"I love When Harry Met Sally. Every girl actress is like, “I’m looking for my Annie Hall.” But I’ve always looked for my Sally. That’s been my favorite. I prefer it, I have to say. I just think, again, it’s dry, it’s funny, the characters are layered and interesting. All the supporting characters in that film have great moments and great roles, and you remember every single one of them. It always makes me laugh, and I feel like it’s timeless. And who doesn’t fantasize about falling in love with their best friend? Isn’t that the whole point? And I loved all the intertwining stories of the old people, and their little stories of how they met and fell in love. What a great idea; it’s so cool. And, of course, Nora Ephron’s the best. And that famous scene where she has the fake orgasm — I mean, the balls of that performance. Just great, it’s really great. It’s also kind of grown-up. I remember watching it when I was younger, thinking, “God I hope I’m like them.” Now I’m so much older than they are. [laughs] But they all were moving to New York City to try to make it in Manhattan, so there was that element to it that I loved. And then the settling in, and realizing that life is different than you thought it would be. I just think it’s a perfect romantic comedy, and it is different than the usual formula, because you do have these sort of interstitial moments that are so funny, with these couples describing how they met and fell and love."

"It’s funny, this list, I’ve actually met a lot of the people I’ve chosen! Rufus came on tour with us in 2003, it was the first time we’d got on a tour bus and the first iPods had come out. Tim had an iPod, and I checked it out, I put it on and the album he had on there was Want One and I was completely blown away. He sounds a bit like Radiohead-does-classical, particularly on that record. I remember saying to him that he sounds a lot like Radiohead and he was a bit like, “Really?”, I don’t think he even knew their music. That album was written, I think, during the time he got clean from being really addicted to crystal meth. I mean it sent him blind and stuff, it was really serious. So the album tells that story, with just beautiful songwriting, and I don’t know if he ever got close to that album again in terms of song-writing, it’s such a phenomenal record. And I like orchestral arrangements if they’re done well, or else it can sound like Il Divo or something but he did it so well, mixing pop and classical."

"The lead singer for Deerhunter, Bradford Cox... I don’t like saying people are geniuses or whatever, but I just think that dude is so good at every single thing he does. He stays within his genre, but I think he does so well experimenting with stuff. He has two different bands. It’s just amazing how much he can expand over the one genre and make it radical. It’s a band I stumbled on and I was just pleasantly surprised by them. I really love all of Deerhunter’s stuff and they’re not afraid to get experimental which is really cool."

"This was my grandfather’s first cinematic gift to me. He was a filmmaker who made commercials in Italy in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, and he loved Visconti, who was always his favorite. So he would make me watch films regularly, and this was one of the few that could have felt like homework but didn’t. I love where the film comes from, in terms of the evolution of Visconti’s career. I like that he started off making this pretty dogmatic neorealism and then went on to make this operatic film. The difference between the two approaches is a really beautiful manifestation of his ability to grow as an artist and also to just do multiple things. His cinematic language changed based on the people who populated his frames, and this movie feels grand because it’s got cinema royalty in it, like Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale. The frame feels like it’s the right size and scope and weight for people of that stature."