Welcome to our collection of quotes by Roger Ebert. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times said Ebert "was without question the nation's most prominent and influential film critic," Tom Van Riper of Forbes described him as "the most powerful pundit in America," and Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called him "the best-known film critic in America."Ebert was known for his intimate, Midwestern writing voice and critical views informed by values of populism and humanism. Writing in a prose style intended to be entertaining and direct, he made sophisticated cinematic and analytical ideas more accessible to nonspecialist audiences. While a populist, Ebert frequently endorsed foreign and independent films he believed would be appreciated by mainstream viewers, which often resulted in such films receiving greater exposure.
Ebert and Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel helped popularize nationally televised film reviewing when they co-hosted the PBS show Sneak Previews, followed by several variously named At the Movies programs. The two verbally sparred and traded humorous barbs while discussing films. They created and trademarked the phrase "two thumbs up," used when both gave the same film a positive review. After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued hosting the show with various co-hosts and then, starting in 2000, with Richard Roeper.
Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands in 2002. He required treatment that included removing a section of his lower jaw in 2006, leaving him severely disfigured and unable to speak or eat normally. However, his ability to write remained unimpaired and he continued to publish frequently online and in print until his death on April 4, 2013. His RogerEbert.com website, launched in 2002 and underwritten by the Chicago Sun-Times, remains online as an archive of his published writings and reviews while also hosting new material written by a group of critics who were selected by Ebert before his death.
It is not enough for a movie to be righteous. It must also be watchable.
There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don't you think?
Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.
Families and their problems go on and on, and they aren't solved, they're dealt with.
It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.
Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.
When I am writing, my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.
If there's anything I hate more than a stupid action comedy, it's an incompetent stupid action comedy. It's not so bad it's good. It's so bad it's nothing else but bad.
It's easier to identify with loss than love, because we have had so much more experience of it.
I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do.
Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.
That's what fantasies are for, to help us imagine that things are better than they are.
Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?
I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.
James Cameron's films have always been distinguished by ground-breaking technical excellence.
There are few lonelier sights than a good comedian being funny in a movie that doesn't know what funny is.
Never marry anyone you could not sit next to during a three-day bus trip.
It is comforting to think that we can love so powerfully that fate itself wheels and turns at the command of our souls.
Sometimes, it's all about the casting.
I began to realize that I had tended to avoid some people because of my instant conclusions about who they were and what they would have to say. I discovered that everyone, speaking honestly and openly, had important things to tell me.
I am informed that 5,000 cockroaches were used in the filming of Joe's Apartment. That depresses me, but not as much as the news that none of them were harmed during the production.
I felt it would to add a great deal to my legend for eccentricity.
Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.
The Golden Thumb is not as good as the Oscar, but it is a lot of fun.
We spend too much time hiding illness.
(Guy) Pearce, as the hero, makes the mistake of trying to give a good and realistic performance. (Jeremy) Irons at least knows what kind of movie he's in, and hams it up accordingly.
When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be.
An actress should never, ever, be asked to run beside a van in red disco boots for more than about half a block, and then only if her child is being kidnapped.
Jane Austen wrote six of the most beloved novels in the English language, we are informed at the end of Becoming Jane, and so she did. The key word is beloved. Her admirers do not analyze her books so much as they just plain love them to pieces.
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.
If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough?
The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.
I have no fear of death. We all die. I consider my remaining days to be like money in the bank. When it is all gone, I will be repossessed.
People never think of themselves as choosing to be politically correct. They simply think in the way that they do.
I do suspect my star ratings average too high. But, of course, star ratings are ridiculous. I'm stuck with them.
Resentment is just a way of letting someone else use your mind rent-free.
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.
One hopeful sign that the filmmakers can learn and grow is that the sequel does not contain a single pie, if you know what I mean.
If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't.
All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it.
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.
Film theory has nothing to do with film.
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.
Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.
There is a movie called Fargo playing right now. It is a masterpiece. Go see it. If you, under any circumstances, see Little Indian, Big City, I will never let you read one of my reviews again.
Dirty Love wasn't written and directed, it was committed. Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn't rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent... I am not certain that anyone involved has ever seen a movie, or knows what one is.
I am proudly a liberal. I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.
I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how? I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer.
The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before. Don't wait for her. Start alone.
In thinking about 'depressing movies,' many people don't realize that all bad movies are depressing, and no good movies are.
It's hard to explain the fun to be found in seeing the right kind of bad movie.
In the world of bad movies, 'Death to Smoochy' is a towering achievement.
The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.
Longer Version:
The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.
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.
I will one day be thin, but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.
I stopped taking notes on my Palm Pilot and started playing the little chess game.
Much has been written about Generation X and the films about it. Clerks is so utterly authentic that its heroes have never heard of their generation. When they think of X, it's on the way to the video store.
It is more erotic to wonder if you're about to be kissed than it is to be kissed.
When I had been a film critic for ten minutes, I treated Doris Day as a target for cheap shots. I have learned enough to say today that the woman was remarkably gifted.
I do not fear death. I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.
Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more.
Nobody looks perfect. We have to find peace with the way we look and get on with life.
Valentines Day is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think its more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.
Aren't you getting tired of people hating one another? What do they think they get out of it?
Does the real world have any more substance than visions and hallucinations when we're having them? At any given moment, what's happening in our minds is all and everything that happens.
Teenagers used to go to the movies to see adults having sex. Today adults go to the movies to see teenagers having sex.
It often strikes me that the actors in high school movies look too old.
Friends don't let Jackasses drink and drive.
We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.
We must try to contribute joy to the world... I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
To call A Lot like Love dead in the water is an insult to water.
Beguiled by George S. Bush's easy smile and casual indifference to the details, we are on the brink of electing him to office. This isn't choosing a president, it's casting the lead in a sitcom about the presidency.
I value the kind of prayer when you stand at the edge of the sea, or beneath a tree, or smell a flower, or love someone, or do a good thing. Those prayers validate existence and snatch it away from meaningless routine.
Since any reasonable person would choose a Mac over a PC, Apple's market share provides us with an accurate reading of the percentage of reasonable people in our society.
Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced -- because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.
There are two things you can't argue in film: comedy and eroticism. If something doesn't make you laugh, no one can tell you why it's funny, and it's difficult to reason someone out of an erection.
Inside every sadist is a masochist, cringing to taste his own medicine.
Oh, here comes Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and Jimmy Smits!
Steven Spielberg makes Minority Report with the newest digital technology; other directors seem to be trying to make their movies from it.
I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic -- the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.
Nicholas Sparks recently went on record as saying he is a greater novelist than Cormac McCarthy. This is true in the same sense that I am a better novelist than William Shakespeare.