"In fact, the whole John Cassavetes: Five Films set. This is the starter kit for anyone who wonders about the roots of the American independent film movement. Seeing Cassavetes’s debut, the politically charged love story Shadows, is like watching the birth of a giant. Meanwhile, Faces and A Woman Under the Influence are searing portraits of the blinding pain true love can bring when a marriage ends up tearing a family apart. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night, on the other hand, are noirish sagas of death and business. Plus, Charles Kiselyak’s moving documentary A Constant Forge offers up the proper historical and cultural perspective on one of American cinema’s true visionaries."

"My favorite — my number one favorite, actually — is A Woman Under the Influence. [Gena Rowlands] is just… I respect and admire her so much as an actress. I just think that performance is so brave and extraordinary. It was one of those things that, as a woman, as an actress, I kind of appreciate, you know. And also, that film is kind of a really, truly independent film. I think Cassavetes financed it, I think Peter Falk put money into it; kind of no one really believed in it. I was in a film a couple of years ago that a studio would never touch, a movie called Trucker, which was a great opportunity for me; but those sort of movies need to be independently financed."

"I really love hip hop and I thought if I had to pick one album it'd have to be the first Wu-Tang album just for the personalities, and the real rawness and lo-fi urgency about it. I love the audacity of having an interview with the band in the middle of the record. It's something that I think independent music scene should start doing… in the middle of the next Pastels album, like, Stephen and Katrina start talking about how good they are. I need to make it so. I don't think I really got properly into hip hop until the last five years. Something suddenly clicked where it really made sense. These days I like Danny Brown and A$AP Rocky, things like that."