"My favorite Tarkovksy film is Stalker, and it would have been number two on my list if it were part of the Criterion Collection. But Solaris is great, too. Its main characters have no qualities that interest me, and some elements in the film seem purposely absurd. The clumsy pseudo-scientific dialogue, for example, or Kelvin’s ridiculous “futuristic” outfit with its unflattering yellow mesh shirt. And yet somehow I find myself absorbed into the world of these people I don’t want to care about. The images and pacing have a hypnotic effect that causes me to be like, “Oh no, Kelvin feels bad!” even though I don’t like Kelvin. You know that old saying about how a good actor can read the phone book and make it sound interesting? I feel like Tarkovsky could make a compelling film out of the phone book."

"David Cronenberg’s reflexive masterpiece of modern horror, with James Woods as a seedy purveyor of soft-core exploitation for cable TV, and Debbie Harry as his siren, brought the media-as-message theories of fellow Torontonian Marshall McLuhan to visceral life. This was one of the first movies I rented on VHS, and Videodrome is partly an exploration of the strange, clunky physical sensation attached to the idea of a feature film being available on a paperback-size plastic-and-tape cassette that is inserted into a machine . . . and our brains. A quarter century later, Cronenberg’s dazzling vision of a world where image and flesh are one—“long live the new flesh”—Videodrome’s futuristic vision is timelier than ever. And above all that, the movie is sexy, smart, funny, and fascinating, moving adeptly between its layers of reality, imagination, and that vast territory in between."

"That one was really a brief summing up of the concept of Ziggy and the Spiders, but kind of done in a futuristic type of way. I was really into King Crimson at the time and I loved the drummer. He used to play things, strange drum rolls at strange places in the song. I used to think it was a bit weird, but then I learned how to do it, and I thought that would really work for this song. So, I definitely took a bit of inspiration from King Crimson for my playing on that one. And it worked! It kind of left it hanging at certain places and didn't make it sound like a 'normal' rock song. That one always went down amazing live. People would be waiting and waiting for that song. Like when we were in Japan and he would sing that line 'like some cat from Japan' and the place would just go berserk! Absolutely mental."