San Diego and Balboa Park - the second largest park in America after Central Park, New York; location for Orson Welles' Xanadu in Citizen Kane; and home of one of the world's largest pipe organs.

Outside waits the next interview from a day of meeting journalists. Shockingly and bravely, he stands defiantly puffing on a cigarette, an American Spirit. He's called Scott and he personifies something very special in America. Not the smoking, because that seems to be dying out. It's the love of movies, and every time I come from the UK it's an amazing blast to be reminded how much people love movies here.

You just don't get that kind of devotion in the UK. It's not in our DNA like it is here. Only the French can-can compete. For the British it's music. My home town, Manchester, and its output of bands over the last 20 years alone proves it. If you're young and you've got something to say, you don't head into the still stuffy middle-class world of movies in Britain. You join a band - unless you're musically atonal like me. A rock deep under the deep deep deep Atlantic Ocean has more sense of tone than me.

Anyway this guy Scott recommends two movies of course: Petulia (1968), directed by Richard Lester and shot by Nic Roeg (one of my heroes); and Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 2001 drama Millennium Mambo.

Because of this insane devotion to movies - and you get it with everyone you meet in the US - might Millions have a chance here? There's a review from Time Magazine which is good, and helps the poster and advert campaign with an excellent quote. My five-year rolling subscription to Time Magazine has finally paid off!

Why make films about sex, violence, drug abuse and zombies when there are so little of any of these things in your own life? This is the kind of question I've been rehearsing in my private practice Q+A sessions. Now in San Diego, though, people are almost British in their politeness and "Is there a patron saint of directors?" is about as penetrating as it gets. No, but there's one for virtually everything else in life, including the internet (Isidor Of Seville, by the way).

The young hero of Millions, Damian, hangs out with a series of strange medieval saints, one of whom is St Clare, the patron saint of television. Seriously. She's also fond of a joint. She explains you only have to worry about smoking issues down here (there you go Scott, Heaven's on your side). She also lives by a railway line; this, and her fondness for a joint, are about as close a connection to Trainspotting as I've found so far.

Currently on release in America, Millions is scheduled to be released in the UK on Friday 27th May 2005.