The 'Police Academy' stuff was all hyper-slapsticky.
Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around.
Arnold Schwarzenegger cut teacher's salaries and parks and libraries rather than raise taxes for the many California millionaires and billionaires.
I think that the job of art and culture is to jump on that time and realize that it's there and to push it just a little bit faster.
Animals talking are very rarely funny. But animals behaving as animals - always funny.
Nothing heightens chaos more than a berserk wild animal right in the middle.
My wife is pretty geeky and will occasionally quote 'Anchorman' at me.
I think what's dangerous [about comedy] is that you're coming into the room announcing your intentions.
You're not a slave to those test audiences.
Obamacare is a private mandate that will drive billions to the insurance industry much like the auto insurance mandate. Hardly socialism. In fact it was a Republican plan to begin with.
For a documentary it's so important to find the characters and to find people who will give you access to film
I do have to give it up for Sarah Palin on one account. She is brave.
The thing is I've gotten massages to Enya. I like Enya. If you ate fantastic steaks to Celine Dion you'd like Celine Dion.
There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.
Any time Chris Nolan wants to call me for advice he can.
After thousands of hours of news coverage we have learned that Hillary is a liar and Barack is a terrorist or something.
McCain is the kid who was really cool in middle school but never got high school game and people are sick of him acting like he's still popular.
I am actually talking about possibly adapting 'The Boys ' by Garth Ennis which would not be a comedy but an action movie with comedy elements to it.
If you make action movies the critics will savage you and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.
There are so many shoot-'em-up action jingoistic TV shows and movies that are made every year. I think the final line is that Hollywood is populist.
I'm just a giant film fan so I love action movies out of all kinds of movies. As a film geek it's amazing to be able to shoot this stuff.
You can't really do a big character in an action film; you're already suspending your disbelief in the action then to suspend your disbelief in the character is too much.
In the past in the '60s and '70s genres were much more segmented. You had action guys who were deadly serious about it and I think you had comics that were comics.
I don't think arrested-adolescent humor will fade. Maybe the form will change but I guarantee its replacement will still be based in immature behavior from mature figures.
I could see how people get addicted to animation and I understand why it's so great for comedy. You can do whatever you want and it just happens.
I actually opened for Chris Rock at the Funny Bone one time.
You have to be able to fail with the improv. You have to not care.
You need the audience to go on the ride with you. You can't just isolate them.
In general foreign invested companies who come to America to start a company to open a manufacturing business or whatnot they actually provide much higher wages than American companies.
I got the sense that Alabama is a place where people don't want handouts and don't much care for people talking out of the side of their mouth.
I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview and the first part was all about Walt Whitman I'd love that article.
The way you really stop Al-Qaeda is by stopping their funding. It's not by carpet-bombing or land invasions or anything.
It's one thing to break stuff and damage people's possessions but when you start aiming at the ideology of America that's dangerous comedy.
All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.
My first joke was about a company called Five Star Parking that was all over Philadelphia: 'Who's reviewing parking lots?'
All we have is our vote. But it's powerful.
Blazing Saddles' is one of the funniest movies ever made.
Blanket cynicism toward government has always existed.
Pete Wilson deregulated energy as a pay out to Enron and we blamed Gray Davis.
You could feel America starting to ease up a little bit on racism against blacks in certain pockets and then suddenly The Cosby Show bubbled up and it was the right time for it.
I'm a huge hip hop fan going way back like back to '83. I had my Gemini mixer listening to Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow.
Every time I wrote a sketch that was in my voice Ferrell would just do it better.
'Firewall' seems both scary and protective at the same time. And how often does that happen within one word besides 'military' and 'government?'
Hollywood is for-profit is what Hollywood is. All the studios are owned by big megacorporations that are the furthest thing from liberal you can possibly imagine.
The crush of lobbyists on Washington and purchase of the media by corporations has created a big business-run government and a worthless press leaving Americans screwed and ill-informed.
That's always the trick with the sequels is how much do you repeat from the first one. Because we all get bummed out when you go see a sequel and it's beat for beat.
I'm not against banking. Banking allowed our modern society to happen it is essential. It connects the work through finance so banking is good.
I always thought George Bush was more oblivious than mean but oblivious can quickly go to mean.
Dick Cheney and Bush's rise to power were built on tons of money from corporations and a dulled press.
I'm sure when they partied when Rome was burning that was a really great party.
I have no tax breaks or corporate interests to be supported by Barack Obama.
I want to see Brian Williams with no irony wearing a mustache.
Bush already gave obscene tax breaks to people like me and Warren Buffet and we are saying it's not fair.
We're always looking for the backbone the central idea and once you have that you know everything can circle around it.
The idea of 24-hour news if you really step back is pretty insane. Just even saying '24-hour news' almost has satire laced in it.
Can anything good come of a backward way of thinking like judging someone based on skin color? No way.
If you aim for parody right off the bat and it misses no offense to the filmmakers but it is Meet the Spartans.
Sequels are desperate.
Creative freedom is a huge carrot.
White-collar crime has been marketed - billions of dollars have been put in to have us be bored by it.
The key is a good story. If you have a good story you have enough emotional beats that you can hit.
When you do comedy you get impervious to good and bad reviews.
For 'Breaking Bad ' people were with Walter White for 99% of that show even though that guy is a monster.
Celebrities and 'famous' people are just regular folks. I know it's a shocking and potentially dangerous statement.
Depending on what state you live in you may only have right-wing talk radio and FOX or CBN with MSNBC three hundred channels down the dial.
It's just funny that Americans have to contend with 2000 channels and 60 different specific news sources and the confusion that it creates and the junk that we get to see is hilarious.
There's nothing more fun than mean-spirited characters.
There's nothing more fun to me than new characters and a new world.
I hired a personal trainer to help me lose 25 pounds and get from obese to fat. My next step will be to get from fat to chubby.
Everything in America is so stratified by class now. We have the 93rd level of income inequality in the world. You're already seeing highway lanes that are for pay and ones that aren't.
Every time a congressman or pundit says its 'class warfare' to increase taxes on the wealthy it's a massive lie.
Governor Palin leans far closer to 'spokesperson' than representative of the people.
I was born in Colorado and grew up in Pennsylvania with family in Texas and Oklahoma.
As for movies what's great about comedy is that if your movie gets laughs and makes money you have freedom.
For my money I don't think there's been a better comedy than 'Kung Fu Hustle' in a lot of years. That movie just knocked me over.
Michael Lewis has the amazing ability to take complex formulas and concepts and turn them into page-turners.
Nothing is funnier than confidently doing the wrong thing.
Since FDR's New Deal corporations and wealthy families have been non-stop finding new ways to get tax breaks deregulation and entitlements from the government.
I would never call myself cultural elite but you might be cultural elite.
The hardest thing in the world to do is to have someone in a seat in a theater laughing so hard that they're making weird sounds.
Dave Herman as Michael Bolton is one of my favorite performances ever.
It's time Hawaii answer doubters and produce documents proving that it is a state. What are they hiding? And why haven't we seen these documents?
The living nightmare for a red state NASCAR driver would be a gay French driver.
I think everyone knows the news has become ridiculous. It's entertainment driven.
We get so much information during the day that doesn't really tell us anything.
David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director but he's also a great writer.
With the derivatives market larger than ever we need way more regulation of Wall Street not less.
Other than Green Day we haven't had a lot of protest music over the past few decades.
The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way you can break the ice. It's crazy but even at funerals people will get huge laughs.
The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way you can break the ice.
If you do a Western that's funny there's no way people don't call it a spoof or a parody even though it may not be.
Most of what's tricky about comedy is the perception of it and the audience's expectation.
Normally when it hits two and a half three hours the audience gets exhausted and start yawning.
I have certain beliefs about how people should treat employees and how companies should be run but I was really surprised though this process to learn that those beliefs are actually good business.
If all else fails you can always be a pro.
Old man with an old phone. That's never not funny.
There's nothing more fun than making fun of what's sacred.
Step Brothers 2' would have been fun there's no doubt about it. Maybe someday. Does that idea age? I don't know. It all depends on how the movie ages.
There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke.
I hired Tina Fey for 'SNL ' which was certainly a good match. She took off right away there.
Ultimately the only people who are in any way edified by hanging with famous people are you at the age of 11 and your mom.
I've gotten like five laughs in movies just off guy hugs.
In general the final filter of Hollywood is for-profit. Nothing goes through unless it can make money.
You think of movies like 'Midnight Run' and '48 Hours' those are great movies especially 'Midnight Run.'
I think there's a tendency to think geeks and nerds are just sweet guys that were picked on but that hasn't been my experience. I'm certainly not like that in a lot of ways.
Nowadays the truth is I think a lot of the newer generation of action stars usually are pretty self-deprecating and cool. I mean Dwayne Johnson is a great example.
As far as how much you listen to the audience you listen to them when they really hate something.
I like to remind myself how hard acting is. I do parts in friends' stuff.
Word of mouth and the Internet are the only press we have left.
There's always way less improv than people think. The truth is something like 15 percent.
I always give myself a little part in every movie.
My theme song is 'One Tin Soldier' by Coven.
I can't exactly say why there's not much protest music to speak off. And I know there are acts out there still putting a message in their music.
There's a lot of things you can't control. But you can always be a pro.
As far as what makes a viral video then it's gotta be something that you've either never seen before a fresh piece of comedy or something that relates to something topical.
The one thing for sure is I don't ever want to waste a movie. I don't ever want to waste effort.
I would never do 'Stardust Memories' because I don't particularly like that kind of movie - that would be why I wouldn't do that.