"I’m going to go with Harold and Maude, by Hal Ashby. I think it’s definitely one of the most unusual love stories that I’ve seen. Maude is one of the most inspiring characters. She reminds me to see the world positively and forgivingly and put past troubles behind me. The Cat Stevens soundtrack is sublime. The comedy is delicious. The performance of Ruth Gordon – you know, she’s a woman in her 80s acting like a 16-year-old – is one of the most extraordinary performances I’ve ever seen. I believe it got very bad reviews when it came out, almost unanimously, but is, I think, probably one of the great comedies ever made."

"Was this a comedy, straight drama, fantasy? I don’t know. It’s so incredible. This has one of my favorite endings to a movie, just incredible. When he walked on the water my jaw dropped, I just freaked out, freaked out, that we were making fun of him the whole time, we thought he was an idiot the whole time, thought he was like this mentally handicapped person, and all he was was simple. The things that were happening, and the people that were following him, and the potential future for him, makes sense when you just turn your perspective that way. Bold, bold, bold genre-breaking filmmaking, and will always be kind of a beacon of originality for me."

"Man Bites Dog is a Belgian film in 1992. It’s about a film crew that starts following a serial killer around, and he’s charming and disarming and delightful, and he kills people with this film crew never interceding. The first time you see it, you’re like, “Wait a minute,” and you laugh a few times, and the second time, you laugh the whole time. It’s a bleak, dark comedy, but my god, it’s so funny. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was before the onslaught of reality television, but it makes a perfect comment on it now. It had subtitles and I still loved it. I laughed so hard."

"The other one in the comedy genre is an all-time classic, Coming to America. Like Harlem Nights, Coming to America, the rawness of it, Eddie and Arsenio’s relationship, just all the different characters Eddie was able to play and pull off — not a shabby job, Arsenio played a lot of characters himself — but the brilliance of Eddie Murphy. If they gave Oscars for comedies back then, that would have been the top of the list. You know, Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor turned in some incredible ones, too, but I tend to love what Coming to America was all about. Just the fact that it was New York, and how it started and where it went."

"I just watched, on New Year’s with a bunch of high school friends, The Breakfast Club, which I hadn’t seen in years. I remember being very affected by it but I couldn’t believe how well it held up, and I also couldn’t believe how well I actually knew the movie — like, I remembered every frame of that movie. It’s such good storytelling and it’s such a perfect blend of comedy and pathos. I kind of underestimated the effect that John Hughes had on my consciousness. He really taught, I think, a whole generation of people empathy. It’s kind of a marvel, that movie. So that’s certainly one of them; I have to put that up there."

"My first film would be Braveheart. I love that film. I have Scots-Irish ancestry, and I was very intrigued with it. I’m actually a part of the Wallace clan on my grandmother’s side, so I was very intrigued with the portrayal of William Wallace, even though I’m not a direct descendant. The subject matter interested me, and I thought that Mel Gibson did an exceptional job. It’s my favorite film. It’s one of those films I can watch over and over and over again. It has comedy, there’s romance, love, passion, love of your country, the pursuit of freedom, and I just think he did an incredible job directing that film and also starring in it."

"These are my three favorites for pure entertainment. I’ve lumped them together under “professional comedy.” And these are the best. Though, if you want to crack into journalism or daytime television after watching them, perhaps you should watch them again. Broadcast News and Tootsie make me put my hand to my heart, just thinking about them. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever written in any book that doesn’t aim to have that ideal blend of humor and heart, that pacing. Sweet Smell of Success is more of a perfect script than a perfect movie, but it’s phenomenal. “I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.” Who says these things?"

"These are my three favorites for pure entertainment. I’ve lumped them together under “professional comedy.” And these are the best. Though, if you want to crack into journalism or daytime television after watching them, perhaps you should watch them again. Broadcast News and Tootsie make me put my hand to my heart, just thinking about them. I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever written in any book that doesn’t aim to have that ideal blend of humor and heart, that pacing. Sweet Smell of Success is more of a perfect script than a perfect movie, but it’s phenomenal. “I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.” Who says these things?"