"It’s a movie that I go back to probably once every other month, and I mean, it sounds so dumb, but it’s just something familiar. And I feel like I always discover a new little thing. A new tiny joke. A new little blink or a nod, or something of that nature. It’s a comedy from the era where, as crazy as the story elements are, the actual film feels as grounded and as real as three disgraced Columbia professors fighting supernatural ghosts alongside Ernie Hudson can be. It feels like real professors who are actually kicked out from the school, and the jokes are based on these characters, and are sarcastic. It’s not a big goofy chuckle fest of what crazy thing can happen to this group of people next, you know? It feels authentic. Something in me as a kid really liked that. Something in me now certainly loves that. I have an endless endless love for the original Ghostbusters."

"Scarlet Empress, with Marlene Dietrich, directed by Josef von Sternberg. That’s also pre-Code, just barely, I think, and it’s the greatest of their collaborations. Morocco is amazing, too, and I love Blue Angel. Morocco has that incredible ending where she can’t resist but follows him off, and you hear the wind sound and all that. Anyway, Scarlet Empress is so singular; there’s nothing like it. It’s almost like a new cinema is being created; he’s creating a new language for cinema. Not just the way that it looks, but the light, the use of light, and the use of production design becomes, almost, a sensory part of the experience and informs her character. It’s all about her character’s sensuality, and he uses all these other elements beyond just herself to sell that. The way the film looks, the way the film feels, and it’s where the style completely informs her identity, which is an amazing idea."

"This movie has been a touchstone for me through my entire adult life. I first saw The Apu Trilogy when I was in art school, and I think I was confused or overwhelmed by it at the time—it was my first encounter with that kind of cinema. But it stuck with me, and I return to it over and over again because it’s endlessly beautiful. I love the economy of Ray’s shooting style; he always does these simple pans, or he’ll just have people walk toward and away from the camera. There are no complicated bilateral moves, and he really just goes with what’s in the frame. And his sound design is so powerful. These films manage to fit big political elements into tiny, familiar stories that follow the course of the life of a family. I got to see Pather Panchali in Portland on the big screen right before I started shooting First Cow, and it definitely had an impact on that film."

"We’re often talking about ParaNorman as being John Hughes meets John Carpenter, and that was intentional. It was to try and tell a spooky story that was almost… you know, we talked about it like being directed by Sam Raimi as well. It was to try and combine all those elements: All the angst of a movie set in high school, where your issues are more about, you know, being bullied by the kid who lives down the lane, but to couple that with a movie about the more fictional horrors of monsters. I like that play. They’re actually a really good marriage. I’ve talked about ParaNorman being the characters from The Breakfast Club dropped into the plot of The Fog — and The Fog, I would say, would be one of the other influential ones. Right from day one of writing, I think. I love that movie, as bad as it is…"

"There was a compilation that came in the heady days of Electroclash, it had a track of theirs called 'If I Gave You A Party'. It's hard to put a finger on what music it is, it still sounds quite modern actually. The guy behind it hasn't done that much but everything you can track down by him is really weird and accessible as well. That record does trail off on side two as there's a silly track called 'Exercise Your Ass Off', which is trying to be Jane Fonda or something, but apart from that it's good. Again it's a bit like the B52s in that it's quite a simple sound, you can tell it's being made with not much money and it's just using a few elements in such a way that it really works. You'd not get away with being called Sexual Harassment any more - that's from a bygone age. "