"War of the Gargantuas was something I just thought was so fantastical and so bizarre that it is my favorite of Honda’s movies, but the effects look great, and all the little toys, and it was just something that transported me. I can lose myself in that movie, and I love the brothers warring, and it has kind of like a personal feeling for me."

"Next it’s gonna be National Lampoon’s… which one are we gonna put first? Let’s say Vegas Vacation. [Laughs] I dunno… I mean, Chevy Chase is fantastic. I love those movies. A particular favorite of mine is the beginning, when he’s singing in the car. Just the whole thing, really; I mean, Randy Quaid is fantastic. It’s just great. I can watch it over and over."

"This is an absolutely glorious film. I adore Juliette Binoche and have had very confusing feelings in my tummy about her ever since I saw the The Unbearable Lightness Of Being. She is amazing in this film and it’s a really heartbreaking tale of loss and hurt. The scene where she water-skis up the Seine is one of my favorite spectacles in all of cinema."

"Stephen Sondheim is responsible for many of the greatest musicals of the past half century; this odd, ultimately haunting collection of set pieces is my favorite. Take your pick between the original recording, with the great Victor Garber and Jonathan Hadary, or the 2006 revival with Michael Cerveris and Denis O’Hare. (Honorable mention: the original cast recording of “Les Misérables,” with the remarkable Colm Wilkinson.)"

"It’s probably my all-time favorite. Partially for nostalgic reasons, but mainly because I love movies about kids, when the kid actors know what they’re doing. I like the innocence of it, and the simplicity. I guess in a cheesy way, it takes me back to my childhood and messing around with friends too. It has a perfect balance of humor, heart, and intense moments as well."

"It’s now my favorite novel—it’s just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humor, and heart…There are passages that have become everyday Russian sayings. For instance, ‘Manuscripts don’t burn.’ If it had ever come out that this book was being written, Bulgakov would likely have disappeared permanently. That phrase stands for the fact that nothing is more powerful or more indestructible than the written word."

"The book I have read the most times. I love the decadent melancholy of it. I also love the delicate relationship between Gatsby and his unrequited love, Daisy. My favorite sentence from the book is when Daisy says, ‘What will we do with ourselves this afternoon and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’ Now that is restlessness and privilege if I ever heard it!"

"One of my all-time Favorite Things! Mark Nepo’s collection of reflections is a year’s supply of gentle daily wake-up calls. Like most of us, he has thought a lot about the meaning of life, but because he is a poet, a philosopher, and a cancer survivor, his insights are special—and beautifully expressed. A book to be kept on the nightstand at all times."

"This is kind of a weird one. Well, not weird; just totally different from Star 80. I love 12 Monkeys. It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I love sci-fi, and I think Terry Gilliam is just a genius. That movie is just so fantastic. The whole tie-in with the Hitchcock movie. It’s just so smart; it’s such a smart science fiction film."

"A big, bold novel that spans six decades of the 20th century and opens with one of my favorite lines in literature: ""It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me. Earthly Powers is like a big over packed old mansion you enter and never want to leave"