Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebertwas an American film critic and 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. As of 2010, his reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. Ebert also published more than 20 books and dozens of collected reviews...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth18 June 1942
CityUrbana, IL
CountryUnited States of America
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.
Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them.
There is a part of me that will forever want to be walking under autumn leaves, carrying a briefcase containing the works of Shakespeare and Yeats and a portable chess set. I will pass an old tree under which once on a summer night I lay on the grass with a fragrant young woman and we quoted e.e. cummings back and forth.
Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.
We don't have a lot of class-conscious filmmaking.
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.
Most people choose movies that provide exactly what they expect, and tell them things they already know. Others are more curious. We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds.
Lebanon was at one time known as a nation that rose above sectarian hatred; Beirut was known as the Paris of the Middle East. All of that was blown apart by senseless religious wars, financed and exploited in part by those who sought power and wealth. If women had been in charge, would they have been more sensible? It's a theory.
Dogs notice, they share, they draw conclusions, they like it when they're able to be of service and are touchingly grateful when they're praised.
Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His.
Teaching prejudice to a child is itself a form of bullying. You've got to be taught to hate.
I know as a critic I'm required to have a well-armored heart. I must be a cynical wise guy to show my great sophistication. No pushover, me.
One sign of a great actor is when he can be alone by himself on the screen, doing almost nothing, and producing one of a film's defining moments.