They took a baseball bat and whacked open his head. Mummy Boy fell to the ground; he finally was dead. Inside of his head were no candy or prizes, just a few stray beetles of various sizes.

Staring Girl I once knew a girl who would just stand there and stare. At anyone or anything, she seemed not to care She'd stare at the ground, She'd stare at the sky. She'd stare at you for hours, and you'd never know why. But after winning the local staring contest, she finally gave her eyes a well-deserved rest.

There was one moment, and it happened in school. I had a big final exam - we were supposed to write a 20-page report on this book about Houdini. I probably would have loved reading it, but I didn't, so I just decided to make a little super-8 movie based on it. I tied myself to the railroad tracks and all that. I mean, this is kid stuff, but it impressed the teacher, and I got an A. And that was maybe my first turning point, when I said, 'Yeah, I wouldn't mind being a filmmaker.'

There's something about taking a classic movie that people love and doing another version of that, you're setting yourself up for a mistake.

My parents suffered from that ideal of a perfect nuclear family. They found that a difficult pressure, I think.

Once you get labeled, there's nothing you can do about it.

Adults forget that kids are their own best censors.