Stephen Hunter Quotes

I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.

Belly was not a bad movie. It was visually very interesting.

Once I've discovered the story, I might restructure it, maybe move things around, set up a clue that something is going to happen later, but that happens much later in an editorial capacity.

I read every single review, because I love film criticism and I'm interested.

I don't mind other guys seeing movies I want to see and then writing about them. That's fine, especially when it's the 'New Yorker''s Anthony Lane, because he knows this stuff pretty well.

Out of the total of 11 movies, I got slammed.

You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

I learned a lot about critics, not to really take them too seriously about movies.

I don't think the audience always listens to the critics. That's been proven time and time again.

You tell me that 'Date Night' was good? I'm not going to see it. I will debate you on it, having no knowledge of the footage in the film. I was next to someone on the plane watching it, and they were dozing off.

No critic writing about a film could say more than the film itself, although they do their best to make us think the oppposite.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

One thing I don't do anymore is read or pay attention to the critical response, which is a bummer because when I started, and when I was in school, I loved to read old film criticism.

I'm not a very big fan of 'Slumdog Millionaire.' I think it's visually brilliant. But I have problems with the story line. I find the storyline unconvincing.

Critics should think about how the opening weekend audience might want to discover some surprises for themselves.

The critics mostly review the budgets when they go to see a big-budget movie. They are out to get a big-budget movie. On the other hand, if they review a picture that is done as a graduate thesis by some college film student for $25,000, it is almost sure to be admired and respected.

I just feel that if people write about a film, then they should also write about audience's response.

I'm very troubled when editors oblige their film critics to read the novel before they see the film. Reading the book right before you see the film will almost certainly ruin the film for you.

Reviewers are entitled to say if they liked the screenplay, performance, and execution of a film or not. But when they say things like the film doesn't cater to a certain audience, it leaves people wondering if they should watch it.

I remember the review from Michael Wilmington in Chicago, and Gene Siskel wrote really smart reviews where I thought, "Oh, they totally get what we're attempting to do."

New York critics - I hear when one of them watched "A Star Is Born", he talked back to the screen.

I'm one of those directors who read reviews, even if they're bad, because I started as a film critic as a cinema student. I indulge in the art of criticism in general.

During the course of any normal day, I usually pay more attention to assembling a grocery list than I do to reading movie reviews, although there are a more than a few film critics who bring huge insight to their work.

If getting a contract was relatively straightforward, writing fiction was far harder than I could have imagined, and there were moments during the long and torturous edit process when it seemed that 'Zulu Hart,' the first of the trilogy, would never be fit for public consumption.