Congrats.
It was good seeing you at the Golden Globes, winning awards.
Congrats on that. -Always fun.
-Is it fun? Do you like winning awards?
-Yes, I do. [ Laughter ]
-Do you get bored of it, or do you go, like, "Eh,"
or whatever once you've won it?
-Well, you know, it's fun.
You work all year on a film, and then at the end of the year,
then, like, yours is collected with a bunch of other movies
that people think is the best of the year.
-Yeah. -And you get to hang out
and have all these like parties with your colleagues.
It's pretty great. -Yeah, and you get to
run into people you probably haven't seen in a while.
-No, it's really, really -- No, that's really cool.
It's like some people that -- Yeah, I bumped into --
At one of the parties we were going to,
I hadn't seen Tom Hanks in about,
like, five or six years. You know?
And then we had a really groovy conversation,
and it was really neat. Yeah, so it was really cool.
-Is it cool for you?
Because we have something in common.
We both worked at video stores. -Yeah.
-Is it cool that your movies are now --
Well, I guess video stores are no longer.
-Unfortunately. [ Laughter ]
It's a sad... -At one point, it was in there.
-Yeah, they were definitely in there, actually.
-Yeah. Did you like working at a video store?
I loved it. -Yeah, no, I --
It was actually, I think --
Until I was a director, I think, it was, like, the job
I was absolutely the best at.
[ Laughter ]
To be sure.
-Did people come in and get recommendations from you?
-Yeah, well, no. That was one of the things
that was cool, at least at the beginning.
One of the things that was actually cool was, um...
You know, me being me, I wasn't just a normal video clerk,
just, you know, giving you "Top Gun" in your case
and sending you out the door.
People would come and ask me what I thought
about this movie or that movie, and I would help them out.
And I wouldn't just, you know, stick my taste on them.
I'd try to find out who they are.
So if somebody would say, "Well, do you have a good comedy?"
Well, you can't just give anybody any comedy.
You have to find out what they like, all right?
You know, so you -- it's like --
"Well, what are a couple of comedies
you think are good comedies?"
So if they say "Ghostbusters" and "Caddyshack,"
well, then I have a really clear idea
of where they're coming from.
If they're saying the Alec Guinness Ealing comedies,
then I have a different idea about where they're coming from.
You know, and so I would always try to steer it towards them.
But the thing that was actually kinda cool is,
for a little bit there -- like, for a couple years,
frankly, it was like I was Andrew Sarris.
And Video Archives was my "Village Voice."
-Right. -You know? It literally was --
I was, like, the film critic of the neighborhood.
And I became -- In a weird way,
it was also my primer on becoming famous.
-You were the -- That was your --
-I got really -- In that neighborhood,
I got really famous, all right? [ Light laughter ]
-So, people would stop you on the street?
-Yeah, well, they knew me, also.
So, yeah, of course they'd stop me on the street.
But it would be like a situation where like,
okay, so I'm taking a break.
I'm gonna go walk up to the Jack in the Box and get a Coke.
That's about four blocks up the street.
And I'm walking up the street, and people would drive by,
"Hey, Quentin, how you doing?! Whoa!"
-Yeah, yeah. -"Hey, Quentin! Yo, Quentin!"
-You had sunglasses on. [ Laughter ]
-I go into -- I go into, like, a movie theater.
Like, there was a Mann 6 that was down the street.
And me and some of the other guys from Video Archives,
we'd walk in to go see a movie,
and then we'd hear, as we pass by people,
"Those are the guys from Video Archives.
The guy from Video Archive." [ Light laughter ]
-Really? -Yeah.
-Did you have a go-to movie that you would recommend
to everybody? All the time?
-Eh, I don't believe in go-to movies.
All right? Not to everybody.
Not to everybody. -Yeah.
I had one I would give to -- -Oh, what was yours?
-It was the Evel Knievel documentary.
-Oh, wow! [ Laughter ]
-I loved it.
It was my favorite thing I've ever seen in my life.
-Not the George Hamilton Evel Knievel.
-No, no, no. [ Laughter ]
No, that one --
-I kind of liked that one, actually.
-This one was, like, a documentary
that he produced or something.
-That he produced?! Oh, my goodness.
-Fantastic. He's driving in an RV.
It's one of the best things I've ever seen.
He's driving in an RV, and he goes --
he goes, "I'll talk about anything."
The camera's on, he's like, "I'll talk about anything
in this whole movie, you know?
That's why I'm doing this documentary.
I'll take about anything in my whole career.
Except for the years 1973 to 1974."
[ Laughter ]
And then he never talked about them
for the rest of the documentary. -You know what?
Now that you said that, we actually did.
We actually did. It was a documentary
that was done in Austin, Texas,
and it was a movie called "Hands On a Hard Body."
-Yes! -I mean, I think it's one of
the greatest documentaries ever made.
-The guy that eats a Snickers bars?
-Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly! Yeah, the guy who eats
the Snickers bars to have the energy.
And the thing about -- That was a movie
that if you commit to it, you're going to love it at the end.
-Yes! I totally agree.
That was your go-to one. -That was my go-to one.