"If I had to choose my number 1 favorite book of all time, it would be this. (And as this is widely considered one of the great American novels, I’m clearly not the only person who’s been hugely affected by it.) White Noise uses the story of a college professor and his family in small Midwestern town to explore American paranoia, consumerism, and novelty academic intellectualism. I love this book for its ability to to be dark, beautiful, smart, and hysterically funny, all at the same time."

"My favorite film is a Fred Astaire film called A Damsel in Distress. It’s without Ginger Rogers, but it’s based on a P.G. Woodhouse book, who is my favorite author of all time, and he wrote the script. And it’s hilarious, and it’s wonderful. Astaire is amazing in it. Joan Fontaine is 22 years old. It’s beautiful, and it’s based on this wonderful Woodhouse book. I watch that at least once a year. And it’s got Burns and Allen, and they’re hilarious. It’s a great film."

"To start with, a unique film from Scorsese’s career, rediscovered recently, and a feminist melodrama with constant emotion. The humanity that transpires within the slightest exchange, the slightest look between actors (a beautiful group led by Ellen Burstyn) can almost be seen as vestiges from another time – contemporary cinema having lost (momentarily?) this sort of innate grace, the pleasure of acting, of crying and living in front of a camera. Today’s “naturalism” seems quite faded when one sees a film of this moral fiber."

"I love Roland Kirk's stuff, it's always got these mad quirky bits in it, a bit like Mingus or like Monk, but very unique to him. It's a really sweet record, really beautiful, and again it has a link to nature and spirituality. It's deep but it has a lot of humour. Charming arrangements and melodies and a real lightness of touch. I love all those things where you hear him growl on the flute or shout or let off one of his conches."

"I’m about to sound like such a nerd. There’s a film I saw in college called Gabbeh. It’s about a Gabbeh — and I didn’t know this until I saw the film — it’s a kind of a carpet. It’s the story of this nomadic family that makes them, and it’s beautiful with all these amazing images — it’s very visual. I loved it and made my boyfriend at the time watch it — it was only like 10 minutes in. I did marry him anyway. [laughs] It’s amazing."

"Okay. You know — it is a recent acquisition for me — but I’m way into the Wes Anderson stuff. Anytime The Royal Tenenbaums is on, I am camped out. People are like, “Is that your favorite?” I think it might be. Also, I do concede, that might have been the first Wes Anderson movie I saw. I love everything about all of his movies. They are so good. They are so stylized. They’re beautiful to look at. I’m always a fan of whichever new one is coming out."

"I didn’t know anything about this film; I decided to just try it. I loved it. An old-style movie, and Mifune’s wild-man performance gives it special stature. There are not many actors with his charisma, a true strength, and humor, vulnerability, and truth. The film is well told, strong, honest, and simply filmed. I found it refreshing to be reminded that these simple qualities made the film, now fifty years old, beautiful and alive to me; a classic just like you promised, Crit"

"It's one of those pictures that puts the lie to that idea that the sequel is never better than the original. Again, you have a filmmaker in James Whale who has now been given more resources to explore the same themes and issues as he did in the first film but he brings along with it an attitude towards the material and a result he doesn?t so much kid it as parody it. It?s a beautiful film to look at, extremely well acted, very witty."