"Taxi DriverComing off my head, I could just go on, but… Taxi Driver. I was really moved by the unraveling of this guy, and the interesting choices Scorsese made, the things he used to tell the story. You know, like zooming in to the bottle of Alka Seltzer fizzling, this guy’s about to really cross over to the next layer of dementia. Just amazing choices, and for him to be so meant to be a filmmaker. Be it and feel it. And De Niro, just, oh man, I just get carried away. Every time, in the beginning of that movie, when he — he’s just so not self aware — he goes in to ask the girl out at the campaign center, and the feeling’s so uncomfortable. I loved him also as Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy. Man, I love the way De Niro can sorta just play a guy that’s not aware. So those are five. I wouldn’t say they’re my favorite movies of all time. I just say it if I had to, off the top of my head. It just came, and if you asked me again tomorrow, it might be maybe one of those, maybe a bunch of others."

"As I was a young film fan growing up in a VCR-less household in rural England, my access to international cinema was limited to whatever was playing on the (then) four channels of network television. Which basically meant that Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and Jacques Tati were some of the only European films I saw until I was in my late teens. During a brief art college stint, my eyes were opened as I was exposed to surrealism. First Luis Buñuel’s Un chien Andalou and L’age d’or, but then later, my favorite film of his, the 1972 masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Dipping into the history of cinema is an exciting yet overwhelming task for some. When appreciating older works, I like to contextualize by tracing back to them from their influences. So if the work of Buñuel ever seems daunting, know this: he directly influenced Monty Python, and John Landis was inspired by this movie for a classic shock sequence in An American Werewolf in London. I know that has now inspired some of you to watch the film immediately. Buñuel has a fiendishly prankish sense of humor to go along with his endless smarts. If you have never watched a film of his, this is a good place to start."

"One of my favorite directors is Peter Weir, and a film that I watched recently of his is Gallipoli — Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, as well as a bunch of other great Australian actors. I think that film for me is this incredible combination of the brutality of war and yet the sensitivity of the human spirit, and I think Mel Gibson is absolutely electric and fantastic in that film, but I think Mark Lee is utterly heartbreaking. His almost non-sexual personality and spirit is so engaging and sensitive that the film, and the combination with his performance, the energy of the film, and then the music in that film really — I think music is a really important aspect in film, and, as you know, you can play Yakety Sax over a scene, or you can play something from Morricone over a scene, and the scene will then have a completely different meaning and feel. That’s an extreme example, but if music is done well in a movie, it can turn anything, even a three dimensional performance — it can make it turn more three dimensional because it enhances what is meant to be there. I think that the music used in Gallipoli is just utterly heartbreaking. Really, really heartbreaking and beautiful."

"That would have to be a James Bond film, and then I was trying to think of what my favorite one would be. And I guess it would probably be You Only Live Twice. Mr. Connery. Even though I really like Roger Moore, too. I mean I liked all the Bonds, honestly. Including the newest, Mr. Craig. He’s fantastic. But yeah, You Only Live Twice. It takes place in Japan as a part of it, and you’ve got Blofeld, Spectre, the classic villains, and the whole thing with the volcano that’s really a secret lair. And you’ve got Russia and the United States. You know, it’s huge in scope. And I don’t know, it’s this great classic Bond to me, and a great song, a great theme song. I think the first time I saw it, I definitely saw it on TV. I’m not sure what year it came out, but I may not have even been born yet when that came out. I mean my first exposure to James Bond was absolutely on television. And then my first one to see in the theater, which I also love, is The Spy Who Loved Me. That was pretty exciting. That was the first Bond I saw at a movie theater."