The crime film is the most honest American film.
My favorite film of all time is 'Raising Arizona.' I watched it again as soon as it was over. I had it on VHS, rented it, and I watched it and said, 'I want to watch that again, right now.' I think I did the same with something like 'Goodfellas,' which is a completely different genre.
'Strong Island' is not your typical true-crime film. It's not actually about the uncovering of evidence or following leads that hadn't been seen before or any of that stuff.
I thought 'Gone Baby Gone' was really modern in showing a couple going on an adventure.
'Tower Heist?' That is a movie that it's hard not to name-drop, but, it's a crew of five, and it's Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, me, Matthew Broderick, and Casey Affleck. And we're like, on a heist.
I had this whole issue of doing a crime film in the 2010s. The genre's been mined very, very heavily. Post-Scorsese, post-Tarantino, post-Guy Ritchie, what do you do? I wasn't attracted to pulp so much as all of a sudden I had a pulp problem. I had to find a way to make this interesting, because there's a lot of crime films that come out on VOD every week, and a number of these star Nicolas Cage.
I'd seen Jose Padilha's 'Elite Squad 1' and '2', and I'd seen his documentary, 'Bus 174'.
I definitely would like to do something serious. Not like a love story, but serious like maybe a gangster or a mobster. A gang or a mob movie would be great.
That godfather of the modern action blockbuster, 'The Godfather,' is entirely character driven, propelled by the transformation of a crime lord's youngest son, who breaks bad when he evolves from white-sheep war hero to blood-soaked inheritor of his father's empire.
'Clockers' - as much as it is a very focused crime drama, it sprawls.
My favorite movie is 'Goodfellas.'
I love 'Goodfellas' because it's a great movie - it's funny and there is action at perfect points. I just think Martin Scorsese makes everyone look really cool.
