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About this quote

What does it mean?
Ebert dislikes when characters within a movie explicitly critique the protagonist or the film's tropes.
In plain terms
I hate when a movie makes fun of itself in the dialogue.
What can you take from it?
Meta-commentary can feel like a lazy way to review your own movie.

Where it applies

  • romantic comedies
  • screenwriting
  • character dialogue

Putting it to work

  • identifying lazy writing
  • critiquing meta-films

Questions to consider

  • When is self-referential humor successful?
  • Does a movie ever need to review itself?

Another view

Some meta-commentary can actually be clever and self-aware.

More from Roger Ebert

  1. There is a word for this movie, and that word is: Ick.

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  2. Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are…

    Permalink to quote #42
  3. Last year, I reviewed a nine-hour documentary about the lives of Mongolian yak herdsmen, and I would rather see it again than sit through The Frighteners.

    Permalink to quote #39

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