"So, actually, 25th Hour is my favorite Spike Lee movie for a whole bunch of reasons irrelevant for our purposes. But there’s no denying the power, the heat, and the energy—the perfection, really—of Do the Right Thing. And the cultural impact of it alone is worth the price of admission. It’s also one of my favorite New York movies. And one of my favorite modern fables. It’s stupid that I’m still typing. I don’t have to sell anyone on Do the Right Thing."

"The Japanese New Wave is almost synonymous with Nagisa Oshima. His film In the Realm of the Senses outraged critics and audiences alike with its many scenes of unsimulated sex. Here he takes similar themes of lust and murderous passion and explores them through the supernatural, crafting a ghost story that puts Japanese society and cultural conventions on trial in a masterful way. Who are the criminals here? Those who dare to pursue their feelings and impulses, or the society that forbids them the freedom to do just that?"

"The most influential rock film ever made (A Hard Day’s Night is probably second). It’s more than thirty years old, but it’s still the default reference for every rock group with a sense of humor (even if none of the band members were alive when it was originally released). It somehow has more cultural sticking power than most of the music it satirizes. There’s never been a real documentary about a real band that captures the nature of heavy rock as deftly as this unreal documentary about a fake band."

"Cultural Amnesia might just be my favourite book of all time. It’s his essays and reflections on people he has been fascinated by, mainly from the 20th century, and I felt like I’d been properly woken up after reading it. A friend of mine actually walks Clive’s dog, so I wrote him a fan letter and my mate was able to pass it on. It was the first gushing fan letter I had written in a long, long time. I actually sent one to Henry Rollins many many years ago, and he wrote back to me. Fan letters are cool."