When you get angry at a movie, what sets you off? Are there common qualities in cinema today that you dislike? Is there something you try to subvert or avoid or rebel against in your work?

I don’t like stories that seem little pretentious. I hate when I see a movie like “Black Swan” and I suddenly feel like they are banking on the essence and effort of a previous film like “The Piano Teacher”. Making it look like they are the groundbreakers when someone before them came up with that style of story. Talking about the Black Swan, I also don’t like films that exploit sexuality just cause they think that putting a sex scene increases the art status of their film. If you are doing a film like “Fatal Attractions” then sex scenes are justified or “Irreversible” where it’s a key part of the story. Sex scenes, like any type of scene need to have a reason to be in the story and sometimes I feel like some filmmakers just like to throw them in there to shock the audience like in “The girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

I also hate when there’s a trend that starts getting out of hand. For example, one person makes a good movie about pirates, and then suddenly everyone starts making pirate movies regardless of the quality of the scripts. Repetitive storylines are boring too: the ugly girl who gets transformed into a beauty, the college kids who always end up on a deserted house where a killer awaits them, etc. In my work, I try to stay away from this. I try to give my stories a twist in the end that takes them away from what’s expected.

Another thing that I have a problem with are overly dramatic scenes that have a exaggerated style of acting. In my opinion this doesn’t work anymore because it belongs to an older film language or style. I remember watching the third season of Damages (which isn’t a film but I think it illustrates my point) and thinking what happened? When did this turn into a soap opera?

I also can’t stand character’s that are way too good. Character’s who are designed to portray an image of moral incorruptibility, kind of like a superhero. Unless, they are outstanding characters like Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” or Eliot Ness in “The Untouchables”. I like flawed characters that convey real human emotions. In my stories, I always try to create characters that make mistakes; who may have petty emotions because they feel more real to me. I try to stay away from making characters that always do the right thing. I find more interesting creating characters that might do things for selfish reasons.

But, the thing that really irritates me when I see a movie is bad novel adaptation. I just hate when they make changes to the original story for no reason at all. Because when I’m watching a novel adaptation I’m always analyzing whether they made the change for production or time related reasons. When, I find that the changes they made didn’t represent a benefit, I get angry. Especially when scriptwriters cut scenes that I though were essential to the story or the character’s motivation and make changes that may totally alter our interpretation of the character’s actions. For example, in the film “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” during the scene where Dumbledore is killed, Harry is supposed to be paralyzed by spell casted seconds before thus preventing him from doing something to help him. In the film, however the scriptwriter chose to just let Harry hide and witness the attack. In my opinion, a change like that alters completely our perception of the character. In the first case, he was portrayed as someone brave who might have done something, while in the second example; he comes across as someone too scared to act. Leaving the story as it was in the book wouldn’t have cost more or less money to the filmmakers because the scene would have been shot anyway, just with that slight change. I think this why people usually feel disappointed when they watch a novel adaptation.