Marvin Minsky Quotes

This is unexpected... like squirt from aggressive grapefruit.

The weird thing about film, which I don't really care for, is that I'm always surprised when I see the film. One way or another, I'm always surprised.

It's great to surprise people. If you do the same thing all over again, which people expect you to do, they're going to get bored.

I never shoot my movies like I'm shooting 'a horror movie,' I shoot them like dramas. Dramas and then something horrible happens.

If you purposefully look to shock people, it isn't funny. That's what 50 million dollar Hollywood comedies do; try to be shocking and dirty. They aren't really. It isn't enough to shock. It's easy to shock. Real surprise is what I'm after. Those early movies, we had drugs, which you weren't supposed to show. You weren't supposed to shoot up. We would make fun of hippies. I think that we were punk before there was punk.

Au contraire..." "What?" Constance demanded. Curtain blinked. ~ The Perilous Journey

The only one who didn't know was George Lucas. We kept it from him, because we wanted to see what his face looked like when it changed expression--and he fooled us even then. He got Industrial Light and Magic to change his facial expressions for him and THX sound to make the noise of a face-changing expression.

I think most films are too predictable. They follow familiar patterns. I suppose audiences like to know where they stand but I like films that take me by surprise, take unexpected turns and twists.

I do believe that a film like Ten could never have been made with a 35mm camera. The first part of the film lasts 17 minutes, and by the end of that part, the kid has totally forgotten the camera.

A lot of people have said my movies are all the same. But I don't actually make an effort to have a style. I'm usually just thinking of what can we do to make it funnier or more interesting or just kind of refine it and it ends up like that.

I guess I prefer the laughs. I couldn't do a whole set of just shocks, but I like throwing a fastball inside every now and then to keep people on their toes.

Sometimes when you find something you didn't really realize you were looking for, you just don't know how to react.

I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.

NO!” The scream was the more terrible because he had never expected or dreamed that Professor McGonagall could make such a sound.

Yes, because it's Len's obsession with practical. I've never really had that experience that I hear people having of being on an empty soundstage painted green talking to a tennis ball on a stick.

Leave it to me: I'm always top banana in the shock department.

I went in right up front and said, This can't be about some guy in bandages. I didn't even want to do a horror movie. I took the concept and made a romantic adventure film. I like action heroes who don't take themselves too seriously. I wanted to make everyone take the mummy seriously, but it couldn't just be a guy in bandages. But the main thing was to build in surprises. That's one of the great things you can do with special effects.

We'll have a part and it's clearing up, so you think something is going to happen and it totally stops and does something completely different and then the part you thought was going to happen comes out of completely nowhere.

Mass-market movies have become about one thing. They kind of declare themselves right off the bat. . . . But when I go to see (a film), I want to be surprised. I want to see something I never expected. And when you get that, it should be celebrated.

I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

Nothing surprises me. After Donald Trump, nothing matters, does it?

Dmitri was at a total loss. It was a common reaction for people when I agreed to do something reasonable.

I wrapped a towel around me and I opened the door, and then I splish, splash, I jumped back in the bath. Well, how was I to know there was a party going on?

I always want people to be confused, to be shocked or realize something later.

Working with a green screen is so different than working with another human.