"I saw this for the first time at CalArts [and] since then I’ve become a big fan of all Preston Sturges films. Again, I [had] already chosen what I wanted to do for a living but [this] story touched me so deeply. Here’s a guy who makes comedies during the Depression and he’s so isolated in Hollywood [that] he sets out to learn what’s going on with people. He becomes a hobo. And he ends up way in the South and [is] put into this work prison. And everyone in Hollywood believes that he’s dead, that a hobo stole his coat and was killed by a train. And so he’s there and [he can’t] get word back that he’s still alive. It’s a horrible situation. For Christmas Eve, at the depth of his misery, a black church in the segregated South invites all the prisoners out. And they sit there and what they watch is a Pluto cartoon. It’s the famous scene of Pluto getting the flypaper stuck on him and he can’t get it off. And [the audience] starts howling with laughter. Howling with laughter. People who you wouldn’t think would still have laughter in their bodies. And Sullivan came out of this and gets back to Hollywood and everyone’s like, “Oh, you had this horrible situation, you must make a great drama.” And he goes, “No, I’m going to make a comedy. Because that’s what the world needs.”"

"This is my favorite film. By all accounts, the making of Godard’s first commercial movie was a nightmare for him, and you can see his own contempt written all over it. First he tells us that what we are about to see is fake, and then he proceeds to mock the commercial film industry for the rest of the movie. Some moments in the dialogue seem intentionally ludicrous, like when Paul describes his relationship with Camille through a heavy-handed interpretation of the Odysseus/Penelope myth. The stream of visual absurdities (Prokosch’s tiny book, Paul typing with two fingers, even the final car crash) discourages us from ever taking anything too seriously. Yet because Godard never tries to make us buy into a bunch of psychological hoopty-hoo, this film is devastating and feels realer as a depiction of a crumbling relationship than anything else I’ve ever seen. We’ve all known this couple: after the first flush of romance, the woman finds herself financially dependent on some self-centered, brutish mediocrity with a roving eye. We watch Camille vacillate between the horns of her dilemma in a totally believable way before making the decision to leave Paul and go back to being a typist. As the only non-cartoon character, with her convincing mix of youthful insecurity and defiant self-regard, Camille becomes the whole world of the film. The cinematography and score are perfect, and the final shot of the Mediterranean destroys me every time."

"Then we became rockabillys and got really into the Stray Cats, This was about 1982. It was my brother and his mates who started brushing their hair up, and me and Sice joined in. It felt like years at the time, but it was probably for 12 to 18 months we became rockabillys. We had our hair piled up, baggy trousers and crepe shoes. I still love the Stray Cats. They had this cartoon image - their hair was much bigger. I had such a crush on Brian Setzer, he's a great singer. But the guitar playing is phenomenal. The B-side is called 'Drink That Bottle Down' - I think it's live in Newcastle - and you've got the double bass player Lee Rocker shouting these blues. It really is a racket, but the guitar playing is unbelievable. The variety and dexterity and fluidity - the ferocity of his guitar playing is wonderful. I was into them for a couple of albums, but by the third album we kind of gave up. My brother got deeper into it - he started getting into psychobilly and all that, The Sharks, Tall Boys, The Meteors, The Milkshakes - all that Klub Foot stuff. And there was a psychedelic wave - The Purple Things and The Vibes - and it all got really strange. I was out of it by then. I think 'Relax' came out and I was back in the modern world."