A Quote by Robert Cormier

The earliest influence on me was the movies of the thirties when I was growing up. Those were stories. If you look at them now, you see the development of character and the twists of plot; but essentially they told stories. My mother didn't go to the movies because of a religious promise she made early in her life, and I used to go to movies and come home and tell her the plots of those old Warner Brothers/James Cagney movies, the old romantic love stories. Through these movies that had real characters, I absorbed drama, sense of pacing, and plot.
It's great to have loads of Marvel movies, but the movies that reflect our lives - that's why I came to the movies, and that's what I love. I want to see stories about my life being reflected back at me, and there's not that many of those anymore. It's a real shame.
The earliest movies that I loved were French movies and Italian movies. I grew up watching those kind of movies and often find the truest looks at human nature - you can find them in another countrys movies.
The earliest movies that I loved were French movies and Italian movies. I grew up watching those kind of movies and often find the truest looks at human nature - you can find them in another country's movies.
Danny Boyle has been a huge, has had a huge effect on me. His movies, early movies like Trainspotting and those movies. So I've always loved the energies of those movies. But also, that they are very focused on the characters. Cause it's not only gimmickery, it's not only about visuals. You feel a real need, a love for the main characters. So that's what I've always loved about watching movies myself.
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.
I think that television lately has been extremely dark and, in some ways, cynical but I also think that people who are writing those shows probably feel exactly as I do - that sometimes the darkness of a story can highlight the light in a story. There's a lot of cynical stuff but I think it may be even more in movies now where you see so many movies about cynical and corrupted characters. That's the state of many movies right now but movies, television, all of culture, there's always going to be a battle between the stories that are cynical and stories that are hopeful.
The '80s just had this sense of outrageous fun coupled with great stories and characters. Then there's the practical effects and buckets of gore in movies. These are movies that, for the most part, still stand up to this day. But I guess the real reason for my love and obsession with this period is these were my first horror movies. I was a teenager during the '80s and I think spending that part of your life in that particular time really has an impact on you for the rest of your life.
I don't know that movies are important. But I know that stories are important. Movies may disappear. They've only been around, for God's sake, for the last hundred years... I think that it's the need to tell stories, and that people need to be told stories. It's the old sitting around the fire, you know.
The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.
I've always had a thing for old movies, old Hollywood. I've always just loved watching Marilyn Monroe and Greta Garbo. In all of those old movies from the '40s and '50s, women put themselves together so well, with a little bit of drama and elegance. That was fascinating to me growing up.
I did two movies that were arthouse movies; they were critically successful but made no money at all... but after making those movies, I thought, 'I wouldn't watch my own movies when I was 16, and my buddies where I came from wouldn't watch my movies, because they were boring.'
'Avatar' was gorgeous. There are good stories in there, but when used in other movies they're similar to those violent video games. Characters using deadly weapons. The children follow these movies.
I'm an actor because I love movies, and always have loved movies. I'm a film buff. So, getting to work with those kinds of directors and getting to tell those stories is what I want to do.
Most filmmakers' entire body of knowledge is of other movies. When they describe things, they describe them in relation to other movies. That's why we have so many cyclical movies that look like other movies. But I'm not cynical. I even go to some of those movies.
Watching old movies is like spending an evening with those people next door. They bore us, and we wouldn't go out of our way to see them; we drop in on them because they're so close. If it took some effort to see old movies, we might try to find out which were the good ones, and if people saw only the good ones maybe they would still respect old movies. As it is, people sit and watch movies that audiences walked out on thirty years ago. Like Lot's wife, we are tempted to take another look, attracted not by evil but by something that seems much more shameful -- our own innocence.
I wanted to do serious movies. I had a certain idea of what good acting was. That's since changed, and I love doing comedies now. I don't like a lot of those movies now, but I thought those were movies that I could do real, serious performances in.
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