I'm also really excited with the fact that the barrier to entry is dropping so dramatically. Somebody with a video camera and a computer can put together a great looking film. And even if it doesn't have all the polish of a huge studio production, I don't think that matters. If you go to see a Spiderman film - and Spider-Man 2 was a pretty good movie - all that money is going toward making it look perfect. There are some of these small films coming out now with just a three-chip video camera that are really making a difference.

It's a little like in the blog world, where they talk about "democratization of communication." I think that's starting to happen with film, and obviously some people are really going to explode. We saw that with [Richard] Linklater and Kevin Smith with Clerks, but even with those films, they had to go out and raise a significant amount of money, given their ages: $50,000 or $150,000.

EB: I heard that Kevin Smith maxed out his credit cards for that one.

MG: Yeah, exactly. So to me, that's exciting. And the way that that those are going to be distributed - you may not be able to distribute them mass market, but as bandwidth and the computers get faster, you might end up with a lot of nice short-subject films traded back-and-forth on computers.

Much like podcasting, I think you'll find a situation that really allows people to work through and build a book of work that they can really start to capitalize on.

EB: I've been absolutely fascinated by the first episode of Project Greenlight, which is being shown on Bravo. That's the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck project...

MG: They're doing a horror film this year, right?

EB: Yeah, and it's just amazing because it goes into how hard it is to make a good film in Hollywood, with how many barriers there are. How it almost happens by accident.

MG: Had you seen the previous two Project Greenlights?

EB: I have not. I'd like to very much though.

MG: Both the movies turned out to be... no good. [laughs] But it was fun to watch.

EB: Right. Who's the best director that most people have never heard of?

MG: I'm going to answer that a little differently. I think Sam Peckinpah is the best director that none of my friends have ever heard of. And I know that anybody that knows anything about films is going to say, "Hey, wait a minute, everybody's heard of that guy."

But the one thing that you really seem to find out is the difference between the people who enjoy movies and people that love movies. I am constantly amazed at how many people haven't seen some of the films that seem to be ingrained in pop culture. "Mine goes to eleven..." There's a lot of people who laugh at that but who have never seen [This is] Spinal Tap.