You had to make an appointment to see her. But it was just a crazy spectacle, people filing past.

In my hometown of New Orleans, grief is a public spectacle that, somewhat paradoxically, necessitates celebration. The dead are not mourned so much as they are posthumously venerated with music and dance.

I say 'spectacle' rather than 'story' because in the end, it isn't the intricacies of narrative that draw us to horror films. When it's there, I'm grateful for the director's skill at telling an exquisitely nuanced tale filled with psychological insight, but it is the spectacles that I take home with me.

I like to say magic is the world's second oldest profession, a mystical and often awe-inspiring spectacle that, throughout the ages, has blended superstition, trickery and religion.

'La La Land' is about the city I live in. It's about the music that I grew up playing; it's about movies that I grew up watching. Even the big spectacle of the movie feels private to me in that way.

Coming out of the '60s and the Vietnam War in America, it was commonplace for people to make films that had relevance to them. And since the '70s, cinema has gone almost entirely in the direction of spectacle and escapism and superhero films.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a sucker for weddings. I'll get misty-eyed watching the union of two perfect strangers. But in some cases - and I need to stress some cases - I feel like we're getting blindsided by the spectacle of it all.

More and more, we're used to taking things in through the eyes rather than through the ears, and opera is more of a spectacle.

Usually, you see this play as a guy who can't make up his mind, but our version is more of a revenge thriller than a man who is pontificating what he should do next. I've never seen a 'Hamlet' this big, this exciting, with this many cast members; it's quite a spectacle.

A forest of these trees is a spectacle too much for one man to see.

Don't be part of the spectacle; be truthful about what you care about and speak from the heart.

Event cinema is what it is, and I understand why it's successful. It started with things like 'Jaws,' which are extraordinary movies. But what we've lost are great character films which are beautifully directed and had great movie stars in them. Films that were about something rather than about spectacle.

Each culture has its own form of staged combat, evolved from its particular method of street fighting and cleaned up for presentation as a spectacle, e.g. savate, Cornish wrestling, karate, kung-fu.

I'm aware that the World Cup is probably the greatest spectacle in the world of sport, and that's despite the referees that have been found to have fixed games specifically.

I like the idea that cinema is a spectacle.

For me, the reason why people go to a mountaintop or go to the edge of the ocean is to look at something larger than themselves. That feeling of awe, of going to a cathedral, it's all about feeling lost in something bigger than oneself. To me, that's the definition of spectacle.

A movie like 'Edge of Tomorrow' is so huge and complex - the spectacle and action is all-consuming - and that on its own is enough of a reason for a lot of people to see it.

With the DVR, I was mostly writing about it as a good thing in giving us the choice of when and how to watch things. But there's what we lose in the bargain, which is the collective spectacle. 'Did you see Jay Leno last night?'

I don't know why, but for whatever reason, that side of life - the celebrity and the spectacle - has never interested me.

You had to make an appointment to see her. But it was just a crazy spectacle, people filing past.

I had never been to a fashion show before going to the Burberry show last month. It was an extraordinary spectacle. I was incredibly green and had no idea what an undertaking it is. I also have a new respect for models because they are so close to the front row and must be so self-conscious.

The thing that has always interested me - amidst the scale, the historical spectacle, or the social significance or the political resonance - has been the relationships.

In my boyhood, cattle-raising ran almost neck and neck with grain-raising. In my secluded little valley in the Suisun Hills, the rodeo was the most exhilarating spectacle in the round year.

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving.

Showy displays of love don't come naturally to everyone. They don't come naturally to me. They also come with a risk: a risk of rejection, being made to feel silly, or making yourself into a spectacle.

For me looking at the success of some of the women's football World Cups, the crowds they've drawn, the spectacle it has created and the event that it's been I think it's really great cricket is having a go at that as well.

There was a point when dancing to music became cheesy after the boy band era of NSync and Backstreet Boys, but there were always those who craved that kind of visual satisfaction. K-Pop really filled that void, because it's so geared to spectacle.

I know people like spectacle, but I'm interested in moving people.

The priesthood is not dying, but the clerical state is dead. It needs to be buried, preferably with a Viking funeral in Boston Harbor so nobody can miss the spectacle of its passing.

When you look at someone good like J.J. Abrams who gives you the spectacle and great action set pieces but also gives you character and great story and plotting and narrative, I think it's my job - and my intention - to do both.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.