Robert Ben Garant Quotes

I watch a film and the most important thing to me is what I think of the movie.

In 'Dear Father,' you will see some remarkable work in terms of the screenplay.

I wanted to like 'Up in the Air' - I like Jason Reitman - but Vera Farmiga left me cold.

'Pulp Fiction' is an amazing film, and I haven't made one nearly as good.

I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

Whether I'm acting or making it, at the end of the day it's telling the story; action, drama. You want the audience to feel it - the story, the action, the scene, or a particular shot. I just keep working on crafting my art, on how to make action movies.

I mean no film is beyond criticism, but I think we've made a very modest movie.

It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.

I loved 'About Schmidt'. I like Alexander Payne's work a lot.

You could say that Iron Man was a second-tier character, and it turned out very successfully. I simply think it's down to the movie itself, and whether people enjoy the movie, are involved in the movie, and that it entertains them. From that point of view, the movie has to stand alone.

We think craft is important, and the irony has always been that horror may be disregarded by critics, but often they are the best-made movies you're going to find in terms of craft. You can't scare people if they see the seams.

If I start paying attention to the mechanics of a film while watching it, then it's generally a bad film.

I love 'Shattered Glass.' It's one of my favorite movies. I think it's just brilliant.

I don't really say much about reviewers. It's a very tough job to get all of the depth of a movie all at once.

Unlike the stage, I never found it helpful to be good in a bad movie.

I was a big 'Blue Valentine' fan. I really loved that movie. And I thought the performances were just unbelievably real, which is certainly what I always strive for in my work.

There's no difference between movies and television. None at all. Except in a lot of cases, television's much better than movies.

A good movie is three good scenes and no bad scenes.

Alone is a much better film than House of the Dead and better than most horror movies out today.

You have to have a strong idea for a hit movie, a strong core idea that resonates emotionally. It also has to technically achieve its goal - it's got to be well-written, well-paced, and interestingly told.

One of my favorite films is 'Big Fish,' which I think is a masterpiece.

I think it's really important to have good quality drama on TV.

I believe if you come out of a movie and the first thing you say is, 'The cinematography was beautiful,' it's a bad movie.