Biography

Considers the biggest Oscar injustice to be when GoodFellas (1990) lost Best Picture and Best Director.

Movie 43 (2013) is the worst film he's even seen. Well, so far.

In November 2004, on a special segment of At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper (1986), he stated that his all-time favorite film about Thanksgiving is Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987).

Gave The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) thumbs down. However, he gave The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) thumbs up. After viewing the second and third chapters, his appreciation for "The Fellowship of the Ring" increased.

Favourite movie is The Godfather Part II (1974).

[To Roger Ebert regarding the film May (2002)] If it's ever playing on an airplane, I'm going to find out if my seat really is a flotation device. 'Cause I'm jumping out, okay?

[After Ebert suggested Vincent Gallo should bill The Brown Bunny (2003) as "the worst movie ever made" to make "people want to see it"] Well, I understand your point. If you told me that over in the corner there was a hot, steaming pile of excrement, I'd want to go over and take a look, but I'd be glad I didn't make it.

[on films getting an R rating because of smoking] I don't hear anybody saying, "If there's a *gun* in a movie, we should automatically consider an R rating." There are a lot of movies . . . that are *quite* violent, have lot of shootings and killings, and everybody's perfectly fine with getting a PG-13 rating. So, something like Ghost Rider (2007) with Nicolas Cage gets a PG-13, but now if there's smoking in a movie, it's gonna get an R, I think it's nonsense.

[To Roger Ebert regarding the film Freddy Got Fingered (2001)] This is ground zero. It has to be ground zero of bad comedies. And Tom Green with his horse and with his elephant... if a woman was doing that, this movie would be banned in Tijuana let alone getting an R rating. And it's just so horrible. And he's such an unfunny guy. He should be flipping burgers somewhere. Why is Tom Green getting movies and who wants to see this guy? You know, even in a stupid comedy, there has to be a set-up before you have a punchline. This is just, "Hey, let's just do a bunch of punchlines and the punchlines are let's do gross-out stuff." Let's do jokes, like you said, about child molestation. But there's nothing even set up for the bad taste humor.

[After giving a thumbs down to Disney's Chicken Little (2005)] I don't care whether the film is 2-D, 3-D, CGI, or hand-drawn, it all goes back to the story.