"I think a lot about Martin Scorsese and how heavily influenced Paul Thomas Anderson was by him. I feel like he learned so much from Scorsese in Boogie Nights, and so I feel like picking Boogie Nights is somewhat accounting for my Martin Scorsese love. But I’m also being very honest about a movie that I can watch over and over. Just the epic nature and the grandness of it, and some of the shots and the style of it, and the music — my God, the way he uses music — and that great shot where somebody jumps into the pool and you hear the muffled soundtrack. It’s brilliant. I never get sick of watching it. And the acting is just some of my favorite actors at the top of their game. I love doing impressions and one of my earliest impressions of an actor was Philip Seymour Hoffman in that movie, when he’s saying how much he loves the name and he’s chewing on the pen."

"I made a film not too long ago that was originally called The Moguls, and then they changed the title to The Amateurs. Written and directed by a fellow by the name of Michael Traeger. First time director, I’ve had great success with first time guys. He assembled a brilliant cast. We had Ted Danson, Glenne Headly, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Joey Pantoliano, Tim Blake Nelson, Bill Fichtner, a wonderful cast, and it was about a small town making a porn movie. This was before that movie that came out, Zack & Miri Make a Porno. Anyway, it was a wonderful film, got great laughs, and then it got picked up by a distributor who went bankrupt and took about five or six movies down with him and the movies got very small releases. It’s a film that I’m very proud of, makes me laugh, I think people will like it, so you might check that out."

"I wish I could choose something cool and artsy. I’ll tell you what I saw, which I think kind of shot into my list, and I only watched it recently — I’m ashamed that I didn’t see it earlier — was The Squid and the Whale. It was absolutely fantastic. Again, I guess, similar in tone to the other films I’ve mentioned. A sort of, you know, domestic comedy-drama, but very, very truthful, and brilliant performances again. Is it Jesse Eisenberg who’s in that movie? Yeah, I just thought that was tremendous. Luckily, my parents never got divorced, I never went through that, but it really takes you into the experience of watching your parents split up. And I think cinema’s at its best when it makes you feel an experience that you’ve never had yourself, and sort of understand the emotions of it. I was really impressed by that movie. Just a great, kind of… shot through with this black spine of humor."

"""And then I always think the Pixar film is always the best film of the year. Always. I just think they are amazing. Last year, I thought Coco was the film of the year. Those films are just brilliant, like Wall-E or Up, and you say, “How did they ever get that made? How did they ever get that past somebody?” I don’t know what’ll happen with Lassiter not there, but I’m a big animation fan. But I would say if I had to pick favorites, probably some of the Miyazaki films, those animated films. Spirited Away maybe. They’re just art. He is head and shoulders above everybody, and he said he was retiring. He’s like 86 or something. Then I just read he’s making a new film. Yeah, probably Spirited Away. It’s got 17 different styles of art in it. It just keeps changing. You just keep getting blown away. You can’t believe what you’re seeing"""

"I think that film is just one of the funniest movies ever made. The writing is impeccable. I don’t even think any other comedy has come close to being that smart and original and meaningful and funny. Bill Murray is just insanely good in that part and doing the same thing over and over again, but making every [scene] new. Tracking his progress in that film as he becomes a better person, it’s such detailed work. And we don’t often acknowledge comedy acting in awards or other things. I really think his performance in that is completely brilliant — everything about it. Even down to the stupid song that they sing on that little green in the center of the movie and the Sonny & Cher song that plays every time his alarm clock goes off. Every touch to it is clever and poignant. I genuinely think I’ve seen that film more than any other movie. That movie’s high on my list."

"In the book Mr Evans lays out practical ways to avoid genocide and the slaughter of innocents. Military intervention is only the very last resort and only if the benefits outweigh the likely negative effects of such an intervention. Rather, he focuses on the ‘toolboxes’ respected emissaries might bring to the table in dialogue with warring parties. A brilliant example is Kenya. When the church and homes were burnt in the Rift Valley and Kenya appeared to be moving towards uncontrollable violence, Kofi Annan and other respected leaders went to Kenya and were able to bring about the fragile peace that has held thus far. The ‘toolbox’ or sticks and carrots a dignitary might be authorised to bring to the table would depend on the country and its needs, whether it be loans or trade agreements or whatever. It is an excellent, practical and scholarly book which should be essential reading for all world leaders."

"PlayTime is an incredible film. I just love the idea of staging scenes that look familiar but don’t function as the scenes we imagined them to be. And I like that he was fascinated with the mundane. So there’s an airport setting and there are people wearing uniforms and people that look like passengers waiting, and there are scenes occurring, but it’s just the form of a scene that you have seen in some way many times. The way he mixed sounds, where the background noise was louder than the dialogue—having that buried in the background when people spoke is just really brilliant filmmaking. I love the recontextualization. And it’s a masterpiece, with long, huge, choreographed shots of all these entrances and exits and things happening in the background and foreground. So where you’re placing your attention has been subverted so you don’t quite know what you’re looking at or what to look at. And that is incredibly impressive and very inspirational."