Manny Farber Quotes

Going back to the noir fiction of the 30s, 40s and 50s. It's very contemporary.

British crime stories tend to be very internal, psychological, claustrophobic, very limited in terms of geography.

Maybe I'm a little biased, but shows like 'Dexter' and 'Southland,' I'm just enthralled by that sort of storytelling, kind of clever and patient.

I've always been a huge fan of thrillers like David Fincher's 'Se7en.' I am fascinated by the disturbing, dark underbelly of life. I find such films deeply engrossing. They delve deep into the human psyche, and that's a place worth exploring.

Ross McDonald had a greater influence on me than any other writer. His style of writing, the repeated theme of the past coming out to grab somebody, that's very attractive to me as a reader and, now, as a writer.

I tend to be a fan of darker shows and love 'The Americans,' 'Ray Donovan,' 'True Detective,' 'House of Cards' and 'Peaky Blinders.'

There's this film called 'The Pledge', with Jack Nicholson in it. Now that's a dark film.

But then again, you know, the pimp in TAXI DRIVER has this reason, given the environment he was living in.

When a book is just a plot, you know, two men fight for the love of a woman in a wild frontier, I immediately ask, 'Why?'

'Dexter' is a very well-oiled machine; it's just a great show and great to be part of.

Do we root for Michael Corleone in the 'Godfather' films? I think so, even if he is a monster.

Cop shows are by definition melodramatic; they're larger than life. They create very stark contrasts and conflicts emotionally. They're provocative, assuming they grapple with - to the extent that cop shows are mirrors of the culture.

It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.

So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that.

Duncan Sheik and I are trucking along on 'American Psycho,' which is sort of the anti-Superman, you know? But it's a lot of fun, too, in a much, much darker way, obviously.

When you look at a film like 'The Ides of March' or 'Good Night, and Good Luck' even, those are really contained pictures.

The original and very basic 'Law & Order' series has always seemed to me to be 100-percent exposition, with no filler, no pesky nuances and almost no background about the series' continuing characters - just the hard nuts and bolts of pure storytelling.

One of the things about the '70s films I love - the films 'Nightcrawler' is being compared to, like, 'Taxi Driver' - is that they never put their flawed characters into any one box.

I'm so happy with 'The Blacklist.' Give me more people to shoot and throw them off buildings.

I don't know, a lot of people go crazy about 'Breaking Bad,' but I don't like the soap opera aspect of it and only following one character. I like the context to all of it, all the pieces, like 'The Wire.' It's more about the state of things; it's not about the narrative of a person.

The reason to do any barking - well, the reason for me - is that 'Three Billboards' feels so off about so many things. It's one of those movies that really do think they're saying something profound about human nature and injustice.

'Better Call Saul' gets surprisingly dark.

People used to always complain that horror films have no stories, that it's all just about kills and stuff like that.

In terms of 'Ray Donovan,' the story is so rich, the actors are so fantastic, the writing is impeccable. And it's such beautiful storytelling with complex characters.

I would love to write more about my hardboiled gumshoe on Mars, Alex Lomax.