"I feel like talking about Mary Poppins all day. Okay. Andrei Rublev, spelled ‘Rublev’ but pronounced ‘Rublov’. It’s because we don’t use the Cyrillic alphabet. I really do love Tarkovsky’s Mirror as well. But the last act, or the last movement of Andrei Rublev is probably just the best thing in cinema history. That bell casting sequence is just so powerful. In some ways, it’s kind of the same thing that Fanny and Alexander does where you’re not even sure who Andrei Rublev is for quite a while the first time you watch the movie, and this is the episode that makes sense together and works together [in a film that doesn’t have] this super linear, aggressive plot. And then the last movement is very linear, that is incredibly cathartic once you’ve been marinated in this world. It really knocks you out. But in general, the movie is so well-staged and beautiful and stunning and inspiring. It’s completely mind-blowing."

"It’s such a sick song. Just listening to the lyrics, how he can juxtapose sounding happy, but also when you listen it’s quite melancholy what they’re saying you know – “Life, life, tell it like it is, you don’t have to die before you live”. I think I always go back to Sly in particular, across his discography from a production point of view - how his drums sound so crisp, and at the end when you get into the break. I just listen to it and I’m like man, how did you record this? I think the 70s in general… what were they on man? How does the music sound so crisp and completely knock when you put it on a speaker or a soundsystem, how is it still so strong? And then I play Drake and it’s like… it doesn't sound the same. It’s not that I’m living too much in nostalgia or trying to be something I’m not, there’s just something strong."

"That's the early one. That's just a very particular - I had that on CD, I would just listen to it on the plane a lot and really zone out. It's got some really upbeat jams on there, there's a real swing, but then there's a song called 'Naima', which is named after his first wife. It's just the most beautiful, saddest... I don't think it's sad, but it is minor. I would just listen to that record on repeat, it would really put me somewhere. I remember listening to it on the way to Phoenix, before I knew we were going to be laid over, and then on the way back. Just Coltrane in general, he's just the greatest one. In fact, I should say, there's a song called 'Dear Lord' [from Transition], I burned that from a vinyl, and that is number one, the sweetest, most beautiful Coltrane song I've ever heard."

"In general, I’m not a big fan of French New Wave films, and Touki bouki is clearly inspired by their characteristic fragmented, slow-moving, alienating quality. But the world of Touki bouki is so beautiful and engrossing that it sucks you right in. When the cows come toward the camera in the opening shot, you know immediately that these cows have been color-coordinated to within an inch of their lives. I love this kind of super-deliberate film where each frame could stand on its own. Even the piles of garbage are perfectly composed. Mambéty’s visual sense of humor is terrific: the man trying to break up a fight between two women only to get beaten up himself, the taxi driver running away in his yellow socks, Mory in the paddleboat with the lecherous Charlie. The main characters, Mory and Anta, never ask for our sympathy, because they are too cool for us."