Roger Ebert frasi celebri
Here's a suggestion for thrillermakers: You can't go wrong if all of the characters in your movie are at least as intelligent as most of the characters in your audience.
Without the deputy chief and all that he represents, "Die Hard" would have been a more than passable thriller. With him, it's a mess, and that's a shame, because the film does contain superior special effects, impressive stunt work and good performances, especially by Rickman as the terrorist.
Frasi sulla vita di Roger Ebert
The character of V and his relationship with Evey (Natalie Portman) inescapably reminds us of the Phantom of the Opera. V and the Phantom are both masked, move through subterranean spaces, control others through the leverage of their imaginations and have a score to settle. One difference, and it is an important one, is that V's facial disguise does not move (unlike, say, the faces of a Batman villain) but is a mask that always has the same smiling expression. Behind it is the actor Hugo Weaving, using his voice and body language to create a character, but I was reminded of my problem with Thomas the Tank Engine: If something talks, its lips should move.
Because the movie has meant different things to me at different stages in my life, but has always meant something, and because it clearly did for Fellini too, I think I will always want to see it again. It won't grow stale, because I haven't finished changing.
Roger Ebert Frasi e Citazioni
When I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal.
A lot of recent films seem unsatisfied unless they can add final scenes that redefine the reality of everything that has gone before; call it the Keyser Soze syndrome.
In my opinion, he has no useful truths. He's a bully [...] None of the Fight Club members grows stronger or freer because of their membership; they're reduced to pathetic cultists. Issue them black shirts and sign them up as skinheads.
When you see good actors in a project like this, you wonder if they signed up as an alternative to canyoneering.
Origine: Citato in Brutte recensioni di film bellissimi http://www.ilpost.it/2016/02/06/recensioni-brutte-film-belli/recensioni-negative-di-film-bellissimi/, il Post, 2 febbraio 2016.
Fight Club is a thrill ride masquerading as philosophy--the kind of ride where some people puke and others can't wait to get on again.
“[Alien 3 è] uno dei "film brutti" più belli che abbia mai visto […].”
[...] one of the best-looking bad movies I have ever seen [...].
I might add that it is one of the most visually fluid movies ever made, a movie that approaches music in its rushing passion, not simply because Nino Rota's score is one of the best ever recorded, but because the characters seem to move with music within them (joyful, lustful, exciting, doubtful, sad). Fellini worked in Italy at a time of dubbed dialogue, and he sometimes played music loudly as he filmed a scene. That's why the characters often seem to be moving to unheard rhythms.
The name of the movie is "Die Hard," and it stars Bruce Willis in another one of those Hollywood action roles where the hero's shirt is ripped off in the first reel so you can see how much time he has been spending at the gym.
Thrillers like this need to be well-oiled machines, with not a single wasted moment. Inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot and prevent it from working.
I love it when a movie takes control, sweeps away my doubts and objections, and compels me to laugh. I'm having a physical reaction, not an intellectual one. There's such freedom in laughing so loudly. I feel cleansed.
“Dopo mesi e mesi di commedie che non mi hanno fatto ridere, eccone infine una che c'è riuscita.”
After months and months of comedies that did not make me laugh, here at last is one that did.
What a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor.
I have paused here at the keyboard for many minutes, trying to decide how to describe them (a) in a family newspaper, and (b) without spoiling the fun. I cannot. I will simply observe in admiration that after the scene explodes in disbelieving, prolonged laughter, the Farrellys find a way to blindside us with a completely unanticipated consequence that sets us off all over again.
As nearly as I can tell, the deputy chief is in the movie for only one purpose: to be consistently wrong at every step of the way and to provide a phony counterpoint to Willis' progress. The character is so willfully useless, so dumb, so much a product of the Idiot Plot Syndrome, that all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie.
“Riguardo a un livello tecnico, ci sarebbe molto da dire su Trappola di cristallo.”
È quando arriviamo ad alcune delle inutili aggiunte della sceneggiatura che il film si dà il colpo di grazia.
On a technical level, there's a lot to be said for "Die Hard." It's when we get to some of the unnecessary adornments of the script that the movie shoots itself in the foot.
Here is a movie with the courage to be grungy. Dragons live in smelly lairs deep beneath crumbling mountains, and to reach them you have to cross lakes of fire and somehow avoid being eaten alive by little baby dragons.
Roger Ebert: Frasi in inglese
The Great Movies II (2005), p. 94
Contesto: It's said that Chaplin wanted you to like him, but Keaton didn't care. I think he cared, but was too proud to ask. His films avoid the pathos and sentiment of the Chaplin pictures, and usually feature a jaunty young man who sees an objective and goes for it in the face of the most daunting obstacles. Buster survives tornados, waterfalls, avalanches of boulders, and falls from great heights, and never pauses to take a bow: He has his eye on his goal. And his movies, seen as a group, are like a sustained act of optimism in the face of adversity; surprising, how without asking, he earns our admiration and tenderness.
Because he was funny, because he wore a porkpie had, Keaton's physical skills are often undervalued … no silent star did more dangerous stunts than Buster Keaton. Instead of using doubles, he himself doubled for his actors, doing their stunts as well as his own.
“Such a connection can be terrifying.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-impossible-2012 of The Impossible (19 December 2012)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Contesto: Seated in a dark theater, I reached out my hand for that of my wife’s. She and I had visited the same beach and discussed visiting it with our children and grandchildren. An icy finger ran slowly down our spines. Such a connection can be terrifying. What does it mean? We are the playthings of the gods.
Review https://web.archive.org/web/20130707210114/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/united-93-2006 of United 93 (27 April 2006)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Contesto: It is not too soon for "United 93," because it is not a film that knows any time has passed since 9/11. The entire story, every detail, is told in the present tense. We know what they know when they know it, and nothing else. Nothing about Al Qaeda, nothing about Osama bin Laden, nothing about Afghanistan or Iraq, only events as they unfold. This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims.
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/elephant-2003 of Elephant (7 November 2003)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Contesto: Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about Basketball Diaries?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it. The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.
“Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
" O, Synecdoche, my Synecdoche! http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/o_synecdoche_my_synecdoche.html," (10 November 2008)
Contesto: 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.
Origine: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Contesto: Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such as electrons. This phenomenon has been observed in laboratory experiments and scientists believe they have proven it takes place. They’re not talking about faster than the speed of light. Speed has nothing to do with it. The entangled objects somehow communicate instantaneously at a distance. If that is true, distance has no meaning. Light-years have no meaning. Space has no meaning. In a sense, the entangled objects are not even communicating. They are the same thing. At the “quantum level” (and I don’t know what that means), everything may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am more content with questions than answers.
“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
First published in the "Roger Ebert's Journal" column (19 May 2010) http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/cannes-7-a-campaign-for-real-movies
"Critical Eye" column, Yahoo! Internet Life (September 1998), p. 66
Origine: I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie
“The Muse visits during the process of creation, not before.”
Variante: The Muse visits during the act of creation, not before. Don't wait for her. Start alone.
“All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it.”
Origine: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 55 : Go Gently
Contesto: Raised as a Roman Catholic, I internalized the social values of that faith and still hold most of them, even though its theology no longer persuades me. I have no quarrel with what anyone else subscribes to; everyone deals with these things in his own way, and I have no truths to impart. All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. I know a priest whose eyes twinkle when he says, “You go about God’s work in your way, and I’ll go about it in His.”
“I would rather eat a golf ball than see this movie again.”
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/seven-days-in-utopia-2011 of Seven Days in Utopia (31 August 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/napoleon-dynamite-2004 of Napoleon Dynamite (18 June 2004)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen-2009 of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (23 June 2009)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/godzilla-1998 of Godzilla (26 May 1998)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/snake-eyes-1998 of Snake Eyes (7 August 1998)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/naked-1994 of Naked (18 February 1994)
Reviews, Four star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/your-highness-2011 of Your Highness (April 6, 2011)
Reviews, One-star reviews
Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/compliance-2012 of Compliance (29 August 2012)
Reviews, Three star reviews