You slide down in your seat and make yourself comfortable. On the screen in front of you, the movie image appears—enormous and overwhelming. If the movie is a good one, you allow yourself to be absorbed in its fantasy, and its dreams become part of your memories

People send me e-mails saying, "You're a movie critic. You don't know anything about politics." Well, you know what, I'm 60 years old, and I've been interested in politics since I was on my daddy's knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.

3-D is a waste of a perfectly good dimension. Hollywood's current crazy stampede toward it is suicidal. It adds nothing essential to the moviegoing experience. For some, it is an annoying distraction. For others, it creates nausea and headaches.

You can't just tell actors, especially young ones, to 'act happy' and expect them to do it. They must in some essential way be happy.

To call "A Lot like Love" dead in the water is an insult to water.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

My motto: 'No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.'