"Quick! What film do you think of every time you hear the beginning of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”? I think anyone who grew up even close to the era depicted in Dazed and Confused knows how pitch-perfect it is. That younger viewers can appreciate it as a hilarious stoner film, and that older viewers, with the presumed wisdom and perspective that comes with age, can appreciate the often poignant depiction of both the carefree joy and daily traumas of our teen years, is a testament to Richard Linklater’s ability to craft naturalistic dialogue and create well-rounded characters, even within an ensemble cast. The film includes perhaps my favorite use of a song in a film: Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” over the slow-motion entrance of Pink, Wooderson, and Mitch into the pool hall. The moment really sums up the film for me. It’s a moment that seems to capture the fleeting promise of youth (Mitch) and the weighty permanence of unfulfilled potential (Wooderson). There is an array of great extras on the Criterion release, so there is no reason not to own this one!"

"I would go back to Buster Keaton’s The General. The accomplishment of that movie in those days, you know… First of all, Buster Keaton as an actor — and as a comedian — but as an actor really, was… again, I think the word “sublime” comes across, because of that sort of deadpan quality that he had. When he was still, you felt as though his feet had roots, and they were sort of embedded and grounded into the ground. And, you know, a hurricane could come and it would never push him over. So that sense of stillness that he had, that had this kind of emotional weight inside of it, created juxtaposition to the stuff that he would do. Even if he was moving around, there was always a sense of a “man against the world” kind of thing that was always very compelling. But that movie, what he did with that movie, with that train, and the kind of stunts he was doing on his own, and just running around… I mean, just the accomplishment of that movie from a technical standpoint in those days was quite something. So that’s my list as of today."

"Kristin Hersh is no ordinary musician, and her mind is unlike any other. In her memoir, Paradoxical Undressing, she captures what it’s like to be young and starting out, but this is a grazed reality, the top layer of skin stripped clean away. The book is based on a diary she kept when she was 18, which is, as she says, “the age when no one takes care of you”. It was a year when everything happened. She moved her band, Throwing Muses, from Providence, Rhode Island, to Boston. She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, then bipolar. She was offered her first recording contract, with 4AD. She discovered she was pregnant. And she became unlikely friends with faded Hollywood movie star, Betty Hutton. “Betty sings about starlight and champagne,” Hersh writes. “I sing about dead rabbits and blow jobs.” Though Hutton was unpredictable and fragile (“Time is like a hurricane to her – a big, fast mess, sweeping her away”) she was also full of generosity, compassion and advice. “You have to leave things out to tell a story,” she once told Hersh. And Hersh listened. This female Kurt Cobain – he was a fan of her work – has forged her own brave path, often against enormous odds. And she writes better sentences than most writers do."