"And [lastly] probably The Gold Rush, or City Lights, by Chaplin, because they are absolute pinnacles of filmmaking. You have precision comedy, precision filmmaking, and one of the best directors ever. He and Buster Keaton were fantastic, and they were two of my idols."

"And [lastly] probably The Gold Rush, or City Lights, by Chaplin, because they are absolute pinnacles of filmmaking. You have precision comedy, precision filmmaking, and one of the best directors ever. He and Buster Keaton were fantastic, and they were two of my idols."

"Everybody ends up dead or insane-slash-arrested. Nancy Olson is dismissed to wed Jack Webb — the real off-screen horror ending. Every performance is outlandish, as big as anything on any Mexican soap opera. The dead monkey. Buster Keaton. The fun never ends. The best noir comedy, ever."

"I’m going to choose Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Jr. It was either Steamboat Bill Jr. or The General. You know, let me change it to The General. Love the train. Anyways, Steamboat Bill Jr.-slash-The General. It’s about Buster Keaton. He was one of the great inspirations in my career, my life, in studying his works. He’s like a human cartoon character. But, more importantly, he developed character and personality. These films are so appealing because of the personality of the characters he created. His comic timing is staggering."

"Buster Keaton, Steamboat Bill Jr. — that’s an epic in its own way. Just terrific. Very funny, but the famous hurricane or tornado scene or whatever, where the wall comes down and he stood there, in just one moment — and it comes down, and it’s going to flatten him, but he just happens to be standing where the window was — it’s a perfectly crafted story as well. I think it’s a masterpiece, really. And The General. But I just adore it and adore him. He’s wonderful."

"This was a tough one, because it’s like, oh, Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, Buster Keaton. There’s something about City Lights that just… It has all of the perfect acting and physical comedy. But then there’s this pathos to that main character that is just so deep, and you feel it, and it has so many jokes. It’s one of his movies that has a lot of good jokes in it, you know, from the boxing to the cigar. Here you have this guy that’s this hobo driving a Rolls Royce, pushing another hobo out of the way to get the cigar. And it’s just, it’s one of those funny things. That ending when you see his face and she sees him at the same time, and there’s kind of, it’s a smile, but is he sad? Is he happy? You really have no idea of the complications of what’s going on in the moment. He’s just kind of letting it go, and it’s one of the most incredible performances that can kind of put you in there. And it’s a movie that encapsulates all of the things that I love about silent movies, but in a way that has the emotional connection."

"It’s difficult to watch The Great Dictator without thinking about how the world was about to be plunged into five years of war and horror, and it saturates everything with more wistful sadness than Chaplin probably could have imagined. It’s a comedy at the end of the world . . . this brief and desperate beam of optimism, laughing in the face of evil, just before everything went dark. These two Chaplin releases, as well as The Gold Rush and City Lights, are among the most amazing-looking Blu-rays I’ve seen. Could Criterion please do the same restoration work for Buster Keaton next?"

"It’s difficult to watch The Great Dictator without thinking about how the world was about to be plunged into five years of war and horror, and it saturates everything with more wistful sadness than Chaplin probably could have imagined. It’s a comedy at the end of the world . . . this brief and desperate beam of optimism, laughing in the face of evil, just before everything went dark. These two Chaplin releases, as well as The Gold Rush and City Lights, are among the most amazing-looking Blu-rays I’ve seen. Could Criterion please do the same restoration work for Buster Keaton next?"

"I would go back to Buster Keaton’s The General. The accomplishment of that movie in those days, you know… First of all, Buster Keaton as an actor — and as a comedian — but as an actor really, was… again, I think the word “sublime” comes across, because of that sort of deadpan quality that he had. When he was still, you felt as though his feet had roots, and they were sort of embedded and grounded into the ground. And, you know, a hurricane could come and it would never push him over. So that sense of stillness that he had, that had this kind of emotional weight inside of it, created juxtaposition to the stuff that he would do. Even if he was moving around, there was always a sense of a “man against the world” kind of thing that was always very compelling. But that movie, what he did with that movie, with that train, and the kind of stunts he was doing on his own, and just running around… I mean, just the accomplishment of that movie from a technical standpoint in those days was quite something. So that’s my list as of today."