TV accustoms people to not expecting much. - Pauline Kael

Since I have an aversion to movies in which people say grace at the dinner table (not to the practice but to how movies use it to establish the moral strength of a household), the opening night montage of Sunday-night supper in one home after another in Waxahachie, Texas in 1935 — a whole community saying grace — made me expect the worst.

In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.

Nobody really controls a production, now; the director is on his own, even if he's insecure, careless, or nuts.