You can't say it wasn't interesting. - Roger Ebert

Of all the arts, movies are the most powerful aid to empathy, and good ones make us into better people.

Clerks spoke with the sure, clear voice of an original filmmaker. In Mallrats the voice is muffled, and we sense instead advice from the tired, the establishment, the timid and other familiar Hollywood executive types. The year that Clerks played at the Cannes Film Festival, I was the chairman of a panel discussion of independent filmmakers. Most of them talked about their battles to stay free from Hollywood's playsafe strategies. But Kevin Smith cheerfully said he'd be happy to do whatever the studios wanted, if they'd pay for his films. At the time, I thought he was joking.

he knows he's running wild — and chooses to, burning up the future years of an empty lifetime for a few flashes of freedom