Author: Roger Ebert

Mad Dog Time is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo makes a living cleaning fish tanks and occasionally prostituting himself. How much he charges I'm not sure, but the price is worth it if it keeps him off the streets and out of another movie.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

I will one day be thin… but Vincent Gallo will always be the director of The Brown Bunny.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

You used to be able to depend on a bad film being poorly made. No longer. The Punisher: War Zone [sic] is one of the best-made bad movies I’ve seen… Its only flaw is that it’s disgusting.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

There is a word for this movie, and that word is: “Ick.”

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Add it all up, and what you’ve got here is a waste of good electricity. I’m not talking about the electricity between the actors. I’m talking about the current to the projector.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Last year, I reviewed a nine-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen, and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

John Waters’ Pink Flamingos has been restored for its 25th anniversary revival, and with any luck at all that means I won’t have to see it again for another 25 years. If I haven’t retired by then, I will.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

My guess is that African Americans will be offended by the movie, and whites will be embarrassed. The movie will bring us all together, I imagine, in paralyzing boredom.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

If I ever do a festival of films that deserve to be overlooked, Friends & Lovers is my opening night selection.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter's Basilica… it was the festival's closing film, coming at the end like the horses in a parade, perhaps for the same reason.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Spice World is obviously intended as a ripoff of A Hard Day's Night which gave The Beatles to the movies… the huge difference, of course, is that the Beatles were talented — while, let's face it, the Spice Girls could be duplicated by any five women under the age of 30 standing in line at Dunkin' Donuts.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

“This sucks on so many levels.” — Dialogue from Jason X. Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. Jason X sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

I urgently advise hospitals: Do not make the DVD available to your patients; there may be an outbreak of bedpans thrown at TV screens.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

They say state-of-the-art special effects can create the illusion of anything on the screen, and now we have proof: It's possible for the Jim Henson folks and Industrial Light and Magic to put their heads together and come up with the most repulsive single creature in the history of special effects, and I am not forgetting the Chucky doll…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours…

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter

The director, whose name is Pitof, was probably issued with two names at birth and would be wise to use the other one on his next project.

(1942 – 2013) American film critic, journalist & screenwriter