"It’s definitely up there because of the cinematography, the cultural references, the graffiti, and the art. It’s that kind of high-standard indie film and the French make such beautiful films anyway. They seem to be in a league of their own. All the references to the riots and the times and what was going on, that’s particularly why I love that film."

"Switching from that to a small indie movie, a Lynne Ramsay movie called Ratcatcher — I just think it’s a masterful piece of filmmaking. I mean, there’s Taxi Driver, there’s Raging Bull… there’s even — I love King of Comedy. Then there’s Kubrick; the list goes on and on. So there’s many, many, many — but off the top of my head, that would be five."

"No one’s been more encouraging of Screen Slate than Richard Hell, who saved its hide more than he realizes and promoted it with a missionary zeal. The first time we spoke we met at the late Café Orlin, the site of one of his most memorable scenes in the film, and then one of the last vestiges of the city that Smithereens portrays. I could have died. Smithereens was the first American indie to compete for the Palme d’Or, and it presages that whole wave we popularly associate with Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, and so on. I know life isn’t a competition, but this is the best of those debuts. And when you consider Susan Seidelman alongside Allison Anders, Sara Driver, Penelope Spheeris, Lizzie Borden, Kathleen Collins, and Joel DeMott, among so many others, women really slayed in the American indie ’80s."