The point of remaking 'Straw Dogs' is not to replicate the philosophies of Sam Peckinpah at all. What made that film singular was the attitude that he brought to the characters. Oddly enough, that's the one thing that I really wanted to change.

The election of Obama will say as much about the American people as it does about Obama himself - that our Declaration of Independence means what it says in its opening lines, that being the world's greatest nation means that we offer the world's greatest opportunities.

We are viewed by the world as a quasi-racist state in which we allow natural disasters to obliterate our minority community, in which our penal system is designed to treat blacks unfairly, and in which we let the medical and educational systems in our ghettos fester to the level of some third-world countries.

I do have this belief that we all have a chance to be great, beautiful people based on how we are raised and our surroundings.