"The rumour goes that when the guys from the record company [wanted to] hear Spirit Of Eden, knowing the commercial success of The Colour Of Spring, Talk Talk wouldn't let them hear a note until the album was finished. They took a long time. The story goes that the label guy went to the studio, they lit some candles and put on that record and he cried and left. To this day they don't know whether he was moved or thought it was terrible. But from a personal point of view, they started out by their own admission as a Duran Duran copy band. I was tempted to put a solo record [by Mark Hollis] on the list as well. But I thought that was labouring the point."

"Granted, it’s a little shameless for the guy who wrote a book on 1999 movies to include a pair of entries from that year on his list. But whenever I made a top ten for that year, these are the two films that constantly duked it out for the number one and number two slots. One’s a tightly structured, egalitarian high-school-set comedy that’s as wise about the nightmares of adolescence as it is about the doldrums of middle age; the other’s a happily absurd fable of reinvention that’s part sci-fi, part broad comedy, part media satire. But both are remarkably kind to their flawed heroes, and each one wrestles with the kinds of social and cultural dilemmas—from identity theft to burn-it-all-down political posturing—we’d be dealing with two decades later."

"Punch-Drunk Love is at the very top of the list. Like everybody else, I’m a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson. The journey that he took Adam Sandler on in that movie, starting as a guy who is very put-upon and all this kind of stuff, and then love came into his life through Emily Watson. Just to see that journey. There’s a great scene at the end when he just totally stands up to Philip Seymour Hoffman at his mattress store, and there’s that time when Emily’s in the car with him, and he grabs… I think it was a tire iron in the car and swings. It’s just such a great moment. And then that crying scene with the therapist in the closet. I mean, it was just perfection, that entire film, for me."

"If I put Casablanca on I’ll sound like AFI, right? [laughs] Here’s the thing: there are all the choices you can make that you know sound really good and then there’re the ones that you really watch, like a hundred times. Like Paulie, the film with the parrot — but if I put that on my list I’m gonna look like an idiot. [laughs] You must see Paulie! I know you think I’m crazy. I love Paulie. I have these films that my younger brother’s like, “Amy, you’re gonna love this — you have to watch this film.” He introduced me to Paulie. There’s a whole bunch of people in Paulie: there’s Gena Rowlands, Jay Mohr, Cheech; the guy from Monk, Tony Shalhoub, who’s one of my favorites. It’s such a touching story. I hope I haven’t built it up too much. [laughs]"

"Granted, it’s a little shameless for the guy who wrote a book on 1999 movies to include a pair of entries from that year on his list. But whenever I made a top ten for that year, these are the two films that constantly duked it out for the number one and number two slots. One’s a tightly structured, egalitarian high-school-set comedy that’s as wise about the nightmares of adolescence as it is about the doldrums of middle age; the other’s a happily absurd fable of reinvention that’s part sci-fi, part broad comedy, part media satire. But both are remarkably kind to their flawed heroes, and each one wrestles with the kinds of social and cultural dilemmas—from identity theft to burn-it-all-down political posturing—we’d be dealing with two decades later."

"Next on my list is Lawrence of Arabia. 1962, Peter O’Toole, directed by David Lean. When you watch this movie digitally remastered… I would love, at some point, to see it in a theater, to see it on film, the way it was meant to be seen. I’ve never done that with Lawrence of Arabia, and I would love to be able to do that. But when you watch that on a flatscreen — get a big enough one — with surround sound, the epicness of this movie… I mean, there’s an intermission for God’s sake. I’m not sure there’s a greater adventure than Lawrence of Arabia. And Peter O’Toole, he’s another guy who doesn’t have any superpowers. He’s a human being. He’s working off the human condition, what it is to be a man, and what he believes in, and what he’s trying to do out there in the middle of the desert. It’s epic. It’s epic in scope."