I am my own worst critic, and I look at 'Death Sentence' now, and I go, 'Oh wow, I have really come a long way.' In terms of a filmmaker, I feel like my filmmaking language has really matured.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's difficult for one filmmaker to criticize another. That's a job best left to critics.
Lots of people have criticized my movies, but nobody has ever identified the real problem: I'm a sloppy filmmaker.
The worst thing for a filmmaker is for a film to be labeled as pretentious or heavy-handed.
I still think like a critic, and I still analyze films like a critic. However, it's not possible to write criticism if you're making films.
At first, I wasn't sure whether I'd be a critic or a filmmaker, but I knew it would be something like that.
I've very critical of myself, and film has been an adjustment for me.
It's sad - it's sad for us old enough to remember when directors ruled, and films were substantially better than they are today. But it's hard to argue with those kinds of grosses.
I learned a lot about critics, not to really take them too seriously about movies.
In my little imperfect way, what I'm trying to do is understand the world. As a filmmaker, you realize as you get older that each film is part of a dialogue you're having with yourself. That started when I was working in documentaries. And in a way, I've never deviated from it.
I dread to be compared to all these directors who have a lot of spontaneous emoting and swearing in their films - that is death; it's a cul-de-sac. It doesn't lift the material at all. It's just a cliched reproduction of what we think is normal behaviour.