I miss my Dad. My Dad loved cheesy monster movies so we'd have Godzilla movie marathons. Those are some of my favorite memories laughing at how the monster outfits were so bad like black garbage bags for heads.
Whenever I did a good performance my Dad and my uncles who were rabid movie fans took me to the movies. There began my underlying love affair with film.
A lot of young filmmakers bring their movies to my dad because he always gives lots of good editing ideas and notes. He'd be a good film professor.
My dad's sense of humor was direct and sometimes surreal - his quick wit is well known amongst our family and friends. He raised me on Spike Jones records and W.C. Fields movies and his sense of humor fell somewhere in between.
My Dad hated his job. He sold overcoats but he wanted to make movies. He had a failed career working with the Ritz Brothers - they were like the Marx Brothers only a tier below. I always had a picture in my mind of him in a straw hat.
I'm the most inappropriate dad. I curse in front of my kids and their friends. I let my kids watch R-rated movies. I'll walk by the movie theater and say 'Let's go see that ' and my kids will say 'No it's rated R. It's not appropriate for kids.' I'm like Uncle Dad. We have fun. I don't live with them but I drive over four days a week.
My mom was a professional. My dad and mom met each other in a movie called 'New Faces of 1937.' My mom went under the name Thelma Leeds and she did a few movies and she was really a great singer and when she married my dad and started to have a family she sang at parties.
I always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad making art making movies.
And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies too they're awesome the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes you're in for two hours.
I go off and make movies I come home and I'm a dad and I hang with my girls.