I think that's the great thing about zombies, is, you know, going back to even 'Night of the Living Dead,' they've always been a tool for kind of holding up a mirror to us and showing us something about ourselves that we might not otherwise know.
It's rare that movies can sort of capture the tone of life; movies always feel like they have to be one thing or another.
I kind of viewed '50/ 50' and 'Warm Bodies' both as my next films after 'The Wackness.' In my head, I was just like, 'I'll try the big, fun, adventure-weird movie, and I'll do the small, heartfelt comedy-drama, and one of them will probably work out, and I'll get to work more.'
I think I'm always conscious of not letting things fit into a specific box. Being a filmmaker and trying to chart a career, you never want anyone to be able to pigeonhole you into one specific thing.
For whatever reason, the films I gravitate towards do have these strange sort of tonal balances to them... I kind of realized on '50/ 50' why I liked these blending of tones, because I think it's kind of what life is like: funny one minute, sad the next, scary the next.
I really hope everyone who saw 'Twilight' sees 'Warm Bodies,' but at the same time... I don't resent the comparison on a level of quality because I don't judge other movies like that. Now that I make movies, I see how hard it is to do everything. I pretty much love all movies.
I love Jamaica so much. I've been there so much, and I think it would be great if we could shoot a movie there.
Zombies have always had a lot of built-in social commentary.
I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.
I think it's cyclical. Zombies have been around for ages, and vampires have run their course; we've had so many vampire movies.
The way 'Coming Home' uses music in general is incredible, but the final song that really kind of crescendos all of the emotion that the whole movie has kind of been building to is this song called 'Once I Was' by Tim Buckley.
I think Giuliani started a trend that Bloomberg continued with rampant gentrification, and I think it's tough because why would any city choose not to do that?
I have a lot of friends with bad taste in music - some might say that I have bad taste in music.
I used to drive a convertible around L.A. a lot.
My first real television-watching experience was when I watched 'L.A. Law,' like, at 10 o'clock Thursday nights with my parents. They would let me stay up late.
I love subverting expectations or playing with the sort of unspoken kind of connections that the audience has.
For me, I just value my friendships so much. I mean, I love my family, too, but my friends - I have a really special connection with my friends.
That's the great thing about being a director. You have your list of things you have to worry about and things you don't have to worry about. If you can hire someone or cast someone who equates to not having to worry about, it's great!
Genre is a really great shorthand you can have with an audience. In the same way you can use music to create a connection with an audience, it brings so much of their knowledge of what genre really is to the table. You have a shortcut to connect with them. I really like that.
I really like it when movies take a song and use it to counterpoint a scene.
