Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't make movies with the idea that people are going to walk out of them feeling comfortable or better about themselves or more secure in their own biases or opinions.
I wanted to try before I got too old to try to do a big movie and I'd been looking for something to do that was interesting enough to spend those two years of my life on.
When I was very young, you would get the TV listings from The Globe and The Herald, and you would basically go through them, circle things, and map out your viewing week.
You can't really do a big character in an action film; you're already suspending your disbelief in the action, then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.
The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan.
We excuse movies like 'Independence Day' that really lack logic and say, 'It doesn't make any sense, but it's a ride.' I thought a movie was a movie and a ride was a ride.
I can never watch anything I've been involved in, because I know it, and I know what the making of it was like, and I know what's been cut out and changed. I just know it.
I'm often stunned when I come up over Mulholland, and I'm looking down at the Valley, and I can see for thirty miles; I can see the mountains, or all the way to the ocean.
But something cannot be made out of nothing. Dust rose in the air, caught the rays of the sun for a brief moment and sparkled, and then returned to the earth as mere dust.
I'm glad that as a 33-year-old working mother, I can still choose to wear a Hello Kitty T-shirt or stay up late scrolling through the Twitter feed of my junior-high crush.
When I do encounter young women or aspiring filmmakers who tell me that I've inspired them or that my work means something to them, that's amazing. That's really exciting!
I'm my mother's son, so when it comes to altruism and understanding how to do things to benefit a person's life... the women in my life have been much better than the men.
Well, I started thinking about what you were saying about how your movies need to make a profit. Now, what is the one thing, if you put it in a movie, it'll be successful?
I think everyone practices their Oscars acceptance speech with a shampoo bottle, and I've done my fair share of them. It's really surreal to be able to do it in real life.
My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.
It feels like a totally different MTV now.Now they have all their own original series, and people are talking about going back to music now? It's all original programming.
I love it when actors come to you with a problem and you have to listen. You'd like them to just get on with it, but it often means that there's a problem with the script.
I think when you really adore something, and you've grown up with it, you almost don't want to be part of it. I want to enjoy it as a fan and don't want to ruin the magic.
I was so clear on the fact that I wanted to be a journalist that I asked my parents if I could go to a tutorial college to do my O-levels early, which I did when I was 13.
I always knew I wanted to make movies since I was around eleven. I never thought of it as wanting to do straight-up comedy. Even now, I don't see things in terms of genre.
Republicans can be a funny bunch. They're against affirmative action, but they always seem to be able to find people of color to fill a slot just when they're most needed.
Every time you work on a project, it's a little vacation from the project you're working on the other 23 hours. That's the thing - it replenishes you to do something else.
Doctor, I'm taking your sister under my protection. If any thing happens to her, anything at all, I swear to you I will get very choked up. Honestly, there could be tears.
On one level, I must never lose touch with my audience. But I must, at some point, stop trying to get everybody to like me, and be true to the thing I think I need to say.
My films require that the spectator ask the big existential questions. If you're not interested of turning inwards for answers, my films won't fulfill their whole purpose.
I mean I certainly like when I'm like talking to people I'm like what did you think, what did you think, what did you think? You know that's always in the back of my head.
I feel very creatively satisfied and lucky that I get to write for other people, but for something I direct, it has to be something I completely understand every facet of.
For my wife and I, our first child was really easy to have, but our second one was really hard to have. We had to go to a lot of fertility clinics and do that whole thing.
I watched all kinds of dirty movies as a kid. My parents were very liberal about that, and I was still an uber-nerd who never drank or did drugs. I don't think it matters.
When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, 'Blow-Up' ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What?
Once you have a situation that is fresh, then you sort of believe in it and it becomes normal. So you do end up with protagonists that haven't been in other movies before.
I'm not trying to be noble. I'm afraid. And the idea of having more love than I've ever had-- and knowing I might never have it again-- that scares me worse than anything.
I had to audition as an actor, and I got so tired of doing the same monologues over and over, so I started writing my own, and then I started selling them to other actors.
I am much more optimistic about consumer-driven change than I am governmental change. Anything can happen in government, but I do think we consumers can drive true change.
I've always felt I've related to women deeply because of being gay and feeling like there was always somebody trying to oppress me, to keep me down, to put me in my place.
Movie studios could learn a thing or two from British publishers. There is an intelligence, and a respect for writers; things that you hope for and never get in Hollywood.
The most exciting part of the casting process was casting out of Israel, which was a really unique process, mainly done remotely from California, looking at casting tapes.
That's how it is online—there's no time in cyberspace. It's almost like everything physical evaporates, and it's just your mind and the different sites floating in a void.
A writer is a performer as well. A writer isn't the literary department. That gets tried on but nothing's a script unless a good writer goes away and does his thing alone.
First scenes are super-important to me. I'll spend months and months pacing and climbing the walls trying to come up with the first scene. I drive for hours on the freeway.
I don't think there's ever been a moment in history where that, as an artistic message, has played very well, because people in their hearts know that's terrible and a lie.
I don't think arrested-adolescent humor will fade. Maybe the form will change, but I guarantee its replacement will still be based in immature behavior from mature figures.
That's not the part of the story that I'm interested in, anyway. The part that I'm interested in is all the personal stuff. I tried to base the powers on family archetypes.
There are a million logical reasons to not make a film, and I think if you get focused on all the critics or money or any of that other stuff, it never leads anywhere good.
Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with Jews building houses in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran.
I think the fact that 'Black Lightning,' 'Luke Cage' and 'Black Panther' have each made noise in their own way will only lead to different superheroes and different genres.
The truth of the matter is movies are a reflection of life and violence is a real part of life. I don't think you could make movies exclusively where there was no violence.
Juno MacGuff: [yelling through the house] Dad? Mac MacGuff: What? Juno MacGuff: Either I just peed my pants or um... Mac MacGuff: *Or*...? Juno MacGuff: THUNDERCATS ARE GO!
I got too fed up with films that didn't make you think. I liked the idea of one that you'd have to be dancing around with. I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film.
The great thing, as a screenwriter, is that you are always proud of what ends up on the screen, you are able to create something in isolation and you have a lot of freedom.