"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."

"In this political season, it’s important to remember that politics has always been a dirty business. Robert Altman scores big with two very well-aimed political targets: the unraveling of Richard Nixon in 1984’s Secret Honor and the media circus surrounding a presidential campaign in his 1988 miniseries Tanner ’88. I grew up watching comedian Rich Little doing Richard Nixon impressions that are seared into my brain. Philip Baker Hall is not doing a Richard Nixon impression. He is Richard Nixon. Sans gimmicks. It is a gut-wrenchingly good performance in what is virtually a one-man show. Tanner ’88 stars Michael Murphy as a decent liberal Democrat who—SPOILER ALERT—does not take the Democratic nomination. Sound familiar? Yeah. Depressing. Haskell Wexler’s 1969 film Medium Cool should really just be called Super Fucking Cool but then you’d lose the play on the word “medium” and boy is Wexler playing with medium here—a fictional story, shot cinema verité style, against a backdrop of the very real riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. It’s a doozy and especially resonant as we watch the circus leading up to what is sure to be an ugly convention season"