Author: Roger Ebert

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
Reviews/Criticism

I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

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

It was W. C. Fields who hated to appear in the same scene with a child, a dog, or a plunging neckline – because nobody in the audience would be looking at him. Jennifer Aniston has the same problem in this movie even when she’s in scenes all by herself.

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

Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful.

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

“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
Reviews/Criticism

You know you’re in trouble when you’re reduced to praising a movie for its absence of fart jokes, and have to add ‘almost.’

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

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
Reviews/Criticism

The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.

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

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
Reviews/Criticism

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
Reviews/Criticism

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
Reviews/Criticism

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson star. … If I were taken off the movie beat and assigned to cover the interior design of bowling alleys, I would have some idea of how they must have felt as they made this film.

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

The movie is being revived around the country for midnight cult showings. Midnight is not late enough.

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

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
Reviews/Criticism

Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen…

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

This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.

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

It's the worst kind of bad film: the kind that gets you all worked up and then lets you down, instead of just being lousy from the first shot.

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

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
Reviews/Criticism

Valentine's Day is being marketed as a Date Movie. I think it's more of a First-Date Movie. If your date likes it, do not date that person again. And if you like it, there may not be a second date.

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

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
Reviews/Criticism

I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.

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