Anthony Oliver "A. O." Scott (A. O. Scott) Quotes
The musical performances do more than enrich the movie; they complete it.
Quotes to Explore
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I've made up little mantras for myself, catchphrases from a screenwriting book that doesn't exist. One is 'Write the movie you'd pay to go see.' Another is 'Never let a character tell me something that the camera can show me.'
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I made my first movie when I was five.
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All of my problems are rather complicated - I need an entire novel to deal with them, not a short story or a movie. It's like a personal therapy.
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Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch.
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I would like to play an average guy. I would have loved to play opposite John Candy in a movie. That was my dream for a long time, and sadly, now I can never realize that. But I'd like to do comedy.
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Wes Craven's 'Shocker' is one of my favorite soundtracks. I don't know where that movie stands in the critical eye of cinema, but it was a really fun movie because of all the bands that were part of it.
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If you learn the craft, you can make a movie and get by with tricks.
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I'm not a movie star like other actors in the way that I need to walk with a bodyguard.
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I remember how much fun it was to pick out my lunchbox. My all-time favorite lunch box was from the movie 'Annie.' Also, I loved picking out school supplies! Trapper Keepers were my favorite.
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Truth be told, actually, my favorite director of the Movie Brats was not Scorsese. Loved him. But my favorite director of the Movie Brats was Brian de Palma. I actually met De Palma right after I'd done 'Reservoir Dogs,' and I was very beside myself.
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Movie making is not like other art forms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be digested or interpreted... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.
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After studying art, I was a painter for a while and was asked to audition for a movie randomly. I hadn't thought of acting before that.
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Musical types tend to combine the burden of the author with the burden of the actor.
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I was very, very thrown by the fact that I had to make some big changes in my life in order to be myself, but under this kind of movie-star banner.
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I'll tell you one thing... no doubt about it, my favorite kind of comedy is talking head comedy. I mean, if it were up to me, I'd do a whole entire movie that was just around a dinner table.
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I feel like the American years were my apprenticeship for doing a Bond movie.
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When you make a movie independently, you raise the money beforehand, and then you make the movie kind of by yourself.
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You've got to keep taking certain risks, because my priority is in acting, it's not in movie stardom.
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I just think if you play it, it seeps in, it seeps into the performances, it seeps into the atmosphere of the movie. And a lot of times I used the music ... while they were doing the scene.
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Remember that movie Independence Day, where invaders were coming from outer space and the whole world was united against the invasion? Why can't we be united on behalf of our planet? And that's what I want to do.
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I was raised in a deeply Catholic family. There was a sense that everything we were doing was to prepare ourselves for an afterlife in heaven. In my teenage years, that became less important to me. Eventually, that turned into agnosticism, which became atheism.
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In the Han Dynasty, Xiang Yu was very brave and won many battles, but in the end he failed. Treat people with sincerity and build a good organization. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how famous or how capable you are.
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The most enduring battle is between head and heart; what would be efficient and logical is nearly always trumped by what is messy and illogical.
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The musical performances do more than enrich the movie; they complete it.
