Randall Kleiser (Grease, Blue Lagoon, Flight of the Navigator)

Published: Aug. 26, 2023, 1 p.m.

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Director Randall Kleiser joined me to discuss his drawing style; his latest work Drawing Directors; Quentin Tarantino; Robert Altman; getting inspiration from other directors; Spike Lee; Oppenheimer; Jerry Lewis; Nina Foch; earliest influence: "The Ten Commandments"; USC Dirty Dozen; "Captain America vs. the Mutant"; "Foot Fetish"; "Peege"; Bruce Davison; hiring the same actors in different projects; Marcus Welby, MD; Dawn; "Portrait of a Teenage Runaway"; "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble"; directing "Grease"; thought to be a small movie, but was huge; directing actors he saw as a kid; Jeff Conaway; getting the go-ahead for "Blue Lagoon"; Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins; describing the set as a summer camp; "Summer Lovers"; "Flight of the Navigator" with Paul Reubens as Max; "Big Top Pee Wee"; Paul Reubens always remembered your birthday; Valeria Golino; "White Fang" and his adaptation; "Honey, I Shrunk the Kid"; doing a sequel to get his next project done; working with Rick Moranis; "It's My Party"; difficulty of getting an AIDS movie done; his friends helping for no money; running Digital Day for the Directors Guild; his documentary, "Baby Boomers Yearbook" about his high school classmates; role of directors with writers and actors on strike; role of AI in the future

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