A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.

I very much had wanted to do a picture with more humor than what I had been allowed to do earlier, which is what attracted me to Wonder Boys so much. I found it funny in a very serious way, which is the best kind of comedy.

The challenge was the opportunity. When I read the first draft of Steve Kloves' fabulous adaptation - I hadn't read [Michael] Chabon's book at that time - what I was immediately captivated by was this group of characters that were at once so engaging and so messed up.

I had always wanted to tell a story that was set in Los Angeles in the '50s, because that's where I grew up, and it was the city of my childhood memories.

I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se.

It was just a wonderful experience, one for the memory book for sure. The sad thing about it was that the picture came under this absurd cloud of controversy. Here was a movie based on the central theme that racism is something that is taught, and it's illustrated by this story of a dog and the efforts of humans to re-train it after it had been trained to go after black people. And it created this ridiculous controversy and wound up being the last Hollywood movie that Sam [Fuller] made.

I'm still a great movie fan, and I guess that's the answer to your question.