"“It all started on an ordinary day, in the most ordinary place in the world.”—Brief Encounter David Lean’s depictions of two ordinary women (Celia Johnson’s Laura and Katharine Hepburn’s Jane) restraining their desires for Trevor Howard and Rosanno Brazzi, respectively, are two of my all-time favorite cinematic portrayals of forbidden heterosexual love. Incidentally, both use the writing of gay playwrights as source material: Brief Encounter is based on Noël Coward’s Still Life, and Summertime adapts Arthur Laurents’s The Time of the Cuckoo."

"If I had to choose my number 1 favorite book of all time, it would be this. (And as this is widely considered one of the great American novels, I’m clearly not the only person who’s been hugely affected by it.) White Noise uses the story of a college professor and his family in small Midwestern town to explore American paranoia, consumerism, and novelty academic intellectualism. I love this book for its ability to to be dark, beautiful, smart, and hysterically funny, all at the same time."

"I love The Clash and I can say I was there from the beginning on The Clash, thankfully. I remember hearing “White Riot” in the skate park days. I would get a ride with the older skaters in their car they were blasting The Clash. I always thought London Calling was one of the best albums of all time, really. When they released “The Clash on Broadway,” I bought it and I had never heard “Safe European Home.” It became one of my favorite songs."

"If I had to pick my favorite genre, which I’d prefer not to do, but if I had to, it would be serious comedy. Comedy that makes you laugh and then think. The Great Dictator is the quintessential embodiment of that form. Chaplin takes us from farce to deeply moving material in a breathtaking tour de force, making fun of Hitler without ever diminishing his power and danger. I first saw this film when I was about seven, and it was the reason I became an actor."

"I’d read Scorsese, Tarantino, and Jarmusch raving about Jean-Pierre Melville for years. Then I read how Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant first movie, Hard Eight, was an homage to Melville’s Bob le flambeur. I had to see one of his movies but couldn’t track them down at my local Tulsa video store. My first night in L.A., I walked down to the newly opened Cinephile video store and rented all of them! Le doulos is my favorite. It’s one tough-guy movie. Great ending!"

"Bergman as a fabulist—my favorite—is absolutely mesmerizing. These two films have the primal pulse of a children’s fable told by an impossibly old and wise narrator. Fanny and Alexander is Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, and John Calvin rolled into one. Both tales are ripe with fantastical imagery and a sharp sense of the uncanny. Also, I am often surprised at how the humor and comedic elements in The Seventh Seal seem to be overlooked in favor of its reputation as a quintessential “serious” art film."

"Bergman as a fabulist—my favorite—is absolutely mesmerizing. These two films have the primal pulse of a children’s fable told by an impossibly old and wise narrator. Fanny and Alexander is Dickens, Hans Christian Andersen, and John Calvin rolled into one. Both tales are ripe with fantastical imagery and a sharp sense of the uncanny. Also, I am often surprised at how the humor and comedic elements in The Seventh Seal seem to be overlooked in favor of its reputation as a quintessential “serious” art film."

"When I first heard that one of my favorite authors was working on a new book about growth, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. (Two years ago, I wrote that I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie. I stand by that statement.) His latest doesn’t disappoint. As always, I don’t agree with everything Smil says, but he remains one of the best thinkers out there at documenting the past and seeing the big picture."

"The second non-fiction book by the legendary novelist and screenwriter responsible for such classic films as The Princess Bride (a personal favorite), Marathon Man, All The President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Like the prequel, Which Lie Did I Tell includes candid behind-the-scenes stories, a window into the process of how to write good scripts and how The Princess Bride became his first screen credit in nearly nine years. A thoroughly entertaining insider’s look into how Hollywood works."

"Okay. You know — it is a recent acquisition for me — but I’m way into the Wes Anderson stuff. Anytime The Royal Tenenbaums is on, I am camped out. People are like, “Is that your favorite?” I think it might be. Also, I do concede, that might have been the first Wes Anderson movie I saw. I love everything about all of his movies. They are so good. They are so stylized. They’re beautiful to look at. I’m always a fan of whichever new one is coming out."