"I became obsessed with horror at a very early age. Knowing this, my dad would often recall the greatest horror film he ever saw. It was black and white, it was French, and it was, in his words, “really, really gory.” He would tell me it was about a mad surgeon who tries to restore the face of his daughter, disfigured in a car accident, by mutilating young women and stealing their fair skin. And he would go on and on about how great it was, how scary it was, and how I would simply have to see it. But . . . He could not recall the name of the film. I tried to cross-reference with horror guidebooks in the library, but without the invention of the Internet and plot keywords, I was left stumped for a long time. Years later, I saw Eyes Without a Face and called my dad immediately. I told him the crucial fact he’d been missing, the actual name of the greatest horror film he had ever seen. I then agreed with him that, yes, it was a quite extraordinary film."

"The Deer Hunter. I think the subject matter was very interesting. The way Michael Cimino works, he just got so much out of his actors, especially De Niro, Walken, and John Cazale, even secondary characters like the French guy in the movie. I’ve probably seen the movie 30 times, and you’re just on the edge of your seat the whole time, you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think the interesting relationship that Walken and De Niro had with Meryl Streep is very complex. Really great movies are made out of special moments, and there were just so many moments in the movie, like when Chris Walken broke down when they were asking him his family’s name while he’s sitting in the window. I always remember that. The way that Bobby De Niro went back to rescue his friend. I think the movie had a lot of layers and a lot of integrity, and I think the love these men had for one another was so real you could identify with it. It was like going back to get your brother, you know?"