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The screenplay is so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it - the noses of those zombie writers who take 'screenwriting' classes that teach them the formulas for 'hit films.'

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
Way
Films
Scruffy
Teach
Screenplay
Written
Screenplays
Class
Zombie
Film
Formulas
Wells
Classes
Well
Noses
Take
Writers

More quotes by Roger Ebert

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And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don't just try to shut them up.
Roger Ebert
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[Marlon] Brando was the only guy who could step out of that shadow at the end of that movie and be worth the wait.
Roger Ebert
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Families and their problems go on and on, and they aren't solved, they're dealt with.
Roger Ebert
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To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
Roger Ebert
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'Grand Illusion' and 'Rules of the Game' are routinely included on lists of the greatest films, and deserve to be.
Roger Ebert
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It is hard enough to be good at all, but to be good in comedy speaks for your character.
Roger Ebert
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Marlon Brando is the most influential movie actor of the century.
Roger Ebert
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When a girl says she likes you as a friend, what she means is: Rather than have sex with you, I would prefer to lose you as a friend.
Roger Ebert
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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.
Roger Ebert
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When I go to the movies, one of my strongest desires is to be shown something new. I want to go to new places, meet new people, have new experiences. When I see Hollywood formulas mindlessly repeated, a little something dies inside of me: I have lost two hours to boors who insist on telling me stories I have heard before.
Roger Ebert
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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.
Roger Ebert
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It often strikes me that the actors in high school movies look too old.
Roger Ebert
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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
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'Marley' does what is probably the best possible job of documenting an important life.
Roger Ebert
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There's nothing like impending death to rouse you from existential boredom.
Roger Ebert
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Never marry anyone you could not sit next to during a three-day bus trip.
Roger Ebert
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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.
Roger Ebert
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Life is made up of challenges that cannot be solved but only accepted.
Roger Ebert
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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.
Roger Ebert
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If you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may be.
Roger Ebert