-
By AnonymJason Reitman
'Alien' asked ground-breaking questions about eco-politics and female empowerment. 'The Matrix' delved deeper into the concept of perception versus reality than perhaps any other film I know. But for some reason, we tend not to remember the significance of their writing.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
All the airports kind of feel and look the same now. Some are more beautiful, some are less beautiful, but for the most part you're going to find a Starbucks in every airport. You're going to get your coffee and the 'USA Today' or 'New York Times' in every airport.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
And as a director, you make 1,000 decisions a day, mostly binary decisions: yes or no, this one or that one, the red one or the blue one, faster or slower. And it's the culmination of those decisions that define the tone of the film and whether or not it moves people.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
And I certainly like being on a plane, next to a stranger, having conversations that you'd never otherwise have. You're unplugged, your phone doesn't work, you're not online.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
And the biggest improvement I see between 'Up in the Air' and 'Juno' and 'Thank You for Smoking' is that 'Up in the Air' deals with the complicated human stuff in a way that my other films have not. It's a more articulated film, and because of that, I'm most proud of it.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
As far as writing, I like watching bad movies. Nothing stops me in my tracks more than watching a great film like 'The Godfather' or 'Dog Day Afternoon' or 'The Graduate.' You watch one of those, and you never want to write again. Whereas with bad movies, it makes you think, If that counts, I certainly could write.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Being pregnant changes you as a human being and it gives you a whole lot of mixed feelings.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Being the son of a filmmaker, you are aware of a career as a director. You don't think of it as just movies, but as a life.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Comedy and horror are cousins; they're related. They both come from storytellers who want to specifically affect the audience and elicit specific reactions during the movie.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Creating a wonderful drama is an art form, while comedy is just entertainment.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Directing is a reactionary job more than a creation job. The job is to react whether it's moment one, the first time you read the script or see an article or read a book or notice something happen on the street and have an idea for a movie, and it just continues from there on in. You're just reacting to dialogue, a performance, an audition, a headache, a piece of furniture, a piece of clothing.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Directing 'The Office' is kind of like someone going, 'Would you like to drive my Lamborghini?' And I'm like 'Yes, I would like to drive your Lamborghini. That sounds like fun.'
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Doesn't every generation feel like the one that's coming up behind them doesn't know how to grow up? I'm not sure if we're progressively getting worse or if your perspective shifts.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Each one of my films is personal; each one of my films is emotionally autobiographical. And I like directors who do that.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
'Election' is a movie I'd give a leg to cross the director's name out and put mine in.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Everyone wants to be loved; everyone wants to know where they're going in life; everyone wants to have a sense of direction and feel the next day is going to be better than today. We just all deal with it in a different way.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Filmmaking is finding a piece of granite and you start to chip away and then you have the shape of a head, the shape of the arm, you can see the shape of the face and the face starts to gather character. You have to find it.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
From the onset of the 'Live-Read' series, we wanted to hit all the major writers and Woody Allen is simply one of the greatest screenwriters of all time. He has ability to match pathos and comedy and drama and then turn it all on a dime. If you're going to make a series based on dialogue, you can't find much better than Woody Allen.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Growing up sucks, doesn't it? I understand why people wouldn't want to get old - but it'd be one thing if we became a culture obsessed with eating right, doing yoga, going to therapy and becoming at one with ourselves. That be great. But we don't do that. We seem to be obsessed with all the wrong ways to stay young.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
Humanizing good people is kind of boring and I don't really see the value in it... humanizing tricky characters is exhilarating, and making audience films out of indie subjects excites me.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I am an obsessive flyer, myself.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'd done table reads for my own screenplays, and I always thought they were so much fun. Why couldn't we do these for other classic screenplays and bring them to life? You can experience live theater, where you get to see plays produced by different directors and different casts, but there's really nothing like that for movie scripts.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I don't believe in director's cuts where you make things longer. The coolest thing was when the Coen brothers did a director's cut of 'Blood Simple,' and they made it shorter.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I don't consider myself bossy, but I do know what I want. You know, I have a gut feeling about a piece of material, but I've never envisioned myself as the director on top of the hill with a megaphone in my hand, screaming at 1,000 extras.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I don't know why I'm drawn to anti-heroes, but I certainly am.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I find nice people kind of boring.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
If someone else made 'Up in the Air' or 'Thank You For Smoking' or 'Juno,' I would have wanted to rip their head off. I need that same sort of passion for every project I take on.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I grew up on movie sets, I'm comfortable on sets. A movie set is like a circus. I don't understand why moviemaking has to be such an insane environment.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I have a strange fascination with the Midwest. I'm waiting to find out that my parents are actually from the Midwest. I grew up in Beverly Hills, up the street, and I just feel comfortable there. I've shot in Minneapolis, in Detroit, in St. Louis, in Omaha - they would say they're the Plains, not the Midwest - and I love it.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I have one of the original 'Ghostbusters' guns in my house.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I laugh a lot in horror films. If I'm scared in a horror film, I try to think about what's scaring me... particularly, if it's a bad movie, but something they're doing still works. It's the same way I look at comedy. I've always had an intellectual view of comedy, and what makes people laugh, and how does it work.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm a believer that people need to understand that filmmaking is not a perfect process for anybody. It is a process in which you find the film and the film finds you. And that is every film.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm equally guilty of using technology - I Twitter, I text people, I chat. But I think there's something strangely insidious about it that it makes us think we're closer when in fact we're not seeing each other, we're not connecting.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm not going to have a perfect career. It's better to be Billy Wilder and make lots of movies and have five or six great ones than to make so few movies that when you make a bad one it crushes you.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm not Michael Moore. I think Michael Moore wants to tell you how to think. He wants to give you answers. I make movies to raise my own personal questions and not to give answers.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm really attracted to authors who take on really tricky material with a very open mind and take a subject matter that you wouldn't think would be a comedy.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm really specific in the way that I shoot. I've always had a very good sense of what I need in the editing room. I used to shoot in a way that drew more attention to the camera and I've tried, in each film, to draw less and less attention to the camera. I think when you pay attention to the shots, you're aware of the fact that there's a director.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm really specific in the way that I shoot. I've always had a very good sense of what I need in the editing room.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm too big a fan of rhythm and editing. I'd much rather my editing be brave than my shooting.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I'm trying to figure myself out through my movies. Whether it's big stuff like what we're doing here, or little stuff like why aren't I happier? With every film I feel like I'm apologising for something. I feel I'm most successful when I'm looking for something that embarrasses me about my character that I'd like to expose.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I really enjoy theater. I just went to see 'Death of a Salesman,' and it knocked me on my ass.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I remember when I was like 19 years old and I started a desk calendar company to pay for my first short film, just so I could say one day that my daddy didn't pay for my first short film. And I really established myself in the film festival world.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I think it's a mistake for young filmmakers to just buy digital equipment and shoot a feature. Make short films first, make your mistakes and learn from them.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I think romance is a tool, comedy is a tool and drama is a tool. I really just want to tell stories that challenge the viewer, move people, make you laugh, perhaps push an idea about being open-minded but never settle on a genre or an opinion. I hate genre. I like movies that are original in their approach.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I think, through comedy, sometimes we're allowed to discuss things that you'd never be able to talk about in a drama.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
I think when you pay attention to the shots, you're aware of the fact that there's a director. Really, it's the director's job to disappear and allow the movie to just feel.
00 -
By AnonymJason Reitman
It's easy to get caught up in a moment and think, 'Oh, I've been offered some giant studio film or a superhero franchise or some actor wants to meet with me about a project they want to do.' And it's easy to get caught up in a moment because it's flattering. But you can't do a movie because it's flattering.
00