I’ve been told that I am evil. I’ve been told that I am behind the persecution of millions of Americans. That I have encouraged hate toward gays. I’ve received both very brief and obscene messages, and very long and literate messages that tell me a vote for Crash was vote for homophobia.
And the sexes eyeing each other uneasily, for nothing is easier for a teenager to imagine than rejection.
We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls.
Movies are not about moving, but about whether to move.
When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thought falls aside and it is all just THERE. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note.
There’s nothing like impending death to rouse you from existential boredom.
Many really good films allow us to empathize with other lives.
It is quite possible for the vulgar to be funny, but to succeed, it must rise to a certain genius.
It is hard enough to be good at all, but to be good in comedy speaks for your character.
If you can act as if something is true, in a sense that makes it true.
I’m told we movie critics praise movies that are long and boring.
I like smart movies about smart people, and enjoy it when most of the facts are on the table and we can contemplate them together.
Horror fans are a particular breed. They analyze films with such detail and expertise that I am reminded of the Canadian literary critic Northrup Frye, who approached literature with similar archetypal analysis.
If you find an occupation you love and spend your entire life working at it, is that enough?
Many thrillers follow such reliable formulas that you can look at what’s happening and guess how much longer a film has to run.
There must be a better reason to have a baby than to provide a plot point in a rom-com. Don’t you think?
The Academy is paranoid about its image.
That’s what fantasies are for, to help us imagine that things are better than they are.
Sometimes it’s all about the casting.
Samurai films, like westerns, need not be familiar genre stories. They can expand to contain stories of ethical challenges and human tragedy.