"I’m gonna say Chinatown. That’s just great storytelling, acting, directing. I think Polanski’s an amazing director. It’s opera, you know. It’s the biggest issues. You can’t tell an epic without a big problem, and Chinatown is brilliant in the sense of Los Angeles history — the whole creation of the Valley, and the diversion of water to make the Valley. [Screenwriter] Robert Towne was able to take a very interesting historical fact — what’d he call it, Mulwray instead of Mulholland? — and tell this amazing personal story about it. I like that very much. I guess The Godfather is similar to that in many ways; obviously based on certain facts. I like that historical aspect to Chinatown as well."

"It comes down to my specific brand of comedy – I really enjoy comedy that takes things to different places. Best in Show had already been out when I saw it, and it was the first improv sketch film I saw – it was my first mockumentary. And I noticed that the way that they do it is just so amazing. I was in love with Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, who are amazing in A Mighty Wind as well. But Best in Show is so good because it was so evocative of a time and a place, this dog show that goes on, and I’d never seen, like I said, a mockumentary, I’d never seen improv."

"She's a later discovery. She's still alive – an amazing, iconic Italian pop singer from the late 1960s through the 70s and 80s, whom I discovered when I was dating a very handsome Italian man in Rome, driving around on the back of a scooter and listening to her recordings. I always identify her as the Bette Midler of Italy, she had a very similar fashion and look, this crazy curly red hair and amazing make-up. She also had this wild voice, and there's this glamorous European quality to her that she brings me right to when I need to get there, especially living in the United States. Mina, take me away!"

"I’m a big kid, I’m a kid at heart, so I still love the classic family films, such as the great Warner Bros film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — not the remake, but the original. It’s still one of the best movies, hands down, ever made, and of course that goes back to the ingenuity of the characters and the storyline. [Producer] David Wolper did such an amazing job bringing it to life, and Gene Wilder gave such an amazing performance. The songs, the music, the colors, the scope — it was just brilliant and really lead you to a fantasy world that didn’t exist, but that we could all imagine was real."