It is an actor's passion to observe the world. It is his art to become what he observes. And finally, it is his job to let the world observe him. Richard Corliss More Quotes by Richard Corliss More Quotes From Richard Corliss It is said that no star is a heroine to her makeup artist. Richard Corliss makeup stars artist Nothing ages so quickly as yesterday's vision of the future. Richard Corliss future vision yesterday Every artist undresses his subject, whether human or still life. It is his business to find essences in surfaces, and what more attractive and challenging surface than the skin around a soul? Richard Corliss artist essence beauty John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' also speaks urgently to today's concerns: the cratered trail of dreams for Mexican immigrants seeking a promised land in the Western [United States]; the perfidy of banks in foreclosing on poor people's homes; and the insurgent urge of the book's protagonist, Tom Joad, to speak truth to police power. 'Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy,' Tom promises, 'I'll be there.' In Salinas, Calif., Ferguson, Mo., or Staten Island, N.Y., Tom's truth goes marching on. Richard Corliss dream home book Years from now, when cinephiles are asked to name the movies' golden age, they'll say it was when Cate Blanchett was in them. Richard Corliss age names years [Michael Hastings] has composed a dirge to incompatibility, which, because it raises expectations only to defeat them, leaves a taste of exhumed ashes. Richard Corliss ashes taste expectations Today is a time of turbulence and stagnation, of threat and promise from a competitor: the magic, omnivorous videocassette recorder (VCR). In other words, it is business as usual. Richard Corliss vcr magic promise Mausoleum air and anguished pauses: If this production were a poem, it would be mostly white space. Richard Corliss space air white It rekindles the great Hollywood romances. Richard Corliss romance hollywood Hollywood was born schizophrenic. For 75 years it has been both a town and a state of mind, an industry and an art form. Richard Corliss mind years art The visual palette suggests the creepy pastel paintings of Guy Peellaert (Rock Dreams); the fantasy battles with monsters and samurais echo the muscular landscapes of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. The movie is like an arrested adolescent's Google search run amok. Richard Corliss echoes dream running If you think of the 1930s in film as the decade of Gable and Lombard, Cagney and Harlow, Stanwyck and the Marx Brothers, think again. The biggest star - No. 1 in the 1936, '37 and '38 exhibitor polls - was a three-time box-office champ before she was 10. Shirley Temple, singer, dancer, and prime exemplar of Movie Cute, owned the '30s. Richard Corliss temple think you cute Lesley Gore's part-time field was pop singer, and in her brief but urgent prime, she was the Queen of Teen Angst. She endured heartbreak as a birthday girl betrayed by her beau in 'It's My Party,' savored revenge in the sequel 'Judy's Turn to Cry' and belted the proto-feminist anthem 'You Don't Own Me.' Richard Corliss me you girl birthday How many mothers have emerged from a family trip to a Disney movie and been obliged to explain the facts of death to their sobbing young? A conservative estimate: the tens of millions, since the studio's first animated feature, 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' premiered in 1937. Richard Corliss family white snow death In 'The Birth of a Nation,' Griffith made audiences see the Civil War through his eyes - the eyes of the son of a colonel in the Army of the Confederacy. Richard Corliss eyes army war son It's a fallacy, long rebuffed by science, that humans use only about 10% of their brainpower. But it is true about most summer movies. Pouring their wizardry into special effects and well-choreographed fights, warm-weather action films rarely challenge the viewer with grand notions or beautifully baffling imagery. Richard Corliss challenge action science long The exact meaning of irony is so narrow that the word is hardly worth using; in its broad, current definition, it's a euphemism for sarcasm. 'I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being ironic.' No, you're not. You're evading the responsibility for being sarcastic. Richard Corliss meaning you sarcasm responsibility In the movies, every crazy old fart needs a cool old car. Jack Nicholson drove a spiffy yellow 1970 Dodge Challenger two-door in 'The Bucket List.' In 'Gran Torino,' the cranky pensioner played by Clint Eastwood not only owned a 1972 GT Sport, he also used to build cars like that at the Ford plant. Richard Corliss cool car crazy yellow Bad movies: they can be tatty classics of crazed ineptitude, like Edward D. Wood's 'Glen or Glenda' and 'Plan 9 from Outer Space,' or big-budget misfires like the 1987 'Ishtar,' a would-be comedy that sent Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman on a Hope-Crosby Road to Dystopia. Richard Corliss road movies comedy space Football's a war game without fatal casualties; baseball is a picnic on a huge field, without the food. Richard Corliss game food football war