8. The Last Picture Show

"When I was growing up, the first director centred auteur movie that I ever saw was The Last Picture Show. In the late 60s and early 70s they were really making some amazing movies and that was one of the ones that taught me a lot. I had a hard time deciding because Bogdanovich made another movie called Paper Moon which is great. It was hard to decide which to keep on the list but I guess I’m always going to love the first one I saw. I think it had a lot to do with influencing the first movie I made which was called Jim, The Worlds Greatest, which was just a story about a disaffected youth who didn’t know where his life was going. Last Picture Show was a big influence on that. I had a nice childhood, though. I enjoyed my childhood and I had a lot of great adventures. I played around with my neighbourhood friends and I always look back on it fondly. I had another early film, just a slice of life film called Kenny And Company which is just a few days in the life of a couple of boys. That was my way to express my feelings about childhood."