A Quote by James Wan

I'd love to be a filmmaker and look back and be like, 'Ah, man, we were part of that whole '80s video nasty thing!' — © James Wan
I'd love to be a filmmaker and look back and be like, 'Ah, man, we were part of that whole '80s video nasty thing!'
I do love dance music. I love Daft Punk. I mean, I was a child in the '80s, so bands like the Eurythmics and just so many great '80s bands were dance bands, but they had the whole soul thing happening, too.
Oftentimes when people make movies about the '80s, they go back and look at '80s films, [but] those look nothing like the '80s. It's some watered-down version of reality.
It's really interesting for me as a filmmaker to go back and look at the films I've made and see where I was at that point in my life and also where my ideals were and the beliefs that I had and look at the ways I've grown and evolved and apply that to the next thing.
We've been fighting our whole lives to say we're just human beings like everyone else. When we start separating ourselves in our work, that doesn't help the cause. I've heard it for years: 'How do you feel being a black filmmaker?' I'm not a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker. I'm a black man, I have black children. But I'm just a filmmaker.
Yeah, I co-directed '23.' Yeah, the whole concept of the video... Even with that video, I feel like it's not a video that you can get sick of. You can always go back and watch that and it's fresh.
I did worry about being in a science-fiction show. The bits that I was reading, I felt were funny, and I felt the man was childish, so I really did ask initially, "Is this for kids?" And the thing that came back immediately was like, "Hey, take a look at this whole thing again. This is definitely not for children. How can you think that?"
I don't have to come back, because I am still here! And I'm not an '80s thing. I already worked with my first band back in East Germany and that was soooo '70s, young man. I'm a '70s thing. If I'm a thing at all... and an exciting thing.
It was in the '80s, so I guess big hair and high bangs. And I had so many gummy bracelets! While we were doing 'Full House,' we were like, 'You know, in 10 years, we're going to look back on this and think this is horrible.' But everyone looked like that!
My readership seems to be the sensitive people, for the most part. Then there are the occasional fans who are like, "Ah, video games!"
I feel like part of my journey as a filmmaker is to tell different stories, whether they are just a black perspective on things that aren't necessarily hood movies, or Tyler Perry movies or Ava DuVernay movies. Love all those people, but that whole thing has been sowed up already.
There was a time when emigration from Cuba was a definitive separation. There were no visits. In the '80s, '90s, it was incredibly difficult. I'm not the only one interested in this as a filmmaker - other Cuban filmmakers have dealt with it, too, because it's such a part of our reality.
The video game culture was an important thing to keep alive in the film because we're in a new era right now. The idea that kids can play video games like Grand Theft Auto or any video game is amazing. The video games are one step before a whole other virtual universe.
I love like the 80s look - 80s and early 90s, like the high-waisted jeans and the crop tops, and the floral prints, and flowers and stuff like that. Big baggy jumpers... yeah, stuff like that.
I'm a video game enthusiast. I love video games! They were a huge part of my upbringing in their early form, when I was all about 'Dig Dug' and 'River Raid.' As they evolved, so did my music-making, and we just kind of grew up together like cool friends.
Every video you see in the movie we have an entire video of it that will be on the DVD, so the whole video for African Child, the whole video for Super Tight, you know the Jackie Q songs.
I guess the cool thing about the '80s is the kind of like adventure in terms of, you know, people were very willing to use sounds that were completely ridiculous or whatever. There was a lot of stuff happening in the '80s and it's all over the place. I guess that's probably the coolest thing for me and that's what I like about it. Just kind of that like, 'Oh, what's this sound? Oh that's wacky. Let's use it anyways.'
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