"Help me out here! Can I give you an all-time favorite animated film? An all-time animated favorite is Ratatouille. I do not know why, but that film about that rat really got me. I loved Lion King as a kid, but as a thinking animated film [Ratatouille] really has something that I like about it. I thought it was amazing. And Peter O’Toole’s voiceover as Anton Ego is just brilliant."

"Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, and Nicholas Ray: the film-noir hat trick. Based on Dorothy B. Hughes’s very different but equally brilliant novel, it’s doomy, romantic, pitch-black, and unforgettable. The Criterion extras here are particularly superb, with special attention to the movie’s turbulent backstory (Ray and Grahame were divorcing during production). This is the movie for which I’m most intensely evangelical. It feels as vital now as it did a half century ago."

"For me it is one of the most brilliant Mafia movies. Moreover it's the incarnation of the mythical erotic-romantic-tragic relationship between men and women. Beginning with love and ending with death. Isn't it the best description of this endless men-and-women love-hate system? And it's one of the best films about family as well. The protecting nest as miserable, dark shelter from an even darker existence of solitude."

This books lays out a simple, brilliant and practical way of eliminating the current and painful polarization of wealth and poverty. It proves with practical examples that low-income families will save money for higher education and home-ownership if they have the opportunity. All it takes is the investment of a few thousand dollars in each low-income family. This is far more practical and less condescending than any guaranteed annual income scheme.

"One of my favorites is called Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. It's crazy good! It's quite a long book, but the author captures this passage of time over hundreds of years, different sides of the world, and the stories of different families and how they intertwine and interlace. It's unbelievable - it goes so fast and it's so much to capture, but she did a brilliant job. So if you haven't read that one, definitely read it."

"Now we come to the Rock Box, four films that I love, featuring two bands I adore and two artists that always left me cold, all in one brilliant box set: A Hard Day’s Night is Richard Lester’s 1964 gorgeous black-and-white faux-concert comedic film, of the four mop tops at the height of Beatlemania. The film ends with them beating a hasty retreat via helicopter from hordes of lovesick fans."

"This book doesn’t fit neatly into a category. It’s personal but also global. It doesn’t prescribe anything; it raises questions. It allows the reader to feel as if they are watching this brilliant woman think in real time. It seems as if you are inside her mind with her. It’s funny and sexy and made me cry. And it is one of the best books on being a stepmother I’ve ever encountered."

"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is just a brilliant piece of work. It’s camp, it’s crazy, it’s out there, it’s not cerebral at all, it’s just visionary and against the grain. For me it’s just these female superheroes, and it’s using all the clichés but actually pushing them forward. Every time I think of something daring, I think of this film in particular, and it’s so inspiring whenever I want to do something pop."