"You get 12 years of childhood, give or take. These days, maybe less. The movies I loved during that time have been well documented in other conversations, and they’re all the same as yours. Back To The Future remains the best movie I ever saw. Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones, Die Hard, like everyone else. But Pete’s Dragon, though it may not entirely hold up to scrutiny now, was the movie that taught me how to be. I saw Elliott as a model for how to treat other people. He was generous and warm, but mostly seemed driven by the needs of whoever required him most. I’ve always been someone with a small circle of friends. Each stretch of my life has been defined by one person who was just my person. We became inseparable for a certain number of years, and that time was our season, just the two of us making our way through life. This was before my wife took the mantle, never to be relinquished. I had a similar dynamic with all of them — I wanted us to have so much fun, they’d consider their lives a little better for having been friends. Like Elliott."

"The whole [Godfather] series was brilliant. I loved all three of them. But my favorite was number two. I thought it was extraordinarily shot. I think the way Francis Coppola puts these incredible stories together where he has the juxtaposition of having people be killed while this incredible symphonic music is playing and some opera is taking place — it’s all an opera. I think the whole Godfather series is like one magnificent opera. I just think it’s one of the great movies of the century — since film making. I think he is a genius. I think he just captured the passion and the anger and the ignorance of the whole world of the Mafia, and what that meant — the Black Hand. He glamorized them in a way that made us want to know them, be there, experience it — even though it speaks of great danger. But there was something so enticing about their world, that whole world. And the people were such rich studies of character. Robert De Niro was the greatest he’d ever been, and of course, Pacino. Those performances – every single performance was genius. I loved the films. I even like the third one."

"Weirdly, I think Dylan's protest mode never quite 100% rings true to me. It rings 98.5% true, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, there's something inauthentic about it, in some way. And I think he may have felt that. I mean, what's Dylan's best song ever? Probably 'Like A Rolling Stone' and that's just sneering at somebody, a woman he'd been in a relationship with. As a body of work, Blood On The Tracks is faultless, there's not a bum note in there, not a bum word, everything transports you. You know, it's brilliant storytelling, and he's not trying to be too clever. With Blonde On Blonde, which is an album I love, he's trying to make himself come across like a brainiac, talking about Verlaine and French poets, which is fine, there's nothing wrong with that at all, but maybe you feel… I guess he always does that. I suppose Blonde On Blonde is slightly more obscure, slightly more difficult, whereas Blood On The Tracks, he's just storytelling, he just wants to talk about this break-up. I remember being with a girlfriend and her friend, and she said, ""here's the new Dylan thing"" - it draws you in, it immerses you in it and as soon as I started hearing it there was no room for anything else."

"What’s to say about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that someone else hasn’t already said? It’s perfect. Milos Forman, wow. It’s the most soulful, most heartfelt movie ever made. It’s hilarious. The most dynamic performances — Jack Nicholson’s just robust persistent optimism in that movie is so infectious. His complete lack of sympathy or empathy for anyone who wants to reject life. That character is something so unique. I don’t know if it’s ever existed in the way that it did in that. Not to mention the whole ensemble of Danny DeVito, Brad [Dourif], everyone in that movie is incredible. I find that it’s got such a sense of humor and such a light touch, but it’s also got such a deep, patient eye. I love it. I absolutely love it. I saw it in theaters the other day and just sobbed. I saw it with my dad, and we were both weeping. It’s such a nice uniting film between many generations. It’s got a universal, timeless quality. In terms of directing, what he does in that movie is kind of impossible. He has no real scope. He’s in that asylum, and yet it’s this delicious, not bleak movie to watch. All the greens and whites, everything is so pretty. Just the cigarette smoke, and the way he navigates the camera around that area and all the color palette and his choice of shot, it’s really a feat. Only once you’ve made a movie do you see how much you rely on your surroundings and your environment and how I was spoiled because I was shooting in New York on these rooftops. It’s not even fair. I’ve got all these buildings and these lights and these streets and the homeless people and all this crazy, vivid environment. To shoot a movie in one location essentially and make it that lush and interesting; to be fascinating the entire way through without it feeling like a play on wheels. I can’t understand it. I’ve seen it a billion times, and I can’t understand it. Like how is that possible?"