It is not enough for a movie to be righteous. It must also be watchable. Roger Ebert More Quotes by Roger Ebert More Quotes From Roger Ebert We think of first love as sweet and valuable, a blessed if hazardous condition. Roger Ebert first-loveblessedsweet It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others so that a completely phony, non-human replica of a dead wife can inspire the same feelings that the wife herself once did. That is a peculiarity of humans: We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars. Our idea of humanity bewitches us, while humanity itself stays safely sealed away into its billions of separate containers, or "people. Roger Ebert falling-in-lovestarsreal It's strange: We leave the movie having enjoyed its conclusion so much that we almost forgot our earlier reservations. But they were there, and they were real. Roger Ebert reservationsstrangereal The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there? Roger Ebert halfway-therepunishmentideas Pixar is the first studio that is a movie star. Roger Ebert pixarstarsfirsts I don't require movies to be about good people, and I don't reject screen violence. Roger Ebert rejectsviolencepeople I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together. Roger Ebert smarttogetherpeople I'm told we movie critics praise movies that are long and boring. Roger Ebert boringpraiselong There are often lists of the great living male movie stars. How often do you see the name of Nicolas Cage? He should always be up there. He's daring and fearless in his choice of roles, and unafraid to crawl out on a limb, saw it off and remain suspended in air. Roger Ebert starsairnames To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore. And then keep on rewinding, and rewinding, until we're back at the beginning, and can get up from our seats and walk backward out of the theater and go down the up escalator and watch the money spring from the cash register into our pockets. Roger Ebert secretdreamspring What's sad about not eating is the experience, whether at a family reunion or at midnight by yourself in a greasy spoon under the L tracks. The loss of dining, not the loss of food. Roger Ebert tracklossfood Growing up, I missed the whole 'Three Stooges' thing. Either they weren't on the station in my hometown, or we hadn't bought a TV set yet, or they came to town too late for me. I'm pretty sure that at the right age, I would have loved them. Roger Ebert growing-upthreeage Who was the real Hitchcock? I interviewed him once and haven't a clue. Roger Ebert hitchcockcluereal Anyone who reads advice books about romance has one problem to begin with: bad taste in literature. Roger Ebert romanceadvicebook There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don't you think? Roger Ebert plotbabythinking The film argues to the young that the old were young once, too, and contain within them all that the young know, and more. Roger Ebert filmyoungarguing CROUCHING TIGER is nevertheless a gloriously big epic, starring the Hong Kong action stars Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh in a visionary adventure where the characters seem set free from the force of gravity. Roger Ebert starsadventurecharacter Someone once said the fundamental reason we get married is because have a universal human need for a witness. Roger Ebert marriedfundamentalsneeds In the world of acting, many are thin but few are talented. Roger Ebert actingworld And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not. Roger Ebert connectionswork-outevents
