Bullz-Eye: How did “The Girl” land in your lap? Or did you go looking for “The Girl”?

Julian Jarrold: No, it was sent to me ages ago, and…it was a little bit more based around the making “The Birds” and “Marnie,” but obviously it was still an exploration of this relationship. The writer (Gwyneth Hughes) had done quite a lot of research and come over here and met Jim Brown, the assistant director, and Rita Riggs (wardrobe supervisor), and Tippi, obviously. So he’d kind of pieced together this sort of fascinating script, and I loved Hitchcock, but I didn’t know this at all, so it was a bit of a shock, actually, to read it. [Laughs.] I knew he was odd, but I didn’t know he was that odd. Yeah, it totally changed my view of Hitchcock. Actually, what was fascinating was…I knew “The Birds” and “Marnie” and “Vertigo,” and they’re strange films. You kind of wonder where they’re coming from. And then finding out about this story, you certainly go, “Ah, I see where he was coming from…and where his personal obsessions are and his attitude to women and everything.” So it sort of illuminated all that. Which was very interesting.

BE: Tippi Hedren is here at the TCA tour, so presumably she’s supportive of the film, but how interactive was she you were making it? Did you speak with her in advance?

JJ: Well, no. I mean, she obviously spoke at length with the writer, and Sienna met her. But she didn’t come on set. I think she read the script. It’s obviously difficult when someone’s making a film like this. How do you compute that? Because it’s 90 minutes revolving around her life. But she said she saw it recently, and she seemed to love it. She saw it with her kids, Melanie (Griffith) and everybody, and it seemed to go down okay. But it’s difficult. It must be a painful, difficult thing to look at. You know, she had such a complex relationship with Hitchcock. It was daunting, because you mustn’t judge that. I wanted to show the sunny side of the relationship, where there was a sort of optimism at the beginning and he was such a fantastic teacher, but then how it changed and darkened and was abusive, really.

BE: Would you say that Hitchcock had a direct impact on your own style as a director, or do you just have an appreciation of his work?

JJ: I think most directors have been influenced by him, whether they realize it or not, because when you go back to his films, there’s so many of the images and the ideas that I’m sure I’ve nicked. [Laughs.] And the way one tries to get tension from a scene, it’s just part of movie-making grammar now. So I think most people are influenced by him. But there are several films that I’ve always been fascinated with, and “Vertigo” was one. Which I never really understood, but, actually, in making this film, it became a lot clearer. So…I wouldn’t say I was a Hitchcock buff or anything, and I certainly didn’t know he’d been like this. But he’s now part of the English culture, and he’s held in such high regard that it’s going to be interesting to see what the reaction to the film is. We’re having a screening at the National Film Theater in a few weeks’ time, so that’ll be full of Hitchcock obsessives. And I’m doing a Q&A afterwards, so it’ll be very interesting. [Laughs.] They’ll tear me apart, probably!

BE: I wanted to ask you about a bit of your other work. First of all, how did you find yourself in the mix for the “Red Riding” trilogy? And were you always going to do that particular film within the series (“1974”)?

JJ: Um…I came on, and I think James (Marsh) came on just before me, and he always wanted to do the one with the Yorkshire Ripper (“1980”). But “1974” was the one I wanted, because I sort of vaguely knew the book. Also, it was kicking off the series, so it was more fun to direct, really. Also, you know, it’s such an incredibly complex story, and there were four books which went down to three books, so it seemed to me that telling the first one was the one to do. And the type of things that happened in it, the atmosphere and all that, it was just right up my street in terms of tension.

BE: What was your reaction when you heard that your film “Kinky Boots” was being adapted into a musical?

JJ: [Laughs.] I was amazed, actually. And, in fact, somebody told me that it’s very, very similar to the script. I mean, it makes sense, in a way. It’s a shoe factory, which is unbelievably visual and would make a great set. We had some great music in it. And Lola is such a fantastic character. So I can imagine it. But…I dunno, really. I’d be interested to see it. [Laughs.]

BE: More recently, you directed the Boy George biopic, “Worried About the Boy.” How was that experience?

JJ: Yes, well, it’s interesting when you’re making…well, like this one, really, where you’re making a film about someone who’s still alive. We were touching on a period in his life that was full of optimism but also a lot of pain and tragedy. So that was tricky. And we were worried about how he’d think of it. In fact, he was very happy. And, y’know, I grew up in that period, so it was great to back and enjoy all that. [Laughs.] It was a very sort of tight budget, but I loved doing it. It was such fun, really, to explore all that world.

BE: What were the challenges involved? It’s been awhile since I watched it, so I can’t recall: did you have access to Culture Club music?

JJ: Yeah, we got it, but it took a long time. And, of course, we didn’t have many tracks because the point of the film was…it wasn’t a biopic of Culture Club. It was Boy George before he became Boy George, so we finish when he becomes Boy George, and we finish on the famous track (“Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”). It was really about the world of the club and its characters, the blossoming of the New Romantic movement and the eccentric people that were part of that world, and…it was about England, really, and how suddenly there was this explosion of freedom and reaction, I suppose, as well, to political things that were going on. That was always the idea of it, as opposed to trying to do a biopic of Culture Club.

BE: Looking at your filmography, the one item that seems to be a bit of an anomaly, at least compared to the usual topics you’ve covered, is “Anonymous Rex.”

JJ: Yes, well, that’s fair enough, I suppose. [Laughs.]

BE: How did you end up directing that film, given that it’s so different from everything else you’ve done? Or was that, in fact, the reason why you did it?

JJ: I read the script and I thought…it was very film noir-y, and I’ve always been fascinated by film noir, so I read it, and, y’know, when you read on the page that somebody becomes a dinosaur, somehow it’s not as significant as when comes to actually making the film. [Laughs.] But I was just charmed by the script, to be honest. I thought it would be fun. But, as you say, it was somewhat of an anomaly. I was really just dipping my toe into it for fun. But I certainly wouldn’t say it was on the route map of my top hits. [Laughs.]

BE: So what were the challenges of bringing it to the screen? I presume there was a certain amount of makeup and costuming.

JJ: And CGI, actually. It was mainly CGI, in fact. So there were those challenges, but then there was also having the budget to sustain what we wanted to do, which is always a battle with something like that. And CGI wasn’t as advanced at that point. It’s extraordinary now what you can do. Absolutely extraordinary. Even with the Hitchcock film…we’ve actually put a CGI Hitchcock head on top of Toby, you know. [Laughs.] No, but the prosthetics now are just so fantastic. They’re unbelievably good. So things have moved on so much that anything like that is now possible, but I guess we were making it at a point when, unless you had Steven Spielberg amounts of money, it was tricky. Very tricky.

BE: When given the choice between period pieces and projects set in present day, do you have a preference for one over the other?

JJ: No, I’ve done quite a lot of period pieces, but…I mean, the interesting thing about doing a period piece is, as a director, you can control everything. The settee you’re sitting on, the color of settee, what color your shirt is. And there aren’t any nasty parked cars in the background that distract. Everything can be controlled and worked with. That’s the fantastic opportunity with period pieces. You can really create the world that you want to create. But I enjoy mixing it up whenever possible. It’s fun to do contemporary stuff as well.

BE: I’m curious about your experience working with Crispin Glover on “Crime and Punishment.” I interviewed him a few years ago, and he’s, uh, pretty intense.

JJ: [Uncertainly.] Sorry, who was that?

BE: Crispin Glover. [With equal uncertainty.] Um…was he not in “Crime and Punishment”?

JJ: Not unless it was a tiny, tiny part. And he was very quiet. [Laughs.]

[Writer's note: I kept this bit in the interview to keep myself humble, but what happened was that Jarrold's Wikipedia page has a link to a version of “Crime and Punishment” in which Glover did appear. Unfortunately, it's not the one directed by Jarrold but, rather, by Menahem Golan. This is what happens when you rush to prep for an interview during the TCA tour.]

BE: Well, let’s move on to “Appropriate Adult,” then. There’s obviously a bit of a difference between working in film and working on television, but that was a pretty intense series, to say the least.

JJ: Yeah, it’s less well known here, that case, but in England you just need to say the words “Fred West,” and everyone goes… [Gasps.] He’s considered the worst, probably because it was a husband-and-wife team. But it’s considered just the darkest, most horrible thing and something that can’t really be explored and certainly not something that should be on television. So when they told me about the project, that was essentially my first reaction as well. But the writer (Neil McKay) was very sensitive and found an interesting way in. There was this curious case of a woman who was a trained social worker, really, who had been brought in to be…I mean, in these cases, if there’s any danger of someone having a learning disability, you’ve got to have a social worker in there to make sure the police aren’t abusing anyone. So this woman, who’s inexperienced and quite vulnerable, is sitting in next to him, and it provided a fascinating way into the subject, because he manipulated her and got inside her head and confessed to her. It has its parallels with the Hitchcock film, actually: it was about a relationship of power, in a way, where the guy kind of dominated and manipulated. And Dominic (West), who’s a fantastic actor, he really…you know, the pressure was on, because you can’t do a character like that halfway or you’ll be hung up. So he did a lot of research, and there’s a lot of available interviews with the guy. A lot of it took place within one small room, so it was a very intense, almost contained drama. And that interested me a lot, actually. No car chases. It’s all between the two or three people sparring with each other. So it was fascinating, and it had a very strong reaction in the UK and went down very well, because…I guess because it was trying to talk about something you shouldn’t talk about, you find a sort of shared humanity.

BE: It’s interesting to see the variety of material that you tackle as a director, from the pastoral to the intense. Do you go out of your way to keep yourself challenged?

JJ: Yeah. I think it’s definitely nice to…I don’t want to get lazy, where you just do what you did before. You don’t want people to be saying of you, “Oh, that Julian Jarrold, he does period dramas, so no contemporary dramas for him,” or, “Well, this is a thriller, and he only does romances.” But if you can persuade people that you can do all of that…in this business, people like to try and pigeonhole you, but the variety is the joy of it, really. I suppose that there’s some romance in the amusing things I’ve done, and in the darker stuff I’ve done, hopefully there’s some humor in there as well. It does all feed into each other a bit. But I do think it makes you a better director if you explore all of these different areas.

BE: Do you have a project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

JJ: Well, I was very pleased that “Red Riding” did get the love I thought it deserved. It got more love here than it did in the UK, though. I think people just sort of got it better here. We were trying to tap into…or (writer) David Peace was…those sort of ‘70s conspiracy thrillers, but it was touching on painful subjects in the UK and real cases as well. And, uh, the police didn’t like to be portrayed in that way. [Laughs.] So…I don’t know, really. I’m just very happy to be able to make the stuff that I’ve made. “Brideshead Revisited,” I suppose, didn’t get as much as perhaps it should’ve done. But we were competing with a TV series that everyone knew very well, and it was a sacred text as well.

BE: Are there any other such “sacred texts” that you haven’t yet tackled but you’d like to take a shot at one day?

JJ: Well, one day I’d love to do “King Lear.” But who wouldn’t? [Laughs.] I’m always fascinated by Thomas Hardy as well, actually, who I always think is unfilmable. It’s never that satisfying when you see the films. But there’s something in the atmosphere in that world that I think I could do very well.

BE: As far as doing “King Lear,” do you have anyone in mind that you’d love to see play the part, or would you rather not jinx it?

JJ: Well, I’ll wait until Toby Jones is a bit older, then I’ll see if he’ll do it. [Laughs.]

BE: To bring it full circle, as far as Toby playing Hitchcock, I talked to him earlier and he said that he didn’t see himself as being right for the part, but then it turned out that he was only an inch shorter than the real Hitchcock. Was he your first choice? Not that he’s not a wonderful choice, but he wouldn’t seem to leap immediately to mind for the role.

JJ: No, he wouldn’t. [Laughs] Yeah, the whole casting thing was a nightmare, because we knew if we got it wrong, it just would not work at all. And, I mean, there’s nobody that looks like Hitchcock. Not actually. It’s an impossible thing. So we went round and round the houses, but he came in and…maybe it just came out on that day – not from him – that he was the same size, and he talked so intelligently about it, and his approach about how he would try and get the feel of the part, I got the sense that he really would throw himself into it and do all the work. A lot of actors, I think, would go, “Oh, I can do Hitchcock. I’ll watch a couple of videos on YouTube and turn up.” But Toby’s not like that. His whole life’s gonna be put on hold while he immerses himself in it. Which he did. And we were lucky with the prosthetics as well, because we got the best person we possibly could’ve done, and I think that helped maybe as well. They’re such delicate decisions when you make these things, and there’s always these crossroads: do you go this way or do you go that way? I’m just very glad we went the way we did. But his performance as Truman Capote (in “Infamous”) was important for us, just because, y’know, he wasn’t like Capote, was he? I knew someone who could disappear into a part like that would be perfect for Hitchcock. And he was.

ALSO: Check out our Season Two preview, as well as interviews with actor Norman Reedus and executive producer Robert Kirkman.

BE: I’ve seen the Season 2 premiere, and from what I can tell, it seems like you guys are still playing at the same level that you were in the first season.

Jon Bernthal: Aw, thanks, man, I appreciate you saying so.

BE: So you guys got to play the love triangle in Season 1, and it’s obviously still ongoing in Season 2. Is it a challenge to play something like that in the middle of a zombie thriller?

JB: I don’t really look at it so much as a love triangle. I look at it more as a family that…these horrible circumstances, this disease that’s turned the world into this apocalyptic state, I look at it more as a family that’s been severely fractured by it. I think that it’s not as simple as two guys in love with the same girl. I think Shane is very much in love with Lori, but I think he loves his best friend, too, as well as their little boy, Carl. I think these are relationships that are immensely important to him, and unfortunately, they’re forever tainted and they’ll never quite be the same. In this world that we’re trying to create, all of these characters have lost so many people. I think what’s very interesting for Shane is that the people in the world who mean the most to him are still alive. It’s just that their relationships will never be the same because of what’s gone down.

BE: Shane is a pretty complex character because of his situation. Do you find it hard to find that balance of personality when you’re playing the part?

JB: No, man, I love it. As an actor, it’s the kind of part you look for. When I first talked with Frank (Darabont) about this, our goal was to not just make him sort of this one-dimensional villain straight out of the comic. We wanted him to be a layered, nuanced character that wasn’t a good guy, wasn’t a bad guy, but was a real guy. I think he’s just operating from a place of being a loyal friend and trying to do what’s best, trying to protect these people that he loves so much. I think he’s always coming from a place of trying to do the right thing, but it’s fractured. It’s just such a different, cold, brutal world now. Also, what’s very interesting about the character is that he’s the first one in the series, I think, to just sort of recognize the lawlessness of this world they’re living in now. He does it when he beats down Ed by the water in Season 1, and also when he trains the gun on Rick in Season 1. I think he recognizes that there are no real circumstances for your actions in this world, and I think Season 2 is very much about Rick and Shane splitting on how they feel the best way to go forward in this world is. I think Shane feels that, to survive, you have to make very brutal, very harsh decisions, and you really have to abandon emotion and morality and just do what’s best for survival, whereas Rick, I think, is kind of plagued by trying to do the right thing. They really become at odds with each other over those philosophies.

BE: So were you familiar with “The Walking Dead” as a comic book before you found yourself on the show?

JB: No, I sure wasn’t, man. I read the pilot, written by Frank Darabont, and it just had me there. I’d never read a pilot that good before, that detailed and nuanced, with that much attention to character and atmosphere. You know, I’ve read the comic a little bit since then, but, uh, Shane buys it so early in the comic that I didn’t really find any reason to keep reading! I mean, it’s very good, but, no, I wasn’t a fan before the show.

BE: What did you think when you first heard about the concept of the show? I mean, it’s a zombie show. Were you skeptical before you read the script?

JB: You know, yeah, I was. I mean, I knew AMC was doing it, and at that time, I really felt that AMC was the best network on television. I loved the stuff that they had on there, so I wanted to give it a read no matter what. But as soon as I opened it up and started reading it, and the little girl gets shot in the opening teaser, I was, like, ‘Oh, this is just bad ass.’ (Laughs) Like I said, the writing was just…it never really read to me like a zombie show or a genre show. The attention to detail in creating the atmosphere in that first pilot…there’s very few words. Most pilots are just a bunch of people talking in exposition, telling the audience exactly who they are and introducing people, and this, I felt, was just a slow, beautiful portrait of this world. I just felt that was a ballsy, beautiful thing to do for a TV pilot. I wanted desperately to be a part of this show just based on that writing and based on Frank Darabont.

BE: Well, speaking of Frank Darabont, the question is inevitable: has it been difficult moving forward without him, given how profound his presence on the show was in the first season?

JB: Yeah, absolutely, no question. I mean, Frank’s a dear friend, I believe in him immensely, I think he’s one of the best filmmakers and writers that our country has, so I think to get rid of him is an enormous loss for us. That being said, this cast and crew, I feel like, has responded really well. I’m proud of everybody. I think that everybody’s really trying to keep Frank’s vision and is trying to go at this full force. I’m really proud of the work that we’re doing, but to lose Frank…? That’s huge.

BE: On a non-“Walking Dead” topic, I have to tell you, I was a big fan of “The Class.”

JB: (Laughs) Oh, yeah? Thanks, man, I appreciate it.

BE: I feel like it’s going to end up coming out on DVD eventually, just by virtue of the fact that so many of the cast have achieved post-“Class” success.

JB: Ah, shit, man. Y’know, look, man, it was a really cool, fun show. We were all actors in our early 20s, everybody had basically come from theater, and…it was just a great family. Also, we were trying to one-up each other and entertain each other on set. Everybody would come and watch everybody else’s work, and we were just trying to make each other crack up the whole time. It was a lovely, lovely little family, and everybody’s gone on and done such cool stuff. It’s great. We still all try to get together a couple times a year and have a dinner. They’re really, really lovely people, and…I really appreciate you saying something about it, man. That was a great time.

BE: Yeah, when I talked to Jason Ritter awhile back, he told me about the dinners.

JB: Yeah, I just think that show…I mean, that’s a good example of a show that had a whole lot of bark before it had a chance to have any bite. They over-publicized the hell out of us before we ever came out, and then they kind of abandoned us once the show was actually on the air, publicity-wise. But we loved it. We loved being there, we all had a great time, and we all have remained very, very close. And that’s cool. It’s very rare.

BE: What are your recollections of working on “The Pacific”? I’ve talked to some of the other cast members, and I know it was a moving experience for them, both working on it and meeting actual veterans after the fact.

JB: Look, man, if you’re lucky enough to get involved in a project like that, it’s a real responsibility to get it right, to help memorialize these heroes. It’s a great responsibility, but it’s also a great thrill, because when you’re doing it for (Steven) Spielberg and (Tom) Hanks, they’ll spend the money to do it right. So to go through the boot camp and get trained by the Marine Corps and to experience the things that you get to experience, to live with these other guys and try to emulate a soldier’s life.. (Starts to laugh) You know, every kid dreams about that. WE get to go play war without the real risk. And it gives you such an appreciation of what our heroes, the real heroes, the real soldiers, what they go through and what they sacrifice every day. But it’s unbelievably fun, and it’s unbelievably rewarding, because, again, you get to memorialize these great American heroes and you get to learn so much and make great friends. I had a really great time on that show.

BE: To jump back to “The Walking Dead,” when it comes to the zombies…obviously, you see them around you all the time, but because of the tension and drama in that series, do you ever find yourself getting a little disconcerted when you’re looking at them?

JB: Man, I hate zombies, I’ll be honest with you. Look, Greg Nicotero is a genius, and the art he creates is just mindboggling. It’s just like everything else on our show: it’s sort of centered in being unique and authentic and real. They’re not just monsters. There’s a specific way in how each person has been bit, they create a specific human being who is turned into a zombie, which I think is pretty cool. The people who play the zombies are great artists. Their movement skills and the work they put into playing zombie is taken very, very seriously. That being said, man, I hate them. Call me a douchey method actor,  but I spend so much time hunting them, being hunted by them, looking for them, beating them, killing them…I just hate them. I want nothing to do with them at lunch, I want nothing to do with them off the set. I hate zombies. I love the actors that are playing them, but I hate zombies.

BE: Lastly, I was at the press round tables you did at Comic-Con, and at the time, Sarah (Wayne Callies) talked about how much she couldn’t tolerate scary movies and wasn’t sure if she’d even be able to watch her own show. Do you watch “The Walking Dead” yourself?

JB: I do watch it. That’s one of the cool things about this: I’m a huge fan of this show. I believe in it. I believe in all the people I’m working with. And I love this story. I love what we’re trying to do. I would watch this show whether I was on it or not, and I think that’s really cool. It’s a thrill for me to be on a show that my friends and family enjoy. I was on a show before this that I’m not going to mention, but I remember a couple of Thanksgivings ago, we were going around the table saying what we were thankful for, and my uncle Steve got up and said that he was thankful for the network that the show was on at the time ‘for canceling that piece of shit so I don’t have to feel bad every Wednesday night that I have to sit through it.’ It just means so much to me that now I’m on a show that I can be proud of, that I dig and that my friends and family dig. I’m a huge fan of this show regardless, and I really believe in the people I work with. That’s a very rare thing, and I know how lucky I am.

(NOTE: Portions of this interview appear in the print edition of TV Week Magazine.)

In March 2007, Bullz-Eye inducted its first class into the Bullz-Eye Directors Hall of Fame. It’s an unconventional list, to be sure, and that was the idea. With all due respect to Howard Hawks, David Lean, Charlie Chaplin, Cecil B. DeMille, Akira Kurosawa, et al., they will just have to wait their turn.

So what has our illustrious founding class of directors been up to since their induction? As it turns out, they’ve been rather quiet, though one of them finally decided to make his first movie in 12 years, and would you look at that, he’s completely changed the game for a second time. Let’s take a look and our directors’ newest credits. And, in some cases, debits.

Alfred Hitchcock

Mr. Hitchcock has not been terribly productive lately – for anyone who just snorted that he’s dead, don’t say that; he’s just…unavailable – so his legacy remains unblemished. And thankfully we’re past the point of anyone speaking of one M. Night Shyamalan as the next Hitchcock. Those were dark days, indeed.

Tim Burton

Burton’s been pretty quiet since his induction. He unleashed the bloody good musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in late 2007, and produced “9,” the animated film about a group of puppets in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, last year. He does have two tantalizing projects on the horizon, the first of which is the much-anticipated “Alice in Wonderland,” a live action 3D affair that has Burton teaming up with Johnny Depp for the seventh time and boasts one of the creepiest trailers we’ve seen in years (two words: Cheshire cat). Then, in 2011, Burton brings one of his very first creations to life on the big screen. Yep, “Frankenweenie.” And they damn well better not change that title.

Steven Spielberg

As director and/or producer, our resident manchild has racked up some monster hits since his induction…but at a cost. His lone directorial effort is “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” which made $317 million but also coined the term “nuke the fridge,” which some view as the modern-day equivalent of “jump the shark.” He served as executive producer for both of Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies (insert your own explosion porn joke here), and God help him, he even executive produced “Eagle Eye.” There is hope on the horizon, though, as Spielberg is elbows deep into the production of “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn,” a motion capture adaptation of the Belgian comic book series starring Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, and Nick Frost. After that, Spielberg is scheduled to direct “Interstellar,” a wormhole and gravity-centric film co-written by Christopher Nolan’s brother Jonathan, and he is producing or executive producing eight (!) other projects, including the awesomely titled, Jon Favreau-directed “Cowboys and Aliens.”

Martin Scorsese

He finally got his Oscar. About damn time.

It was actually one of the funniest set-ups in recent Academy Awards memory; the award for Best Director during the 2007 Oscars was given out by Scorsese’s longtime friends Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas, all of whom were looking at Marty as if to say, “Hey buddy, do you think they picked us to hand out this award for a reason?” The theater, of course, went nuts when they read his name, and as he made his long-overdue walk to the podium, it reminded us of when Michael J. Fox received an Emmy for his work on “Family Ties,” and said, “I feel four feet tall!”

Marty has only released one movie since 2006′s “The Departed,” the Rolling Stones concert film “Shine a Light,” but he directed a short Hitchcock tribute called “The Key to Reserva” as well as the pilot episode of the show “Boardwalk Empire,” the story of Atlantic City man about town Nucky Thompson. His upcoming thriller “Shutter Island,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was originally scheduled for last fall, but was abruptly bumped to spring. Usually that is an ominous sign; we’re hoping that is not the case here, but February is generally more hospitable to horror movies than it is to period-piece thrillers. Good thing “Shutter” has a supernatural element to it as well.

And just this Sunday, Scorsese was just awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award by the Hollywood Foreign Press at this year’s Golden Globe Awards. Everything’s coming up Marty. As we said before, about damn time.

James Cameron

So there’s this movie, you might have heard about it…

Love him or hate him, James Cameron does nothing by half, and once again, he swings for the fences, and once again he hits one that lands over the fence on the other side of the highway from the ballpark. “Avatar” only needed four weeks to become the second biggest worldwide box office hit of all time. This despite the fact that Cameron released his movie in the face of rampant speculation that he had finally bitten off more than he could chew, and the movie could not possibly live up to the 12-year hype. Whoops.

Is it finally time to give the man the benefit of the doubt? He now owns the #1 and #2 spots on the all-time box office charts – and yes, we readily acknowledge that 3D and IMAX upcharges have played a large role in “Avatar’s” performance – and has done so without pandering or playing it safe. He could use some assistance on writing dialogue, but we’re none of us perfect, and Cameron’s good points as a director far, far outweight his drawbacks as a writer. Let’s just hope he doesn’t take another 12 years to make his next movie.