Neo-Noir Quotes

I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.

I first saw Walter Hill's second film, 'The Driver,' as a teenager, late at night on the BBC, quite possibly sitting too close to the telly. Given that this 1978 slice of neo-noir takes place almost entirely in the dark streets of a deserted downtown L.A., it's really a perfect midnight movie.

One of the reasons I do like 'Cult' is that it plays along the same vibe as the movie 'Seven,' which I absolutely love. There was a period of cinema in the mid-'90s that I was a huge fan of, with 'Heat' and 'Seven' and the Tarantino era. If I've ever been fanatical, it was about those films, back in the day.

'The Nice Guys' fulfilled my 1970s fantasy.

With 'The Big Lebowski,' we were really consciously thinking about doing a Raymond Chandler story, as much as it's about L.A.

I'm not a fan of action movies. I don't watch many action movies, I don't have a lot of references except for 70s action movies or cinema noir.

'Infernal Affairs' uses a vibrating terseness usually found in the writer and director Michael Mann's work. Thematically, this film deploys the techniques Mr. Mann brought to bear on 'Heat,' right down to using a similar cold-blooded electronic score.

With 'Brick' there was the Dashiell Hammett influence, and with 'Brothers Bloom' there was a really strong Fellini influence - both those movies wore that on their sleeve.

I think Sin City is a good example. Nobody would accuse Sin City of being historically inaccurate because it takes place in modern times.

The trouble with that movie is that you had to see Chinatown the day before you saw The Two Jakes.

I'm a huge Wong Kar-Wai fan.

I'm a massive fan of David Lynch and 'Twin Peaks.'

There's something very simple and contemplative about 'John Wick' - what is interesting is that it looks like it was based on an Akira Kurosawa movie.

My life and creative work are justified and completed by Blade Runner.

From 'Midnight Cowboy' to 'Taxi Driver' is a brief era whose grit, beauty, and violence has been quite mythologized.

I loved 'Life is Beautiful' and action films are great, like 'Die Hard.' My favourite is the mob film - 'Goodfellas,' 'The Godfather,' 'Once Upon a Time In America,' anything with Robert De Niro in it.

I would say 'Jigarthanda' had a lot of Tarantino in it, but it ends there. 'Iraivi' is inspired more from directors like Balu Mahendra, Mahendran, and K. Balachander.

I bizarrely think that this [Sin City] is the perfect date movie. If a guy took me on a date to see this movie, I would marry him, for sure. It's bad-ass chicks and rad dudes, who are sexy, all over the place, and there's so much cool action.

Even though L.A Confidential box-office was a fraction of, say, Titanic or the Grinch movie, it finds its audience and will continue doing so for who knows how long, because of the basic thing we love about movies, which is storytelling and performances.

The film that really struck me was Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. That was a film I watched many, many times and found endlessly fascinating in it's density. I think the density of that film is primarily visual density, atmospheric, sound density, moreso than narrative density.

I love David Lynch movies, and I like Haruki Murakami books.

I guess 'The Player' was a pretty good L.A. movie. And 'Chinatown.' Was there ever a better L.A. movie about a certain period in L.A.? That was terrific.

I love David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive;' such a wonderful movie.

Blade Runner was an incredibly influential movie, in terms of the way that it envisioned what the future was going to look like.

When I read Frank Miller's 'The Dark Knight Returns', I think it's a wonderful record of the Reagan era. I think it's amazing. This is the time I lived in.