Roger Ebert: Movie (page 3)

“As I swim through the summer tide of vulgarity, I find that's what I'm looking for: Movies that at least feel affection for their characters. Raunchy is OK. Cruel is not.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/american-pie-1999 of American Pie (9 July 1999)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Feeling , Summer

“So OK. Let’s say you know the novel, you agree with Ayn Rand, you’re an objectivist or a libertarian, and you’ve been waiting eagerly for this movie. Man, are you going to get a letdown. It’s not enough that a movie agree with you, in however an incoherent and murky fashion. It would help if it were like, you know, entertaining?”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/atlas-shrugged-2011 of Atlas Shrugged: Part I (14 April 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Fashion , Waiting , Help

“Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fargo-1996 of Fargo (8 March 1996)
Reviews, Four star reviews

Love

“This is a movie that comes in two parts: It knows exactly what to do with special effects, but doesn't have a clue as to how two people in love might act and talk and think.
Movies like Top Gun are hard to review because the good parts are so good and the bad parts are so relentless. The dogfights are absolutely the best since Clint Eastwood's electrifying aerial scenes in Firefox. But look out for the scenes where the people talk to one another.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/top-gun-1986 of Top Gun (16 May 1986)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews

Love , People , Thinking , Parting

“Immortals is without doubt the best-looking awful movie you will ever see. Eiko Ishioka's costume designs alone deserve an Oscar nomination. "They weren't at all historically accurate," grumbled a woman in the elevator after the sneak preview, as if lots of documentation exists about the wardrobes of the gods. She added: "I guess that's what we deserve for using free tickets we got at a Blackhawks game."”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/immortals-2011 of Immortals (9 November 2011)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

God , Game

“This movie was made by professionals. Do not attempt any of this behavior yourself.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/superbad-2007 of Superbad (17 August 2007)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Behavior

“Blue Velvet contains scenes of such raw emotional energy that it's easy to understand why some critics have hailed it as a masterpiece. A film this painful and wounding has to be given special consideration. And yet those scenes of stark sexual despair are the tipoff to what's wrong with the movie. They're so strong that they deserve to be in a movie that is sincere, honest and true. But Blue Velvet surrounds them with a story that's marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots. The director is either denying the strength of his material or trying to defuse it by pretending it's all part of a campy in-joke. … What's worse? Slapping somebody around, or standing back and finding the whole thing funny?”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/blue-velvet-1986 of Blue Velvet (19 September 1986)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Pain , Understanding , Strong , Parting

“Rarely has a movie this expensive provided so many quotable lines.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ghostbusters-1984 of Ghostbusters (1 January 1984)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

“Anna’s reaction is more complex than you might imagine, and it’s at such a moment you appreciate the woman in the writer-director’s chair. Women, I suspect, are more likely than men to view sex from the over-all perspective of what we may call their lives. In a country like Saudi Arabia, whose citizens express discomfort about men and women even attending movies together, I have little doubt which gender is more concerned.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/humpday-2009 of Humpday (22 July 2009)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Women , Men , Sex , Imagination

“You used to be able to depend on a bad film being poorly made. No longer. The Punisher: War Zone [sic] is one of the best-made bad movies I've seen…Its only flaw is that it's disgusting.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/punisher-war-zone-2008 of Punisher: War Zone (3 December 2008)
Reviews, Two star reviews

War , Dependency

“Well, what is a political film? A film about politicians? Or a film about issues — sexism, racism, the environment, nuclear policy? I decided on the broader definition. If I'd limited myself to films about politicians, it would have been a short list: How many characters in any mainstream American movie seem aware of the political process, or belong to a party?”

Roger Ebert

Ranking "the 20 best political films of the past two decades" in "The Big Picture: Roger Ebert" in MotherJones (May/June 1996) http://www.motherjones.com/arts/film/1996/05/ebert.html

“Films like Speed belong to the genre I call Bruised Forearm Movies, because you're always grabbing the arm of the person sitting next to you. Done wrong, they seem like tired replays of old chase cliches. Done well, they're fun. Done as well as Speed, they generate a kind of manic exhilaration.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/speed-1994 of Speed (10 June 1994)
Reviews, Four star reviews

Personality , Speed

“Since the scenes where they're together are so much less convincing than the ones where they fall apart, watching the movie is like being on a double-date from hell.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-break-up-2006 of The Break-Up (2 June 2006)
Reviews, Two star reviews

Hell

“Is that a sacrilege that I praise a Holocaust movie [Schindler's List] for being entertaining? The word doesn't imply that a movie need be cheerful. In my mind, entertainment in this genre springs from characters who are brought to full life, who we care about and who are set in a powerful story. My motto: "No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing."”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/in-darkness-2011 of In Darkness (15 February 2012)
Reviews, Two-and-a-half star reviews

Life , Spring

“The movie stars Michelle Pfeiffer as LouAnne Johnson… [h]er teaching methods are inventive. She bribes them with candy bars and free trips to amusement parks, and involves them in the words of that important poet, Bob Dylan (the Tambourine Man might have been a drug dealer!). Soon they're in the school library, finding connections between Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas… [w]hat, exactly, will these disadvantaged inner-city kids accomplish by being bribed with candy bars and the "relevancy" of Bob Dylan? Can they read and write? Can they compete in the job market? An educational system that has brought them to the point we observe in the first classroom scene has already failed them so miserably that all of Miss Johnson's karate lessons are not going to be much help.”

Roger Ebert

Review of http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dangerous-minds-1995 Dangerous Minds (11 August 1995)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Education , School , Star , Reading

“The movie delights me with its cocky confidence that the audience can keep up. Primer is a film for nerds, geeks, brainiacs, Academic Decathlon winners, programmers, philosophers and the kinds of people who have made it this far into the review. It will surely be hated by those who 'go to the movies to be entertained', and embraced and debated by others, who will find it entertains the parts the others do not reach.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/primer-2004 of Primer (29 October 2004)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

Hate , People , Confidence , Parting

“I arrive at the end of this review having done my duty as a critic. I have described the movie accurately and you have a good idea what you are in for if you go to see it. Most of you will not. I cannot argue with you. Some of you will — the brave and the curious. You embody the spirit of the man who first wondered what it would taste like to eat an oyster.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/gerry-2003 of Gerry (28 February 2003)
Reviews, Three star reviews

Idea

“The best shot in this film is the first one. Not a good sign… After the screening was over and the lights went up, I observed a couple of my colleagues in deep and earnest conversation, trying to resolve twists in the plot. They were applying more thought to the movie than the makers did. A critic's mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-know-what-you-did-last-summer-1997 of I Know What You Did Last Summer (17 October 1997)
Reviews, One-star reviews

Light

“The movie stars six teenage characters who have been marketed on TV and in toy stores. They have names, but no discernible personalities. None of them ever says anything more interesting than "You guys!" As teenagers, they are skilled in-line skaters and karate fighters, but they don't get their real powers until they turn into faceless clones in Power Rangers uniforms with plastic masks and helmets. Is that the message? Faceless conformity is the way to success? Certainly the Rangers are not individuals in or out of uniform, but I wonder if they don't represent a triumph of merchandising over creativity. Children's heroes have traditionally been individualistic and eccentric. The Rangers are not, properly speaking, even characters. They are color-coded products… Paging through the movie's press kit, I came across this quote attributed to Amy Jo Johnson, who plays Kimberly, the Pink Power Ranger: " `Mighty Morphin Power Rangers™: The Movie' is a mix between Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz. " I wonder if Amy Jo actually said "TM" when she was delivering that wonderfully fresh and spontaneous quote, which is so much more involved than anything she says in the movie. More to the point, I wonder if she has ever seen "Star Wars" or "The Wizard of Oz."”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mighty-morphin-power-rangers-the-movie-1995 of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie (30 June 1995)
Reviews, Half-star reviews

War , Children , Color , Way

“There is a word for this movie, and that word is: Ick.”

Roger Ebert

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/good-luck-chuck-2007 of Good Luck Chuck (21 September 2007)
Reviews, One-star reviews