Biography

The films he directs are about New Yorkers

He was the one who gave Mark Feuerstein the nickname "Chaplin".

His father does the illustration-artwork for his films.

He bears an uncanny resemblance to actor Mark Feuerstein, whom he cast in his first feature "Giving it Up".

Everybody can relate to the idea of not letting authority have its way over you. That's what the organized crime thing was really about.

I was way more influenced by films about theater in Hollywood or films about Italian-Americans that weren't mafia related. Tone-wise, I loved "Moonstruck" which affectionately and funnily but still accurately conveyed the Italian-American experience without condescending to it. And then Preston Sturges' "Sullivan's Travels," a great film about a successful 1940's Hollywood comedy director who wants to do dramas, sets out into the world dressed as a bum and with no money and through a series of calamitous circumstances, comes to learn that making people laugh is about as an important a thing as you can do in this business.

The atmosphere that I aim to create on set is familial, particularly with comedies. I want everyone to be as relaxed and as free as possible, so that they can explore these characters. I create that atmosphere as much as I can on a low-budget film, so that everyone feels comfortable and open enough to contribute their ideas.

My approach to directing, with comedy or any genre, has always followed the thought that when you arrive on the set, the script is a guideline. You're looking for nuggets of truth in the reality, and you really have to embrace that reality.

I think that the mob experience, the organized crime experience has a very direct link to the American dream because it is entrepreneurial and yet these are people who shun conventional social mores. They're entrepreneurial in the traditional American dream sense but they are not willing to play by the rules of American society or the law. So I think Americans inherently have a great love of risk takers and law breakers. America was formed by risk takers and law breakers. The pilgrims and the Boston Tea Party, they were taking risks and they were breaking laws that they didn't feel were just. Just like organized crime came about as a response to prohibition which was clearly not a just or even viable law or it wouldn't have ultimately been repealed.