“Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun.”

Quotes from the interview circuit: "No one seems to mention that the President of the United States in Escape from New York is British! [Laughs] We made up some story about him being the love child of Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. That didn't make it into the movie because Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun. He actually doesn't think we should have to pay for roads--unbelievable. But we're friends because we respect each other's work ethic. He's a wonderful guy; I love him."          --John Carpenter on political disillusionment at Time Out New York. "You know, at a certain point, especially in a movie like The Big Lebowski, you've got to think ahead. At a certain point, we had to sit down and say, 'All right. it's gotta be somebody's fucking toe.' And that was before we actually got to the scene that discloses it, but well...

Quotes from the interview circuit:

“No one seems to mention that the President of the United States in Escape from New York is British! [Laughs] We made up some story about him being the love child of Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. That didn’t make it into the movie because Kurt Russell is to the right of Attila the Hun. He actually doesn’t think we should have to pay for roads–unbelievable. But we’re friends because we respect each other’s work ethic. He’s a wonderful guy; I love him.”
         –John Carpenter on political disillusionment at Time Out New York.

“You know, at a certain point, especially in a movie like The Big Lebowski, you’ve got to think ahead. At a certain point, we had to sit down and say, ‘All right. it’s gotta be somebody’s fucking toe.’ And that was before we actually got to the scene that discloses it, but well after the toe itself showed up.”
         –Ethan Coen on the brothers’ screenwriting process, in an excerpt from “The Big Lebowski: The Making of a Coen Brothers Film” published at Film In Focus.

“It’s realistic but it has special effects. It’s a mix between Cronenberg and — I don’t know what–um… the Dardenne brothers!”
         –François Ozon describes his next film, “Ricky,” at the Guardian.

“Very few people swagger here. They’re driven by ambition, but they don’t have to broadcast that all the time.”
         –Michel Gondry (interviewing alongside girlfriend Gabrielle Bell, whose comic provided the transplanted source material for his section of “Tokyo!”) on the difference between New York and Tokyo, at the Japan Times.

“As an Arab-American woman, I am of course aware that the title of my book is an ethnic slur. Indeed, I selected the title to highlight one of the novel’s major themes: racism. In the tradition of Dick Gregory’s autobiography Nigger, the Jewish magazine Heeb, or the feminist magazine Bitch, the title is rude and shocking, but it is not gratuitous.”
         –”Towelhead” author Alicia Erian on why the title for the film adaptation of her work shouldn’t be looked at as offensive, at The Hot Blog.

[Photo: Kurt Russell in "Escape From New York," AVCO Embassy Pictures, 1981]