I've recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries.
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.
I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society.
It might kill you to say it, because the film really takes on the Catholic Church, but I do think there is a sort of affection for certain rituals, and an authenticity to the presentation of those rituals, in 'Mea Maxima Culpa.'
You should look straight at a film; that's the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars but of illiterates.
Whenever a film allows you to think and feel and take it beyond the moment, I think it's achieved something. And 'Funny Games' does that.
I really started watching films when I was 14. As I became a teenager, there was nothing that really interested me apart from music, books and films.
I am a creative person and watching a movie is like writing a story. So when I see a movie, I also see the editing, the music, the camera angles, etc.
Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.
We didn't really have television when I was a kid. Around 30, I discovered films and started systematically catching up. I collect interesting documentaries and films, and watch a few nights a week.
'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.
A film that I love is 'Deliverance' from back in the day. You start out with these archetypal characters - the hero, the bookworm, the pacifist - and by the end, it's all turned upside down. I love that.
There's a difference between watching a film and watching a bit of cinema and enjoying a film as a piece of cinema.
Films are my first love.
I walked out of Spielberg's 'Lincoln' having such a thirst for more. It used such a microscopic albeit enormous event in American history. It used such a small piece of his presidency to illustrate him as a president through the lens of that event.
Roger Ebert was a very valiant soldier of cinema who passed away, and we miss him. It's over with serious discourse about cinema in the print media and on television. It has been replaced by celebrity news. So we are speaking in his spirit always.
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.
I try to steal from the best. Suck it all in. 'Taxi Driver' is really a bible for film actors, a master class. A lot of emotional power, a lot of emotional depth but it's contained and you just see the tip of the iceberg.
I couldn't spell anything. I couldn't remember anything, but I could go to a movie and I knew who starred in it, who directed it, everything.
'Suburbicon' feels like a last gasp of some kind of middle. It thinks it's both frivolous and serious. But, for that, you need a touch that George Clooney's never had.
Films are all I know. I wouldn't know what to do with a day off.
'Rosemary's Baby' is a real New York movie, even though you wouldn't necessarily think of it as one, though I do.
The film's star, Eminem, doesn't appear to have a great deal of range, but he can play himself. Even though the protagonist is named Jimmy Smith, the thoughtful '8 Mile' is a raw version of the rapper's own story.
I love Hitchcock movies. I took a Hitchcock class in college, so I saw all his movies. I wrote papers on his movies.
There's so much that goes into a film that I feel like it's a bit arrogant to say, 'Oh, I never watch my own movies.' Well, it's not just you. There's a whole host of other people. So much skill goes into it. But I would say it does take a couple times seeing it to get a level of perspective.
