Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't stay in the genre because I just like all stories that have a smart hook in them and I can find a comic way through if it's a comedy or a suspenseful way through it if it's a drama.
My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone.
Dalton Trumbo actually was [ a hypocrite], because he liked his wealth, which was against the grain of being a Communist. I put title cards at the head of the film that explains the context.
Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that's really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.
When we did the first sequel [of the Austin Powers] , it was on coattails of the first one doing so well when it was released on video, so we really didn't know what to do with the second plot.
[Dalton] Trumbo wrote this incredible pamphlet, almost on the level of Tom Paine's 'Common Sense,' called 'The Time of the Toad.' It's an exquisitely written treatise regarding the black list era.
For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.
One of the series of decisions that the great screenwriter John McNamara made was about who to depict. [Ronald] Reagan had a role in HUAC, he was a friendly witness, but never went over-the-top about it.
[Lyndon Baines Johnson ] technique in negotiation would be that he'd lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn't matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something.
But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won't show something that's embarrassing.
I love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence - his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.
As long as we, again, kind of keep earning the sequels with material and I'm confident Mike can, I'm in. You know I always want to do those. But I also want to keep going in some of the direction as Meet the Parents has.
On the other track I got to talk with Jon Poll, my editor, and we go into more detail about the decisions we made in both the production and the post-production. So I hope the combination becomes something worth collecting.
I love making people laugh. It's an addiction and it's probably dysfunctional, but I am addicted to it and there's no greater pleasure for me than sitting in a theater and feeling a lot of people losing control of themselves.
I do love DVD and I've always taken them seriously. You know, on the Austin things, we really put a ton of work into them because there's so much design involved. And in this one, we thought a lot about it and what could go in.
I really enjoy the consolation when I'm having to cut loose stuff I love, of saying 'Well, at least it will make it onto DVD.' There's a couple of scenes which I liked very much, but couldn't fit them into the film that are on there.
There is an energy in the USA that will have to be dealt with, will have to be acknowledged and coped with. There are people who feel that they've lost ground, lost access to government - people whose quality of life has been affected.
My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn't even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be this amazing commentator who went off into the whole theory of comedy.
It's hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.
When Dalton Trumbo and his friends joined the Communist Party it was 1943, and Russia was our ally in World War II. This was connected to a very popular movement of artists and intellectuals at that time towards anti fascism, and an alliance with the union movement.
I hope we're all kind of influencing each other now to keep the quality up on those things. They seem to be getting better and better and better as there's not only sort of a film geek audience, there's also a general interest in the overall film consuming population.
The commentary track became a lot like the movie and there are some funny, long, awkward pauses that you can tell we're just trying to find stuff to say. None of us had gotten to really talk about the movie until that moment and they were in New York and we were in L.A.
Because I actually find the next take after they've controlled it a little bit and repressed the laughter is actually a really interesting take, because that's still going on underneath the surface. That struggle to maintain composure becomes part of the joy of the scene.
This is a movie version of the play [All the Way]and when Bryan [Cranston] was on stage the bigness of the man was played to the back of the house. When we turned the cameras on that, it changed a bit with close-ups, but we got just as much power in that beautiful intimacy.
You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.
It's hard to believe that these self-centered people have nuclear weapons that they can fire at any moment. Even modern wars are fought like revenge tales from some petty grievance. It was definitely tapping into the Dr. Strangelove vibe, which is one of my three top favorite films or all time.
When Ben Carson said that he would remove all federal funding for universities that had 'extreme political bias.' Who would decide what political bias was, and what is 'extreme'? That kind of policing of ideas has a striking resemblance to the black list, and that's what happened during that era.
There were two writer's unions in those days[ during World War II ] , the studio-friendly guild called the Screen Playwrights, and the more activist Writer's Guild. The studios were fairly upset that their group wasn't effective, and they sought to punish the other union by labeling them as Communists.
It was about the compelling need to make countries get along to prevent war, in contrast with the totally petty and selfish bullshit that drives the individuals who are supposedly in charge of these countries. It's hard to believe that these self-centered people have nuclear weapons that they can fire at any moment.
I was very interested in politics in college and was heading to be a lawyer. I have a degree in economics and I was interested in it. I hadn't really gotten super serious about it and I'd done a lot of student politics in high school. I really think it would be interesting and fun and challenging to go into politics.
Hedda Hopper was a better direct opponent to [Dalton] Trumbo. We wanted to use Trumbo's battles to represent the larger battles, so the audience could understand the personal sacrifice he went through and the personal damage to his family. The choices were about who were the best representations of his antagonists, which is why we chose as we did.
When we had ideas that earned there way in [Austin Powers], it began to get okay. The hook for me was 'Mini-Me.' We only auditioned one guy - Verne Troyer - and at the time I said, 'we have to get this guy, get him life insurance, whatever he needs' because there was no other way or actor to do it. It was amazing to me just to talk to him...he was Mini-Me.
I was always interested in the larger picture, I was pre-law in college, and had a degree in economics. I was very interested in the big question 'how then shall we live?,' how do we organize as a civilization when we are so different, and often don't get along, yet we know at some point we have to unite for the common good? I actually really care about those issues, and I'm driven to understand how it works.