107 Quotes by Wesley Morris

If I like a movie, I’m definitely advocating for it, but it’s not “you should see this” or “you shouldn’t see this.” I try to take a longer view about what the movie is doing and where it fits in the context of other things, in the way that certain good literary criticism tries to do the same thing.

The problem with a lot of movies when it comes to race is that they want to be moral, and they want to make the audience feel good about something that a lot of people don’t feel good about.

I love to go to the movies with people, but a lot of the time it’s me in a room with a bunch of other movie critics, which is fine.

We don't yet call it 'Thxgvng,' because any holiday whose centerpiece sits in an oven for four to six hours, after having sat out for as long to reach room temperature, must be spelled all the way out. Cook a turkey. You'll see. This is to say that you're not just roasting a turkey, obviously.

My mother very rarely skipped a Thanksgiving turkey. And yet, none of them ever tasted quite the same, landing somewhere on a sliding scale of succulence. She'd try new methods.

Sunken-place entrants include Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Tiger Woods, O.J. Simpson, sometimes Kanye West, and any black person with something nice to say about President Trump. It's more generous than 'sellout' and less punitive than 'Uncle Tom,' a dis and a road to redemption.

'America's Dad' is what we called Bill Cosby. And we called him that because, well, what a revolutionary way to put it. Through him, we were thumbing our noses at the long, dreary history for black men in America by elevating this one to a paternal Olympus. In the 1980s, he made the black American family seem 'just like us.'

'Suburbicon' feels like a last gasp of some kind of middle. It thinks it's both frivolous and serious. But, for that, you need a touch that George Clooney's never had.

I don't see a lot, but I think what the movie studios know and what they always know but they kind of ignore, which is that a there's an audience for movies like 'Get Out,' and 'Hidden Figures,' and to some extent 'Moonlight,' which made a lot less money than 'Hidden Figures' did.