'Harry Potter' created a generation of readers in an era when kids could have disappeared into the depths of the Internet. That's no small feat. Every book series owes J.K. Rowling a debt of gratitude.
In a complex and troubling world, who wouldn't want to simplify? Everybody does. Everybody wants to simplify and put up a picket fence.
Really, each era has its own false nostalgia. We all put a picket fence up around something. For my generation it was the '50s, and for other generations it will be something else. Change is scary for everyone, as is complexity, contradiction, and an uncertain future.
There is no right way to live. You preclude a lot of life by trying to conform to that kind of ideal or stereotype. And it's a natural inclination in a world where it's so complex and so occasionally valueless, morally bankrupt, and chaotic that we want to reach back to something in our past.
You have to listen to the movie while you're making it. I think that's important.
Why is every great children's story about a journey? Maybe that's because we are always on one.
History is full of examples of people who clamp down after they began to enjoy too much freedom. Freedom can lead to instability, anarchy, and confusion. So there can be a moral counter-revolution.
Really, each era has its own false nostalgia. We all put a picket fence up around something. For my generation it was the '50s, and for other generations it will be something else.
I think the CG is an instrument to create reality. I don't think it's an instrument to create a heightened reality.
I have some favorites. I love Chaplin; I mean I really love Chaplin. I just think there's a grace and an elegance that's almost never been matched.
Dr. Strangelove' was and is one of my favorite movies ever, and I just can't believe they actually blew up the world after that.
As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule.
You rarely get a tentpole that has this much emotional depth, this much character to dive into.
There are not many people on Team Gary. Actually, it's two people. My kids.
As time goes by the memories of sitting on the edge of a bed and reading aloud with your kid are going to be very meaningful in your own mental scrapbook.
Any director, if you really ask them, will tell you that the toughest thing to do is like a dinner table or a dialogue scene because you need to keep that electricity maintained throughout the course of the film.
Now, I just made an animated movie a few years ago, 'The Tale of Desperaux', and that had twelve hundred shots in it. Twelve hundred CG shots is a pretty big plan.
