"Virtuosic camera movements and demonstrations of technical originality, while impressive, can often do just as much to pull the viewer out of the experience as into it. One becomes absorbed by the mechanics on display, rather than gripped by the characters and their fates. In the case of “1917,” however, it is exactly the virtuosity of the filmmaking that makes the movie so exceptionally gripping. All of the cinematic elements, from the unique visuals to the rousing score, come together to give the audience a monumental, visceral sense of participation in the protagonists’ mission. As a viewer, I am intensely bound to the characters throughout the film. Their story is a relentless, brutal and violent experience — we’re in the foxholes, in the mud, with the corpses in the waterholes, running across rotting horse carcasses ­— and it all feels so real that you can smell the dead horses and burning houses. But amidst all the violence, there are small moments of kindness that moved me more than anything; moments that encapsulate humanity at its finest. The two soldiers in “1917” are far from classical heroes. They are afraid, confused and insecure. But their innocence, their love and their willingness to do the right thing, make them the most touching heroes I’ve seen in a long time. Watching “1917” is a weirdly humbling experience not because of its incredibly cinematic qualities, but because its portrayal of human dignity is so profound and moving. It keeps playing in the back of one’s mind, long after the projector turns off."

"""What else do I like? A Godard film called Prenom Carmen, which sounds like I’m just saying that to be cool, but it’s actually one of my favorite films. I think it’s the best Godard film. It’s like his version of Carmen the opera, one of his films from the eighties. In terms of just pure filmmaking and manipulating an audience, it kind of starts out as a farce, as a complete, stupid farce, with this bank robbery; but it’s really, really…Godardian, with kind of a stupid humor that’s so random. Only he could make it, mixed up with these kinds of philosophical elements. It starts out with one of these bank robbers, these students, and she starts to sleep with one of the guards; she’s having sex with him in the bank, and he pretends to arrest her and they run away together. And he wants to be part of her gang. It’s all so completely ridiculous. And then suddenly, halfway through, it turns into the most heartbreaking, serious thing that you’ve ever seen — out of nowhere! — and you’re suddenly so attached to these characters, which you weren’t before, because it seemed like a stupid student film. They have this secondary story where they have a string quartet playing the soundtrack which runs in the other story, but they film them during rehearsal, just doing really close up things with them playing cello and stuff, and it’s about the relationship with the conductor and this girl, the cellist — and it’s completely random to the film, but it’s incredible."""

"I couldn’t say enough about how important and extreme as the music was, he was never unaware of this dramatic element of what he was doing. It was always staged in a way for maximum drama. There was always maximum drama whenever Glenn was in the building, whether there was an argument, or the music, or a discussion about high art or whatever it was. Branca was so responsible for so much stuff, for energizing this down town scene in a major way. He was one of these artists that you didn’t really experience his music unless you were in front of it. You could hear the records and The Ascension was some of his best work ever and it’s a great record but it didn’t sound anything like what it sounded like to stand in front of it at 110 decibels. He also started his own label and released a couple of the first Sonic Youth records. He asked us to be the first release on his label so there was kind of a mentoring thing going on there as well. It was definitely some of the most important music that was going on in New York at that time, because it was straddling all these worlds. It had one foot in the punk world, one foot in the art scene and then in the Phillip Glass, Terry Riley, Steve Reich kind of world of art music, he had elements of all of that stuff, and beyond all of it, just what he was doing was brilliant"

"Cool Hand Luke, to me, and I’m not a film historian, but what it feels like to me is it’s in this intersectional point between the glamorization of film and that golden era of Hollywood where everything was meant to look perfect, like all the old Cary Grant movies like His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace, where everything is supposed to look so nice and everybody’s always impeccably dressed and charming and all that. Cool Hand Luke comes after that, where it’s a more cinema verite realism kind of thing. But also, there are still elements of the older films that you don’t get anymore, like using imagery in a really cool way. Like, there’s one scene where, to inspire a feeling of tension and stress, there’s just a really slow push in on a whirling fan that just keeps whirling and whirling, and I feel like they don’t do that much anymore. Now they have to really pander to the audience, and make sure that they serve up to you exactly what’s going on, instead of using that kind of stuff. Also, Paul Newman is the f—ing best, and he’s so good in that movie, and it’s just cool, man. It’s just a guy who just won’t get beat by the system, and I really like that. There’s so many layers to that movie. It’s one of the few movies that I make sure I keep downloaded on my iPhone or my iPad, just so that I always have it available."

"I read Wiseguy, the book that Goodfellas is based on, before I knew that Goodfellas existed. I was, like, 15 and found it in the school library. Then at the end it was a footnote that was like, “Oh by the way, Scorsese made this into a film.” At 15 or 16, I saw Goodfellas for the first time. Was mesmerized. And then also, it was the first time I probably watched a movie or a film with the beginning of an adult perspective on things. Where it wasn’t just participating in the story, but seeing what a masterpiece it is that someone created that. That those performances individually were so fantastic that the story, the shots, the music… The first time I understood the elements of film coming together, being a conscious choice for those things to be in the film, and then the effect that it had on me. As opposed to being a kid and a viewer, and being like, “I like that thing.” I’m not unique in this, I think, but I can go back every six months and watch that movie and still be so excited to see it. I’m always ready to watch it. I wanted to be Henry Hill as a kid. Growing up in the country with no excitement around us, I wanted to be half Irish, half Italian, and adopted by this family I could never be a part of. That whole scene. I just wanted that life. Or as a kid, I thought I wanted that life."

"Last summer we were playing some versions of Dark Side of the Moon that were more like our versions, that we did with my nephew [Star Death and White Dwarves] and Henry Rollins and Peaches. This summer we're playing another version that has some of the Wizard of Oz themes and ideas running through it, so that'll be a lot of fun. It's just great emotional music. Judy Garland, when they picked her to be the singer, and the embodiment of that longing... she's so perfect for that Dorothy character. There are bits on the Wizard of Oz soundtrack CD that I have - and it's an old CD, maybe 15, 20 years old - when you take the movie away and just hear her singing, and there's a song where she cries. I've put it on to a room full of people and they tear up, it's so real. There's not many pieces of music that can do that. She's so perfect, but it's not just the singing - she's an actor. She's on camera at the same time, she's wearing this ridiculous costume, there's fake backdrops behind her, there's a lot of elements that have gone into this thing, and so for her to be so pure, so potent: it's uncanny. That's why that movie is so good. There's a lot of fantastical, ridiculous, musical movies out there that, to me, are nauseating. Wizard of Oz should be one of those - out-dated, overdone, with horrible music – but it rises above what it's made of. It's unbelievable."