Quotes About Movies

I think one of the reasons that Steven (Spielberg) and I have been as successful as we have is because we like the movies. We like to go to the movies. We enjoy movies and we want to make movies like the ones we enjoy.

I think I'm pretty committed to staying. I'm not committed to not doing big movies, but I am committed to continuing to make smaller movies, not for the sake of making smaller movies, but because I think it's really invigorating to just go work with people and know that it might be awful.

I was raised by my mom. She taught me how to be a gentleman; nobody in the movies taught me. I think people are raised by their parents. If you're raised by movies, it's a whole other set of problems. I don't think it's as simple as me saying movies are meant to entertain, but I certainly don't feel moral responsibility in putting this out in the world and being like, "OK, this is going to affect how guys make decisions because they see some of my films or whatever." I just don't.

You see that a lot in movies, and today you see it more in movies that are made, because I feel more movies are made towards groups than towards individuals, and they're made more for mass media than for sitting in a movie house allowing it to happen.

When you look at the early-'30s movies, like King Kong, the codes of acting are very similar to those of silent movies. In some of the silent movies - the good ones, the ones done by the best directors - the acting is very, very natural

I love movies to death. I spent my entire youth in front of a TV watching old movies and as soon as I was able to get a subway pass when I was 14 I joined the Museum of Modern Art and was there all weekend watching old movies.

I love movies and I love to watch movies and being a part of the whole film experience. Being a filmgoer is a unique experience, and it can affect you on so many levels. But being an actor in movies you often have a very narrow palette for expressing yourself.

One thing I always heard from the begining when I talked about this being a movie - was that the rule is that animated movies don't work unless they're Disney movies for kids. Unless they're family movies.

In New York I'd go to the movies three or four times a week. Here I've upped it to six or seven, mainly because I'm too lazy to do anything else. Fortunately, going to the movies seems to suddenly qualify as an intellectual accomplishment, on a par with reading a book or devoting time to serious thought. It's not that the movies have gotten any more strenuous, it's just that a lot of people are as lazy as I am, and together we've agreed to lower the bar.

Even from a really young age I was a huge movie buff - five, six, seven, eight. Just loved movies, but in a more in-depth way than most kids that loved movies at that time. I'd find a filmmaker or something and want to see all his movies.

The model we established was to give creative people complete creative freedom in exchange for betting on themselves, so they work for the minimums you're allowed to work for, and if the movies work in a big way, everyone does very well. If the movies don't, nobody loses too much money. The benefit to doing all the movies low budget is we can tell different types of stories and take creative risks. The Purge would have been irresponsible to do for $20M, but to do it for $3M makes sense.

Ultimately the social change has to come from the people who make the movies, so the people who make the movies have to look at the landscape and say to themselves, "Well, you know, these things are changing, and I'm okay with their having changed, and I think it's okay to start reflecting those changes through the movies we make."

It’s funny, I started by making fake American movies, The Transporter and stuff like that. I was shooting in France, but everything was in English. But then afterwards, I was looking at real French movies like the Jacques Audiard movies.

I'm very fortunate, and the movies that I've made, even from the very beginning, have been very eclectic. The thing for me is: Am I emotionally engaged in the idea? Is there something special about it? Does it capture my imagination? So everything that I do is simply something that turns me on. And I have the good fortune to be able to make bigger movies and television that ostensibly pay for the other ones. I don't mean literally finance the movies. But they allow me to work on things for very little pay. I do these things because I love them.

What I like is horror movies, including '80s slasher movies that politically I have all kinds of problems with. Which is an interesting balance, because I have this leftist puritan strain that, well, if you like something that goes against your politics, maybe you should train yourself not to like it. But I know that I like horror movies and that's what I watch when I get a moment.

I think one of my favorite things about making low budget movies is that when you get into expensive moviemaking territory, it's almost impossible not to reverse engineer the movies. It's irresponsible not to think about the result and the financial result. But when you make low budget movies, you can put that out of your head.

I guess you get pigeon-holed in Hollywood, but I'm ok with that because I've been able to do a lot. I started in the theater, then I went to stand-up comedy, and then when I went into the movies to do comedy and drama and big movies and small movies.

Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.

Write comic books if you love comic books so much that you want to write them. Don't write them like movies. Comics can do a lot of things that movies can't do, and vice versa.

The movies had a slogan at the time, to distinguish themselves from TV, that said 'movies are better than ever.'

I grew up on movies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun. You probably saw it more recently, but as a kid I grew up on them so I loved those kinds of movies.

A lot of the things I was doing on YouTube nobody was doing at the time, and now everybody is doing them, and I think making movies - I know a few Youtubers have done it, and hopefully this movie does well and more YouTubers want to take a risk and make movies, and I'm excited about it.

Most people are interested in seeing 27-year-old women who are in movies somehow connected to sex. It's interesting to everyone. Especially little movies that are having trouble getting made, there's always sex.

You know what your problem is, it's that you haven't seen enough movies - all of life's riddles are answered in the movies.

I just feel like there's so many movies I haven't seen that I want to see, that I would never go back to the same one. It's funny because all my friends, they have movies that they've seen over and over again.

I don't see as many movies as I used to. Or, I should say, as many movies as I would like to.

It was a pity that movies and live TV left New York for Hollywood. London theater, movies, television - until (Britain's) money ran out - were always better than ours since the city was the political capital of the country, as well as the artistic and literary one. In L.A. we've always been slightly sealed off from real life. It's no accident that two of our most interesting directors, Woody Allen and Bob Altman, are more or less settled in the real world.

I don't know if the '80s were unique, but we certainly got original, groundbreaking stuff at the time with movies like 'Back to the Future' and 'Star Wars' - movies that became classics.

Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.

All I knew is that I loved movies and comedy and TV, and I wanted to perform. I made a bunch of shorts and movies in college, and that was always fun too. I directed some plays in college. It was taking it all in and trying to immerse myself in as much of it as possible.

Movies serve many purposes, and I've visited many of those genres, from the most light, frivolous comedy that is just trying to make you laugh, to movies that explore the most complicated side of the human soul. As an actor, I play all of those things, and I still like it.

I always wanted to do a movie, because I love the movies. They give you a chance to have an intimacy with your audience that is different from stand up. With movies, you can bring the audience in with a close up, and emote in a different way.

We live in an age now where people go to the movies and, even the biggest movies are in the theaters six, eight weeks and then gone. And then for the rest of time now people are watching them on their phones, or computers, or TVs. And that's how the films gonna live.

I am a fan of movies and there is something about watching film that is burned into celluloid for all time that is now a piece of history. You go watch, being a fan of classic films and my children and their children are going to be watching these movies.

We need to see men and women as equal partners, but its hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!

I hated Shallow Grave, that movie made me angry. And I hated Happiness. I generally hate movies that use extreme violence or gratuitous shock value in place of having a heart. For example: movies that combine extremely sadistic violence with humor I find offensive.

I want to be someone who is doing something solid. And I am doing my thing. You can like it or not, but I know that now I have a really nice group of really cool and talented actors that follow me. It's the same for them. They have a special connection with my movies because we do these movies differently.

I think James Bond is a spy. He's not superhuman. Calling him a superhero is like calling James Bond movies "comic-book movies."

Oh, I adored Mickey Mouse when I was a child. He was the emblem of happiness and funniness. You went to the movies then, you saw two movies and a short. When Mickey Mouse came on the screen and there was his big head, my sister said she had to hold onto me. I went berserk.

I always wanted to direct movies. That's what I set out to do. When I was a little kid I just dreamed of making movies, and I went to film school [at Northwestern University].

You know, I think the film business is its own worst enemy, because it sells movies on 'behind the scenes' footage. It's seeing the secrets of how the movies are made, and now it's a real struggle trying to keep storylines and plots a secret.

If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work. Before, I was very addicted to being on set, and I was doing three or four movies a year for many years. Now, fortunately, I can go to work only when I am passionate about a project, and the rest of the time, I can live my life. I'm not interested in doing movies just as a marathon. When I go to work now, I have much more to give. But the other way, you get empty.

If you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may be.

I feel pressure as a fan. I don't really feel pressure from the fans, if that makes sense. I worked on other movies, like the X-Men movies, that have big fan followings. And if you start to get lost in those voices, you will be completely lost. I feel the pressure of the 6-year-old me.

In France, it's always about life, normal life. We always stick with these realistic things. So when French people are dreaming about American movies, they go and see the thrillers, and Westerns, and science fiction, huge entertaining movies.

Actually, I went from doing a lot of movies early on in my career, then to doing TV, and I don't know whether we'll get back to some movies or not.

I like most of the Humphrey Bogart movies because they had to act then, and they acted very well. Edward G. Robinson is probably the best actor I've ever seen on the movies.

I never want movie theaters go away. It is the greatest time out on the town. You go out, it's a great place to go, great location, great hang, great date, good place to be with friends. But as an actor who works hard at making movies, I am glad that no matter what people can see your movie on. It's hard to keep a theater for long time; there are so many movies, so when you leave a theater, you're just glad there's a life for your movie.