Steve James Quotes

I am deeply honored to be making 'Life Itself,' a documentary on the life of Roger Ebert, and to have had the full cooperation and enthusiasm of Roger and his wife, Chaz.

Then I did The Tao of Steve and that was at Sundance in 2000 where it did really well.

I'll just say it: I love Sundance; my very first film won Sundance.

Between Twitter and Facebook, early word of mouth for a film can destroy it immediately or take something you've never heard of and make it a huge hit.

I met Jill Soloway at Sundance a couple years ago. I was there for 'Crystal Fairy', and she was there for 'Afternoon Delight'. She reached out and wanted to get together.

I'll never get another first premiere again, especially at Sundance. I've just been trying to fully engage myself in everything that's going on, and I hope to see other movies here while I'm here! I really want to!

I like doing the promotional work. It's part of the film's process. Cannes was very wonderful to premiere.

I think the success of a film is very important to an actor. It depends on how many people go to watch your movies; the more the merrier. Nobody wants to do a film for five people. You work so hard that millions of people watch the movie; this is directly related to box office success.

Fair or not, it always sucks when everyone wanders back from Sundance talking about how bad the movies were.

I know actors come around and they always talk like that, but I don't do publicity if I don't like the film.

I wanted to make a film that wouldn't just appeal to Formula One fans. That's what the great sports documentaries do - 'Hoop Dreams,' 'When We Were Kings' - they're human dramas first, sport second, if at all.

There are many critics who invite me on their show, and I have told them that when my film releases, you will give it one-and-a-half star rating. That's fine. There's no issue because stars will matter when I'm planning to open a five star hotel. When I'm making films, I don't need stars.

It was no accident that I made 'Hoop Dreams' because it concerned a sport that I loved and hoped would be my dream, however far-fetched that turned out to be. Because of the success of that film, Hollywood pigeonholed me as a sports biopic guy, which led to 'Prefontaine' and two cable sports films.

From now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: 'You wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.'

I'll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.

Well, this is the second time I've done New Directors.

When you work in film, you learn to appreciate a distributor. You can have this great little film, but if you don't have a distributor, you are sitting in your living room with a great little film.

I'm gonna see 'Mission Impossible' Part 9 because I like Tom Cruise movies! But just because the box office has that one receipt from the ticket I purchased, doesn't mean it represents someone who liked it.

I don't think 'Cocktail' was a perfect critical success, but it touched a vein in our culture.

I was on the set of 'Braveheart' and my mate says to me, 'Do you think this film will be any good?' And I really meant this, too, I told him 'Let me put it this way - It won't win any awards.' Cut to: five Oscars.

I don't sweat the Internet. You know, it's still something I enjoy as a movie geek myself to get on and, like, look at all the websites; however, when it comes to marketing a movie, the Internet is still not the thing that gets people to the theatre.

My first film festival and my first film that I've ever been in, 'Martha Marcy May Marlene,' that was at Sundance.

I do know my own films don't necessarily work within that high-pressure reductive moment of the opening weekend - or all the ways that many people assess the value of movies.

I was in Cannes two years ago at our 'U23D' movie premiere. I love the French.

I remember when I was at the first showing of 'John Dies at the End' at Sundance, and I was talking to some of the people in the standby crowd who were outside and didn't have tickets. They were just waiting in line to see if they could get in. It was this whole gang of die-hard sci-fi wacko people, and they were just fantastic.