Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I first started working on 'The Wood,' these people couldn't grasp the concept that, one, there is a black middle class, and, two, Inglewood is a part of it.
We don't discuss race, so just the discussion of race has become racist. We've been trained that it's such a lightning rod that we don't even want to say the word.
Kendrick Lamar is from Compton, but his Compton and how he expresses that is completely different than NWA and Eazy-E even though they were from the same environment.
There are so many instances where kids who have talent and intellect have to navigate the world of low expectations and resources. We have to nurture those gifts more.
For me growing up when hip hop was forming and maturing and coming into its own, I just felt I was a part of something really exciting. I was a part of it as a consumer.
We live lives that aren't broken into neat three-act structures. On any given day anything can happen, from the hilarious to tragic. So why can't my movies be like that?
I was in high school and college as hip-hop was really sort of coming into its own as a, you know, creative force, as a sort of cultural voice. And it really spoke to me.
I remember growing up watching John Hughes movies and watching these white kids from suburban Chicago. I connected to them even though I didn't live in their environment.
I don't know if I've seen in the Constitution where it says if there's an election year, then we take a break until after for us to do the business of the American people.
I'm a first-generation American. My parents are from Nigeria. I had this weird last name that looked Japanese, and then people would see me and go, 'Oh. You're not Japanese.'
When I wrote 'High Stakes,' I followed the classical format. I wrote an outline first, then a first draft, then got feedback and rewrote and rewrote it. I'd never done that before.
We're a country of many different cultures, and that's always what has made this country stand out. It almost feels like making diverse movies is the most American thing you can do.
This whole thing with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas happened during my first year of college. It was a cross-section of race and politics and gender that I feel is still going on today.
I wanted to try and change the idea of what we call mainstream. So many times what we call mainstream is upper middle class white suburbia. And anything outside of that is considered niche.
I think the trick is to understand that universal isn't defined by a singular way of being. We don't have to somehow accept universal as being middle class, or white, or whatever it may be.
When I watch films and it becomes just about the reference and not necessarily a flow with how people naturally speak, that's when you're just saying, 'Okay, I'm trying to be cool and show off.'
In many ways, a teaser trailer these days has just become a short version of the full-length trailer, as opposed to something that grabs you and teases you and makes you go, 'Whoa, what is this?'
Magic has lived an extraordinary life as a champion athlete, passionate activist, and highly successful entrepreneur. The impact of Magic's life on the game of basketball and beyond is undeniable.
What should be driving the conversation is: What's the story? What's the movie about? Is it a compelling story? And if it is, then you make it regardless of the color of the people behind or in front of the camera.
There's a hunger our there for different types of stories, and I think there's an audience that's waiting and primed to accept a vision of America that looks like what they see when they walk out of the door each day.
When I was approached by Warner Bros. and DC about the possibility of directing 'The Flash,' I was excited about the opportunity to enter this amazing world of characters that I loved growing up, and still do to this day.
As a black man working in the business, it's a challenge sometimes to get some of these things and these stories told when they don't quite fit in a box or convention of what people expect of you or what you should be telling.
I was fortunate to write pretty much a year out of film school and start making movies in the Hollywood studio system. But with each progressive film it became more frustrating not being able to speak and say things I wanted to say.
As a kid who grew up in Inglewood, California during the Showtime era, I'm so happy to help bring the story of Earvin 'Magic' Johnson to the screen. This project is a convergence of so many things that excite and interest me as a filmmaker.
I'm probably going to be ashamed to say this... It was a Sir Mix-a-Lot album. I think I was 12, 13. I had just enough money for the 'My Posse's on Broadway' single, so I bought that single. That was the first thing I bought with my own money.
Anita Hill has changed the history of how we deal with each other in the workplace. But it also was an interesting episode in how race and the history of race converged in this moment and got used and twisted and interpreted in all kind of ways.
It's insidious how Hollywood warps your values without you even realizing that it's happening to you. You get a little whiff of success and it whets your appetite, and before you know it you're going right down the road they've laid out for you.
I think 'The Wood' was probably more concerned with the parts of Inglewood that aren't usually seen on film - the areas that were middle-class, or upper-middle-class - and that idea that these worlds do exist, and should be accepted as part of Inglewood itself.
There's this responsibility you feel to present a certain thing that kind of respectability politics. I think that became the only accepted way of defining black culture. I started to become too aware of 'How does this look?' instead of 'Who are these characters?'
I loved films like 'When Harry Met Sally' and 'Annie Hall,' but these were very specific, white Manhattan experiences. You don't see a single person of color anywhere, but somehow these films are universal. As a filmmaker and creator, I was frustrated with that idea.
It was titled 'Confirmation' very purposefully. I wanted the film to be about that process - about how Judge Thomas and Anita Hill were thrown into a situation that was difficult for anyone to navigate, no matter what the truth was. It's hard to know what the truth is.
When you're young, you sort of have an idea that this is how it's always gonna be as a filmmaker. And then you have the ups and downs of trying to get your art created in an industry that doesn't traditionally make films with you and people that look like you behind the camera.
Now being 41 and looking back on my career... It became natural for me to revisit Inglewood and to revisit the coming-of-age movie, but not wanting it to feel like a period piece completely about nostalgia but wanting it to feel like something that was relevant today and also forward-looking.
I don't know, my parents were pretty open about a lot of things, especially my mom. And any kind of little crazy thing I was into, she was very supportive of. You know, whether it was BMX bike racing or being in the Boy Scouts or surfing or anything else, she always seemed to sort of support it.
People come to L.A. and they expect to see a ghetto like the projects, but that's not the way it's set up. Inglewood, in particular, is the furthest thing from a ghetto. It's a middle-class community, but it's gotten a bad rap over the years... because of 'Grand Canyon' and 'Pulp Fiction' and other films.
The biggest part of what Anita Hill did was take away the stigma of coming forward, and it took a lot for her to do that. We don't have these conversations, because of the fear that people won't believe you or you'll get attacked if you come forward. She came forward anyway and continued to tell her story.
I think Black cinema is thought of in small terms. That's where most of the problems come from. When there's a film that has success, like in the '90s with the crime hood films; when one of them does well, it becomes the replication, or there's a romantic comedy that breaks out, it becomes a singular way of looking at it.