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The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost.

Roger Ebert

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Roger Ebert
Age: 70 †
Born: 1942
Born: June 18
Died: 2013
Died: April 4
Film Critic
Journalist
Presenter
Reporter
Screenwriter
Writer
Urbana
Illinois
Roger Joseph Ebert
Film
Traditional
Instinctive
Become
Kill
Henry
Character
Films
Wayne
Many
Hollywood
James
Like
Characters
Buried
Lived
Ethical
American
Code
Fonda
Lost
John
Stewart

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There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don't you think?
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You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can't take your eyes away from it... Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.
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When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thought falls aside and it is all just THERE. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note.
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The Lucky One is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.
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It often strikes me that the actors in high school movies look too old.
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If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.
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Teaching prejudice to a child is itself a form of bullying. You've got to be taught to hate.
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If your religion doesn't respect the rights of other religions, it is lacking something.
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It is reckless to make broad generalizations about any group of people.
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Sometimes you only need to have a few words with a person to know you would like to have many more.
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Why is it that English, drama and music teachers are most often recalled as our mentors and inspirations? Maybe because artists are rarely members of the popular crowd.
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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.
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How quickly do we grow accustomed to wonders. I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story Nightfall, about the planet where the stars were visible only once in a thousand years. So awesome was the sight that it drove men mad. We who can see the stars every night glance up casually at the cosmos and then quickly down again, searching for a Dairy Queen.
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It is not enough for a movie to be righteous. It must also be watchable.
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If you plan to miss this movie, better miss it quickly I doubt if it'll be around to miss for long.
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I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanation. That is why 90% of academic film theory is bullshit. Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
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Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.
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If a movie isn't a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy.
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Sometimes, it's all about the casting.
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Film has become a marketed commodity, and the opportunities and audiences for art cinema have grown smaller. There is a general downturn in cultural literacy, perhaps because of television.
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