I believe a worthy church must grow through attraction, not promotion. I am wary of zealotry; even as a child I was suspicious of those who, as I often heard, were “more Catholic than the pope.” If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must regard their beliefs with the same respect our own deserve.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/downfall-2005 of Downfall (11 March 2005)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides "a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did," because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient. All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.
The Great Movies II (2005), p. 94
Context: It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask. His films avoid the pathos and sentiment of the Chaplin pictures, and usually feature a jaunty young man who sees an objective and goes for it in the face of the most daunting obstacles. Buster survives tornados, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders, and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow: He has his eye on his goal. And his movies, seen as a group, are like a sustained act of optimism in the face of adversity; surprising, how without asking, he earns our admiration and tenderness.
Because he was funny, because he wore a porkpie had, Keaton's physical skills are often undervalued … no silent star did more dangerous stunts than Buster Keaton. Instead of using doubles, he himself doubled for his actors, doing their stunts as well as his own.
“Such a connection can be terrifying.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-impossible-2012 of The Impossible (19 December 2012)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: Seated in a dark theater, I reached out my hand for that of my wife’s. She and I had visited the same beach and discussed visiting it with our children and grandchildren. An icy finger ran slowly down our spines. Such a connection can be terrifying. What does it mean? We are the playthings of the gods.
Review https://web.archive.org/web/20130707210114/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/united-93-2006 of United 93 (27 April 2006)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: It is not too soon for "United 93," because it is not a film that knows any time has passed since 9/11. The entire story, every detail, is told in the present tense. We know what they know when they know it, and nothing else. Nothing about Al Qaeda, nothing about Osama bin Laden, nothing about Afghanistan or Iraq, only events as they unfold. This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/elephant-2003 of Elephant (7 November 2003)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Context: 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.
“Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
" O, Synecdoche, my Synecdoche! http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/o_synecdoche_my_synecdoche.html," (10 November 2008)
Context: I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, "If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanation." That is why 90% of academic film theory is bullshit. Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Context: Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such as electrons. This phenomenon has been observed in laboratory experiments and scientists believe they have proven it takes place. They’re not talking about faster than the speed of light. Speed has nothing to do with it. The entangled objects somehow communicate instantaneously at a distance. If that is true, distance has no meaning. Light-years have no meaning. Space has no meaning. In a sense, the entangled objects are not even communicating. They are the same thing. At the “quantum level” (and I don’t know what that means), everything may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am more content with questions than answers.
“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
First published in the "Roger Ebert's Journal" column (19 May 2010) http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/cannes-7-a-campaign-for-real-movies
"Critical Eye" column, Yahoo! Internet Life (September 1998), p. 66
“All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it.”
Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 55 : Go Gently
Context: Raised as a Roman Catholic, I internalized the social values of that faith and still hold most of them, even though its theology no longer persuades me. I have no quarrel with what anyone else subscribes to; everyone deals with these things in his own way, and I have no truths to impart. All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. I know a priest whose eyes twinkle when he says, “You go about God’s work in your way, and I’ll go about it in His.”
“I would rather eat a golf ball than see this movie again.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/seven-days-in-utopia-2011 of Seven Days in Utopia (31 August 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-2009 of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (23 June 2009)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998 of Godzilla (26 May 1998)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/snake-eyes-1998 of Snake Eyes (7 August 1998)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/your-highness-2011 of Your Highness (April 6, 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/compliance-2012 of Compliance (29 August 2012)
Reviews, Three star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wedding-crashers-2005 of Wedding Crashers (14 July 2005)
Reviews, Two star reviews
"Russ Meyer busts sleazy stereotype" Chicago Sun-Times (15 November 1985) http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/russ-meyer-busts-sleazy-stereotype
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bill-and-teds-bogus-journey of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (19 July 1991)
Reviews, Three star reviews
Roger Ebert's DVD commentary for Casablanca
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/orphan-2009 of Orphan (22 July 2009)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fame-2009 of Fame (23 Sep 2009)
Reviews, Two star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/around-the-world-in-80-days-2004 of Around the World in 80 Days (16 June 2004)
Reviews, Three star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pearl-harbor-2001 of Pearl Harbor (25 May 2001)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/freeway-1997 of Freeway (24 January 1997)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/clerks-1994 of Clerks (4 November 1994)
Reviews, Three star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-am-curious-yellow-1969 of I Am Curious (Yellow) (23 September 1969)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/away-we-go-2009 of Away We Go (10 June 2009)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/memoirs-of-a-geisha-2005 of Memoirs of a Geisha (9 December 2005)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bolero-1984 of Bolero (1 January 1984)
Reviews, Half-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/little-indian-big-city-1996 of Little Indian, Big City (22 March 1996)
Reviews, Zero star reviews
Playboy 20q http://www.playboy.com/magazine/20q_archive/siskel-and-ebert.html
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/summer-school-1987 of Summer School (22 July 1987)
Reviews, Half-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jury-duty-1995 of Jury Duty (12 April 1995)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/spider-man-2002 of Spider-Man (3 May 2002)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews
To see the snowman is to dislike the snowman. It doesn't look like a snowman, anyway.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jack-frost-1998 of Jack Frost (11 December 1998)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/my-cousin-vinny-1992 of My Cousin Vinny (13 March 1992)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-crush-2002 of Blue Crush (16 August 2002)
Reviews, Three star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sitter-2011 of The Sitter (7 December 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/scary-movie-2000 of Scary Movie (7 July 2000)
Reviews, Three star reviews