A Quote by Nithya Menen
Films were always there at the back of my mind. I would try to move away, but films kept coming to me. I would do movies for friends. I guess some things are meant to be!
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I've been hooked on films ever since I can remember renting VHS tapes. But who got me hooked? I think life did. There wasn't a person or a mentor that got me hooked. I think it was the films themselves that influenced me. A specific memory that comes to mind is watching 'Goodfellas' when I was 12 and thought Robert De Niro looked so cool sitting at the bar smoking a cigarette and contemplating his next "move". I actually would copy his faces gestures and try and get into his mind frame. I would borrow mad dad's clothes and pretend I was a Mobster. So I guess I have to thank Robert DeNiro.
I can't stand on a podium and beat my chest saying I'm the best. I just think I've been the luckiest of all. Yes, I'm talented. The movies that I've chosen and the way they've fared have also helped. I've always done films I would love to watch. I have stayed away from films which I thought were depressing.
Free time keeps me going. It's just something that's always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
You know, the art films would usually be more, I mean the exploitation movies would usually be more lurid, but not that much more. I mean, actually back in those days that was what foreign films had. They had sex, they were selling Laura Antonelli.
My brother and I are huge fans of foreign horror. Some of the most interesting movies are coming from overseas. I guess if there was one change we'd like to see, it would be more original horror films made by the studio system and less of a reliance on remakes.
When I stopped making films, they were getting on to the more realistic films and the explicit films and all. They were depicting life as it is, and some of it was unpleasant. I gradually moved away from that.
Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.
There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues - and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.
I didn't see films when I was young. I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn't have made films if I had seen lots of others; maybe it would have stopped me. I started totally free and crazy and innocent. Now I've seen many films, and many beautiful films. And I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don't do commercials, I don't do films pre-prepared by other people, I don't do star system. So I do my own little thing.
I try, in my films, to normalize things that maybe 20 or 30 years ago a film would have been about. 'Guess Who's Coming to Dinner' needed its own film, but now blended families you see all the time.
For me, the stamp that I impose on stuff comes from the fact that in the '80s, when I was starting to write movies, I looked back to the '70s. So the films I enjoyed as a kid were the thrillers that came out of the '70s. Back then, you didn't have action movies; you had adventure films or thrillers.
There's always been this feedback between comics and films. But I think that if you take that analogy too far, if you only see comic books in terms of films, then eventually the best we can end up with is films that don't move. It would make us a poor relation to the movie industry.
For me becoming a filmmaker was about taking back my voice - crafting stories that would move away from the problematic narratives that the studio system would put out about Latinos. I think this is why people like my films. They're refreshing. They feel more real.
I'd like to get into the superhero genre. I'd love to do either a DC or a Marvel character. I just love the way they're approaching these characters in these films. I also would love to get back into some romantic films. I love romance films, especially between people of color, because we don't really explore that enough. I would love to do that.
To me some of the funniest movies would be probably categorized in the dramatic genre, and likewise some of the most dramatic films, or films that have the most dramatic moments, are in comedies.
To me, some of the funniest movies would be probably categorized in the dramatic genre, and likewise, some of the most dramatic films, or films that have the most dramatic moments, are in comedies.
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