The awards put a movie on people`s radars. Festivals are good, even though the idea of putting movies in competitions-this one is the best this, that one is the best that-is ridiculous.

It`s easy to offend people. People get uncomfortable, for instance, when the main character in a movie is not sympathetic in a Hollywood formula way. Our movies are loaded with things that aren`t to everyone`s taste. On the other hand, there`s a scene in [O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)] where a frog gets squished that everyone seems to like. It`s all right to do the frog squishing.

The movie people let us play in the corner of the sandbox and leave us alone. We`re happy here.

We aren`t the grandfathers of any movement. In the 1980s, the so-called indie film movement was a media creation. What I found irritating is that `independent` became an encomium. If it was independent, it was supposed to be good, and studio films were bad. Obviously, there are bad independent films and good studio films.