Some of these reviews were written in joyous zeal. Others with glee. Some in sorrow, some in anger, and a precious few with venom, of which I have a closely guarded supply. When I am asked, all to frequently, if I really sit all the way through these movies, my answer is inevitably: Yes, because I want to write the review. I would guess that I have not mentioned my Pulitzer Prize in a review except once or twice since 1975, but at the moment I read Rob Schneider's extremely unwise open letter to Patrick Goldstein, I knew I was receiving a home-run pitch, right over the plate. Other reviews were written in various spirits, some of them almost benevolently, but of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, all I can say is that it is a movie made to inspire the title of a book like this.

Herzog by his example gave me a model for the film artist: fearless, driven by his subjects, indifferent to commercial considerations, trusting his audience to…

Caligula is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent…

In my very first review I was already jaded, observing of 'Galia,' an obscure French film, that it 'opens and closes with arty shots of the ocean, mother of us…

I cut a hole in my heart and wrote with the blood.

Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood, as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.

You may choose your word like a connoisseur, And polish it up with art, But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays, Is the word that comes from the heart. Y…