Tail Pop

Over time, I realized I was married to an alcoholic. For me, Leaving Las Vegas was the film that most moved me in my adult life. Nicolas Cage plays Ben, an alcoholic Hollywood writer struggling greatly with the disease.

There are those wonderful, albeit rare occasions when you are sent a script and immediately a sense of excitement overtakes you. Such was the case in 1997 when Wes Anderson sent me Rushmore. I felt so…lucky!

Growing up a twin and one of nine children meant that there wasn’t very much alone time.

In Syracuse New York in 1967, my dad’s RCA console TV received three broadcast channels. One of them was the local PBS station. That’s where I first saw Duck Soup, the classic Marx Brothers comedy.

No matter how hardcore a cinephile you might be, there are always discoveries to be made in an old film never seen or even heard of.

Ghosts. I guess we’re never very far from them. You can’t really see them, but they’re always there. They’re quiet. Every now and then, one pops up, moves the furniture and leaves. You turn around to see the drapes swish and your life has changed. What was that!?

When I was growing up in the 1970s, there were at least two cinemas in my town that used to play double features in the old tradition.

Perhaps because I work in this business, or just because I love movies so much, I’m always asked to define which ones I think are the classics. To me, that’s simple: First, when it’s on, I have to watch it — no matter what.

What if a gun had a soul? That was the question that was pinned to walls, doors and bulletin boards on the production of The Iron Giant.

If I had been asked 20 years ago whether a glass of rippling water would become one of the most iconic and recognizable images in cinematic history, I probably would’ve said, “No way.” But then again, I guess that’s not really a question you would ask an eight- year-old.