And while Siskel and Ebert may have sparred on air, they were close off camera.
That is why Japan's flat refusal to close off its options is so welcome.
It failed to close off the flow when activated just before the explosion.
Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Altimeter Group, a digital-media consulting firm, says that would close off all lines of communication.
The 78 floodgates installed in the lagoon will eventually close off the three inlets during high tides, blocking them from swamping the city.
The sanctions would close off the European market and - the EU hopes - force the country to strike a deal.
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There are interior walls made of stainless-steel vertical panels that slide to open or close off rooms or create smaller openings.
It shows the danger - if you close off your market, you can do all sorts of things behind that curtain.
Risk assessments on the next stage, to close off the valve where the oil is coming from, are still being carried out.
The 33-year-old policeman died while trying to close off the area in a southern suburb of the capital following the bomb warning.
They might close off one route to destroying an airliner, but a cruel certainty is that terrorists will try to find others.
So we're looking for a big gang over here, so we might have to close off the street and have a block party.
There are no plans to close off Independence Avenue and Constitution Avenue, two major arteries on either side of the Capitol building, Ney said.
Both require molds to be made and either close off the ear entirely or provide an "open fit, " letting in lower frequencies that don't need amplification.
"Thanks to the quick reaction of several soldiers, they were able to close off the doors to that auditorium where there were some 600 people inside, " he said.
We might know some questions we want to answer, but not to the extent that it makes sense to close off the ability to answer questions that materialize later.
And this week DuPont announced it will cut by two-thirds its contributions to its traditional pension plan, close off the plan to new employees and boost contributions to employees' 401(k) accounts.
"I don't necessarily think it's a bad idea to close off Broadway, " says John Liu, a city council member from Queens who ran for comptroller in New York City's September primary.
But post Macondo, Uncle Sam made MMR roll the rig back out of the way and close off the well before a flow test could be completed (No longer a requirement).
The black market peso price has spiked as the government has tried to close off any and all avenues for people to legally convert out of pesos and into US dollars.
These measures come on top of the depressingly instinctive Israeli decision, taken after each such act of carnage, to close off the West Bank and Gaza from Israel for an indefinite period.
Alas, the one-way arrow of political time guarantees that the tendency is for the state to expand its sphere and close off and criminalize avenues of escape rather than facilitating and nurturing them.
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But it follows long-standing complaints by the teachers that the computerized exams take up too much instructional time and force schools to close off computer labs for long stretches to administer the exams.
Post-Katrina, the Corps of Engineers built gates to close off the canals in the event of a storm surge threat, and equipped them with pumps that lift rainwater up and over the closed gates.
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And this week DuPont (nyse: DD - news - people ) announced it will cut by two-thirds its contributions to its traditional pension plan, close off the plan to new employees and boost contributions to employees' 401(k) accounts.
Some fund managers also worry that banks they sue will restrict their allocation of bonds in future offerings, while hedge funds fret that their prime brokers will close off finance to them, says David Grais, a lawyer who works with aggrieved investors.
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Studies of the blowout preventer's two control pods suggest that a flattish battery and a dodgy valve meant that neither was in a fit state to close off the well automatically when they should have, which BP takes as evidence of poor maintenance by Transocean.
In refusing to close off the option entirely, however, they have pointed, rightly, to the dangers of the neighbourhood: China, already a nuclear power, and Pakistan, which like India is only a screw's turn, at most, from having nuclear weapons of its own (see article), live next door.
And for us to close ourselves off from that market would be a mistake.
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On Friday, stocks edged higher from the early weakness to close well off the lows, which was encouraging.
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