"Apocalypse Now. I would ordinarily say The Conversation, because it was so ahead of its time, but Apocalypse Now — another masterpiece. Also, a lot of these movies would never be made today. But — I’m leaving out Scorsese, I’m leaving out David Fincher; you know, I’m leaving out some of the great Europeans. I’m leaving out 100, or a 1000 movies that we could talk about. I’ve been a fan of Chris Nolan’s since I saw his black-and-white film, Following. I saw that movie in Paris years and years ago and I thought, “We’re gonna hear from this guy, this is an amazing talent.” I’m glad people really recognized it early enough to support him. There are so many other movies we could talk about. There are at least five David Leans. There are at least five Fellinis. Five Viscontis. John Ford. John Huston. Minelli. And Kubrick! I didn’t say Kubrick! I should be thrown out of film for that. It’s really hard. I don’t know how you do it."

"I vividly remember first seeing Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise and being inspired by the spare craftsmanship of his cinematic style. I love the simplicity of his scenes and his dry sense of humor, but the best thing is the way he brings us in and out of edits. Each scene opens with a little bit of audio from the forthcoming scene while the shot remains black. He cuts to the action in progress, and with a primarily static frame that gives us the impression of a series of tableaux, the scene plays out before cutting—not fading—to black. The restraint of this structure is deceptively simple as it calms and amuses us, pulling us along through the story in an unfolding rhythm that parallels John Lurie’s perfect score. And of course the black-and-white landscapes of New York City are irresistible."

"I got it and I burned it and listened to it on the plane a lot. That one, for her, it goes back to trying to play more old-style jazz and she's playing incredible piano on it and the drummer's incredible. It's just a sick record. When you listen to an incredible jazz record, it's just undeniable, nobody else can touch it, no white dude - and if they can, it's too schooled. That's why I like that one - I can reference the later, freer ones, but I listen to a lot of older records. There's obviously Love Supreme, but that's obviously a transitional record from [John Coltrane's] earlier ones, Soul Train and Giant Steps. This is more advanced than that: they're definitely alluding to older jazz and taking it to another place, but they never go too apeshit, they never start squealing, but that's a special record."

"Jim Jarmusch film. So wonderfully done in black and white. John Lurie stars and does the music. It’s weird because there are no close ups in the film, it’s an objective viewing experience, and yet it’s subjective in the way that Jarmusch points you. You’re given anything to look at, but you’re always looking at the right things. And the idea that it began as a short, just called The New World, but they raised money to make the other two or three acts, is really interesting to me. Great performances, a lot of humor, really slow pace. These were things I wasn’t really used to — the European pace, even though I love The 400 Blows, it was a revelation at the time in 1984. And I saw it when it came out in Austin, and just I think it opened up a new world of storytelling and filmmaking to me on some level."